coalman

Please god can we sign a striker this summer. One that scores goals instead of a £20 million last minute panic buy or someone that immediately takes up a bed in the treatment room.

There's an argument we got promoted in spite of Martin rather than because of him. I remember being impressed how he'd adapted his tactics in the playoff final against Leeds and thinking it boded well for the Premier League. Only to hear he was annoyed the players didn't follow his instructions because "emotion had taken over". That's not to say I didn't enjoy a lot of the football we played during our promotion season. In between the good stuff we still conceded a lot of goals and the signs were there. The other way I'd look at it would be whether the Saints team is in a better or worse state after Martin left than when he joined. I'd argue he's left us in a worse position. Sport Republic have played their part in this too with abject recruitment despite their willingness to open their wallet and spend some cash. Martin alone isn't responsible for where we find ourselves. For a mid table team that flatters to deceive or a squad at the upper ends of the Championship he's probably a decent fit. He just hasn't demonstrated the desire to learn or self awareness to go beyond that level.

I think Martin was genuinely unprepared for the step up in both quality and intensity. The question you'd have to ask is how he'd have approached it differently and, as he said to Lineker, he wouldn't.

This is the thing for me. Top level sports people typically have one thing in common - the ability to learn from their mistakes. Martin just made excuses and became more dogmatic. Then appears to have instilled that culture in the club.

I'm on the fence whether Martin would do well at Leicester. His style of football was so ruthlessly exposed last year that everyone will know how to set up against him. The only question is whether sufficient Championship teams have the quality to do it against the quality of Leicester's squad or whatever remains of it.

Given our suicidal passing around the back I'd imagine they're more of a therapist than a coach

Ok, so Lucy loses out by being forced to move to Leicester. The important thing is they're in love and happy to share that on social media.

It's easy to see how this works for everyone. In Martin, Leicester are appointing a manager who is capable of dominating the league (or at least scraping the playoffs) with a superior team. Southampton get his wages off the balance sheet. And Martin puts himself in the shop window for the England job after Tuchel, a shot at one of the big six in the Premier League or, dare to whisper it, abroad at somewhere like Real or PSG. On top of that the players pining for his brand of tough love that he left behind at Southampton have a career route to fulfill their career aspirations of playing the brand of centre circle possession dominance that they all not so secretly yearn for.

After two dogmatic coaches blindly playing a a rigid system at all costs that is music to my ears. I'm increasingly optimistic. That being said I'm optimistic every time we appoint a new manager despite recent evidence failing to support that.

They won't truly be in freefall until they appoint Martin.

At least it's not Lampard or Gerard or Rooney.

The occasion will get to Everton and they'll wind up playing at the same level as Saints. We have more experience being shit at football and that will carry us through.

He did save a penalty. The temerity of it. Pep's just a haute couture Russell Martin.

I'm surprised that RM wasn't offered a pundit role for the cup final. This is the kind of game that would really benefit for his insightful and pragmatic analysis.

He needs a nice Welsh girl from the valleys to calm him down a bit.

The fittest manager in Europe seems to have sprained his finger. Possibly by pointing too vigorously.

What they need to do is pick a random football stat - say possession or maybe headers attempted in the centre circle on a Tuesday. Then stack rank all the managers in Europe and see who comes out on top. That's our new manager. Of course - we can't pick a stat like games won or goals scored because we'll never get that manager so they'll need to go looking until they find a stat that is achievable. Fortunately, Rasmus has a spreadsheet so I would imagine they'll have known who is next for at least a couple of years or so. Such is the meticulous level of detail that Sports Republic have bought to the party.

I don't see myself downloading the Saints app just to vote. Everyone knows the saintsweb vote is the only one that really matters anyway.

I think we're in a you're welcome to your opinion, I'm welcome to mine scenario. I do get to have an opinion however.

I get he's been here a long time. I'm not sure whether it's possible to extrapolate a love for the club from that. Though everyone will interpret that through the lens of their own opinion.

Call me crazy but shouldn't any sane manager recruitment strategy involve not hiring Lampard?

In fairness to the height discussion. There are well known managers who like to pack their sides with big physical players - Mourinho for example. And this season it felt like men against boys at times as our players failed to handle the physical demands of the league. Admittedly, dogmatically choosing to play a high risk no reward brand of walking football may also have been a contributing factor to that. Followed by a 5 at the back no central midfield or sometimes attackers or whatever the fuck that was when Juric took over. Perhaps another way of looking at might be to recruit the best players we can and have a manager pragmatic enough to get the best out of them. That would be a step forward from scatter gun recruitment and dogmatic insistence on a rigid system no matter what. And like many things all roads seem to lead back to the omnishambles that is Sport Republic's recruitment strategy. A pretty good barometer for how shit our recruitment has been is how many of the players we bought over the last few years are even getting game time. Not to mention the manager churn. Fix our recruitment and we still have the problem that our supposed great training midweek doesn't translate into playing football at weekends. Focusing on a single thing is exactly the kind of weak thinking and looking for simple answers to complex problems that's led us into this mess. Other than our social media team's willingness to troll it feels like no part of the football club is functioning effectively.

Would you rather have Pochettino or Koeman? Or Jones, Martin, Juric or Selles? Much as it breaks my heart when our manager gets poached at least they've done something worthy of getting poached.

You're saying that like it's a choice. Why can't he be both?