As usual my preference would be the skates (home or away), and failing getting them a team i've never been to before away.

Harrogate would be a laugh, @Turkish could organise the DEF to take the tea rooms in a display of strength the likes of which the Harrogate Tea Lady Ultras have never experienced before.

2 minutes ago, Gingeletiss said:

I see all the Martin lovers are out in force, guess the club has the whole PR team in at work today!

It's just that we're enlightened don't you see, no propaganda here, we have seen the light of the future of football and understand that Russell Martin's philosophy of football is so great, so all empowering, so CORRECT, that the entire game will change to his rules.

Goals will no longer count, only passes and pass completion, points will be allocated for bravery and relegation will be the new promotion.

In the coming years The Five Pledges will not just be published for us, they will be written into global law as the new rules of the game.

We will lead the charge from the Wessex league, becoming European Powerhouses (tm @gio1saints) alongside such giants as Totton, Sholing and Colden Common.

WE CHANGE THE GAME ON!

I'm guessing the main reason SR are slow to act on footballing matters is because they're still trying to get THE FIVE PLEDGES together, and there's no way any football club can operate (let alone win games) without THE FIVE PLEDGES.

26 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

I am going, going to every away I can whilst we remain in the premier league. I need to build up enough credit for the remaining London away days and the trip to the last ever game at Goodison. That’s my motivation, I don’t expect us to get anything from any away games. I’m not one of those who thinks it’s a forgone conclusion that we will be so “lucky” next time so I’m going to make the most of this sad and pathetic season. 

I go to pretty much every away game because Saints are basically an abusive relationship for me at this point. Watching Russball brings me little pleasure, causes me a lot of pain, but I can’t give it up because I always think it might come good.

Oh well never let the football get in the way of a day out at the football right?

Probably one of the best cities in the country for pubs even if the ground is pretty far out of the city. So the good news is that when they get three we can all head back to town for a good friday night piss up in Brighton before boarding the vomit comet home.

As for the game, I mean do we have to? I'm really not sure how much more of watching Martin's ponderous football i can take, it's like a special kind of torture sitting through the inevitable sideways and backwards passing, and stupid costly mistakes due to the stubborn prick thinking he's better than he is.

It honestly feels like we just need putting out of our misery now and have our results wiped for the rest of the season if he's staying, i'd save a fortune and we wouldn't have to put up with the constant embarrassment every week.

We Limp Down.

14 minutes ago, Ted Bates Statue said:

Would have thought Jones/Selles did worse. Also how did Sturrock compare with Wigley? His record seemed ok on paper, but generally considered to be totally out of his depth.

Jones and Selles both have better records than Martin in the top flight. Wigely definitely the least successful on paper but Martin will beat him in the next three games.

2 hours ago, notnowcato said:

Agreed. The style is distinctive from many others and given the results and some of the performances it would be tempting to rip it up and start again. Personally, now is not the time for that, if the decision is to stick with the current manager and therefore style/ philosophy/ whatever, then you have to double down.

5 minutes ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

Are you sure it's not because the manager has us playing passive, shite, boring, predictable football and the team has 4 points from a possible 33? 

You don't become a European Powerhouse (TM @gio1saints) by getting points, playing good football and winning games FFS, you get there by being relegated but getting maximum possession.

Jesus why are people on here so backwards?

2 hours ago, Maggie May said:

I really don’t get the hate for him. It’s so weird.

Apart from the fact we've had our worst ever top flight start, we've had a worse start than the team who had the worst ever top flight season, we have only scored seven goals all season, he refuses to change tactics despite them not working, his football is boring and sucks the soul out of the game, and he comes across as an arrogant bell end?

Yeah you're right it's really weird.

Interesting question i saw raised somewhere, is this Saints side actually the worst top flight Saints side ever, or do we have the worst top flight Saints manager ever?

I mean we all know statistically we're currently on course for becoming (and by some distance) the worst performing side, also the football is some of the worst to watch of any manager in my lifetime, but is that manager or players?

I'm honestly unsure the players are as bad as the results suggest, if you take our relegated sides in the modern era then i'd say a lot of our current first time would be thereabouts the first team of the sides that went down, maybe Niemi over Ramsey, and Crouch over any of our current strikers. But really are this squad that bad?

Which makes me think it's got to be the manager who's at fault

33 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

What about the mass substitutions @ 60 minutes that actually make us worse?

Sadly for Martin he hasn't quite managed to clone Jack Stephen's so his dream of subbing on five jack stephen's hasn't happened yet, but i'm sure Ramus is working on the tech right now

The good news about the game on sunday is it might finally be the game that stops people talking about the 9-0's.

Mainly because 10-0 is worse, but that's by the by.

I think we can all now predict what will happen. The game will kick off, we will immediately revert to Beaver like behaviour, but instead of building damns for no reason we will instead pass the ball around aimlessly and with no intent.

Liverpool will capitalise on this utterly pointless tactic and score their first in the first ten minutes.

We will arrive at the ground having badly misjudged the kick off due to it being 2pm.

The Northam Wall will be in the full flux of recreating John Cage's 4'33", with the odd rendition of something about pompey to really drive the point that we're not obsessed home.

About the 15th minute Liverpool will get their second, the entire ground will at this point completely resign themselves to what happens next, and the silence and groans will change into a collective depression for all bar the tourists in the home end.

As half time approaches the third will go in, the players will trudge off and we will start the walk back to the pub, safe in the knowledge that there will be absolutely no improvement in the second half.

Saints will come out unchanged, both in line up and in tactics, passing the ball pointlessly in areas that make absolutely no difference. Those watching on TV will have turned off or searched for something more exciting, like songs of praise or the BBC test card.

We will then go on to concede, four? five? six? maybe even ten.

The game will end, the weirdos left in the Northam will clap what is fast becoming the worst Saints team in living memory. Martin will be pleased that we secured zero shots on target so are clearly learning with each game that attacking play is to be stamped out at all cost.

Mary Saint will finally crack, having seen her partner Sammy burnt in a wickerman shaped as Adrian Heath after the Everton game, and put through the torture of watching Russball every week, a tactic that will see the CIA in the crowd to learn new interrogation techniques for Guantanamo.

She will run into the stands and rip the head off Ankersen, to reveal that he has in fact been Rupert Lowe all along, and that Russel Martin is the bastard love child of Jim Magilton and Jan Poortvliet.

We pass slowly sideways and backwards to relegation.

You are all so short sighted, if we remove Ramus then we lose the visionary approach to the club where football is the least important part of football. Everyone knows the true worth of Southampton Football Club is to use it as a mechanism for Ramus to flog his AI football database software to other clubs whether it works or not.

In the meantime he can prove his genius that will see us become a European Powerhouse (copyright @gio1saints) from league one, by allowing Martin to achieve his dream of wiping out unnecessary things like shooting completely from the game.

30 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

I love mediocrity. It kept us in the Premier League for a long time. Out of interest, how did you feel about the 90's when we were whimpering and grovelling around the bottom every year? You must have fuckin hated supporting us back then.

I imagine he hated le tiss because he didn't play simple sideways and backwards passes every time and instead created something out of nothing and treated football like something spontaneous and artistic instead of stats and a spreadsheet.

And no one wants to see spontaneous and creative football, that would just be anarchy!

45 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

Appreciate the fair way of asking - thank you. 
 

If RM was found guilty of criminal activity he should go. 

If we go down two leagues he should go. 

If he loses his composure and starts biting back at fans, blaming them - he should go.
 

Otherwise I think he has a two or three year contract? If he has not delivered in that time or we are not sufficiently progressed on the long term plan ( that I have not seen but can guess at) then do not renew. Week by week results I’m not so obsessed on as the rest here. I try to look longer term. 

RM is there not just to deliver for SFC ~ but to deliver for SR. And frankly that’s the more important part. If he is not delivering to SR he will be gone soon enough don’t worry. I personally do not want that to happen and hope that a man we’ve given two or three years to fix something will be allowed that two or three years to fix it. As others have said- replacing him is unlikely to change the outcome of this season. Second half of this season is basically a free hit for the concept and playbook, without the pressure or fear of relegation. 

27 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

@Farmer Saint is one of the few talking sensibly on here atm. Maybe running a farm gets you realistic about real life but I don’t think his assessment of our current situation is too far wrong. People should listen carefully cos he knows his stuff. Even if he is a part of that satanic devil worshippers cult that taunt and tease saints fans every transfer window. 😁

Having said that, I personally disagree with his and the general consensus opinion of RM and our tactical approach on here.
That is largely to do with my personal perception of how long it takes or might realistically take - and what might be necessary- to change Saints from what they were 18 mths ago to where I and most Saints supporters would like them to be. 
 

And where is that? Well put it this way, I’m tired of us being also rans, of being plucky losers, of losing our best players year after year and trying to “ compete” on an unfair pitch versus the “ Big Boys”.
 

Brief Moments of happiness interleaved with seasons of mediocrity and struggle is the quick 1 sentence history of our club.
 

I despise the system that perpetuates this and I resent that it keeps not just Saints but about 90 other clubs in the leagues formally in there place-  permanently. If there was a vote for having a revolution in football I’d vote for it. But that’s not happening.
 

Extreme times call for extreme measures. What RM is doing is nuts. It’s crazy stupid. It’s extreme. Fuck it we’ve tried everything else my view is go all-in on this approach for as long as SR have the funding and see where we get to. Can we create a new football superpower legacy ? We’ve not done so in 100+ years of trying mainly conventional ways so hold onto your courage let’s go! 
 

WWE are probably going down anyway. We’ve been in Div one and got back. Long timers have seen the cycles endlessly repeat.  This way of doing it is different. Disastrously so? Maybe but relegation is relegation and we been there a bunch of times and it does not scare me. Disaster to me is doing what we always do and historically have done - sack the manager abandon the plan lose the belief- and What scares memory is NOT trying to break this stranglehold and seeing the game eventually get snuffed out. Cos that’s what’s happening. 
 

This post is parody right? Or did you decide to drink bleach and take magic mushrooms before you wrote it

Look you lot stop being so negative, Sport Republic clearly know that the FA, Premier League, FIFA, UEFA and new world order are all going to look at our predicament and realise that it is in fact the rest of football that is wrong and change the rules of the games so points are given based on passes completed and not giving the ball away.

Goals will be a secondary factor and too many will mark your points down as you're giving the ball away too much.

We will rise meteorically through the leagues and Europe before we are given the only ever golden ticket to take part in the World Cup which we will win.

Martin will be hailed as the messiah, football itself will be renamed Russball and Augstin Delgado will come back to Southampton to party in the streets with the fans like he promised when he left.

It might sound far fetched, but is it really more far fetched than us staying up with Russball and things as they are now?

DREAM BIG PEOPLE, DREAM BIG

3 minutes ago, Maggie May said:

I remember the Branford toxicity but can anyone remember what the atmosphere was like when things were really bad under Merrington, Souness and Jones? This is an era pre internet forums so I’m interested to know if it was equally as vitriolic towards them as it is to Martin currently. 

Merrington had a fairly easy ride if i remember rightly, a few vocal people who got on his back but nothing like what Branfoot had. Jones did get a fair amount of abuse, including some pretty bad stuff when rumours about his private life started to come out. But again it wasn't really much more than a few boos and angry calls to Solent.

Souness - weirdly - seemed to be liked by a large chunk of our fanbase, something i never understood as i always thought he was absolutely woeful as a manager. In fact there was a sizeable amount of fans who didn't want him gone.

2 hours ago, Sarisbury Saint said:

Nathan Jones is a good example of how much worse it can get.

Nathan Jones got more points in the same number of games than Martin has so would in fact be an improvement

3 hours ago, beatlesaint said:

Another issue with Russball is, just watching it, sucks the life out of you....well it does me.

Looking at our next 5 home games up to and inc Boxing Day - Liverpool x 2, Chelsea, Spurs & West Ham - all of those are live on Sky/BT/Prime so where is the desire for us out of towners to actually not just put our tickets on the Exchange thing and stay home? Its not fun anymore and the entertainment value is almost nil. 

I genuinely think this is the least i've enjoyed watching Saints play since Branfoot (and at least under Branfoot we had Le Tiss).

The "style" of play is dire, a million passes in areas that make no difference to the game, followed by a mistake that costs us the game and no mental strength in the team which means most times one goal turns into three as their heads drop.

Then post game we have to listen to a bloke that is completely delusional tell us how it's positive and brave, and that all of us that watch it are wrong.

Couple that with the god awful linked in speak that the more visible parts of the ownership stuff in our face and it's absolutely everything wrong with modern football.

How anyone can enjoy watching the footballing equivalent of beige every week i can't understand. How the owners can't see what everyone else does, that repeating the same failed tactic every single week has the same result baffles me. How Martin can be so fucking arrogant to think it's working and great angers me. 

2 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

There’s a whole article by James Gheerbrant in The Times today about Russell Martin 

 

 

“Why Gary O’Neil and Russell Martin are prioritising style over results”

I won’t paste the whole article because of copyright issues but here’s a paragraph:

 

 

“And yet, oddly, they have found themselves this season facing similar complaints: an enervating inflexibility, a lack of urgency, playing as if to some ulterior objective besides scoring. Wolves and Southampton have, respectively, the highest and second-highest percentage of backwards passes this season. In the dying seconds of their game against Manchester City, trailing 1-0, and with the 6ft 7in striker Paul Onuachu freshly introduced, Martin’s team opted to take their last free kick short and were still tapping the ball among themselves when the final whistle blew.”

 

 

Totally unacceptable reporting that, I think the club would be well within their rights to re-program these people to be more positive about the ground breaking football that is RUSSBALL, perhaps these journalists need some time in the gulag

17 hours ago, RTW Saint said:

Well said @St Louis . This fits the way i look at it - too many mistakes means that we have not won a lot of points so far this season, and that has to improve, but it is separate to being able to enjoy the way we play and seeing an element of progression in it. I completely accept that others won't see it that way. 

The SaintsWeb forum is overall a democratic place, and it would seem that my view is minority in comparison to those who really don't like the way we are playing - so you would have to say that the winning view at present is Russ out. However it has been good to see a few more voices piping up in the last few days to say they actually like what they are seeing and are interested to see how far it gets. May be a few more will put their views forward now...

What are you talking about no one wants Martin out, we are all learning to love the million passes that go nowhere, and we NOW understand that football is not about winning, but about statistics.

Anyway i need to go back to my re-education because apparently i didn't quite express my love for Martin hard enough

I'm so glad the club have encouraged some of their people to post on here and telling us we're doing wrongthink, if it wasn't for them we'd all be hoisted to the gulags and the re-education would be incredibly expensive for the club.

Instead we have people on here telling us why our eyes and opinions are wrong, and why we should learn to love Russball as the only form of the game.

Thank you stooges, we have no learned that RUSS' WAY is the only way, that we are wrong, and must come onside.

As we now know we have of course always been at war with direct football and shooting, and passing in infinite slow loops has always been our friend. Until such time of course when The Leaders tell us that we have never passed in slow infinite loops and infact we have always crossed the ball at the first opportunity.

We all of COURSE enjoy this style of football, it is in no way slow, ponderous, predictable and boring. It is in fact edge of the seat stuff, the most exciting form of the game ever played, and the fact that we regularly clock less shots on goals than fingers on one hand is down to the fact that the stats people, and our own brains/eyes, are too exciting to register the hundreds of blistering attacks and shots that we have every game.

By the way Stooges is there a compound you can recommend we live in? And a proper way to address Martin? Maybe even a name to call ourselves so we can identify as group in our love for that which our betters know is good for us?

12 hours ago, Turkish said:

Remember the glory days when we beat the 6-0 up there and Marek Saganowski got himself a hatrick? Andrew Surman pulling the strings in midfield, Leon Best leading the line, Had Rudi Skacel signed yet? Pele at the back for us, Jermaine Wright in the Jack Stephens shoe horn role. Roared on by 1500 fanatical supporters whilst the subway army pulled up their Burberry scarves into their hats to slip off unnoticed as the DEF strolled around the city unchallenged. 

Hands down the weirdest game i've been to, we won 6-0 but were definitely the worse side on the day. In fact it just seemed like every single shot we hit went in. Can't say i've been to another game ever where we won by so many but probably deserved to lose 🤣

The locals we're NOT happy that day after the game either

Wolves are looking like a team that can't buy a win at the moment, in fact the only way they could get one is to come up against a club that is set up in a way that means they are treating football like a New York performance art piece directed by Terry Riley.

One where the aim of the game is to demonstrate the futility of enjoyment by repeating the same passage of play on infinite loops, testing the crowds ability to stay awake and engaged, and reducing the spectacle to parody.

Fortunately for them then they're in luck as Martin and Sport Republic seem to have taken on just that brief.

Wolves away, what's to say? A club that invented European football but also has the honour of being the longest serving club in the english second division ever. Obviously Saints will never break the first record, but under the steady guidance of Martin the second is there for us to beat, and this game is a step in the right direction to achieving that.

Molyneux itself is a proper football ground, with real ends and an inspiration for the NORTHAM WALL (tm). On the downside the away end is also the worst in the league, long and spread out down the side.

The plus side however is the away end is far enough away from either goal that the Saints away support will be perfectly placed to watch all of our play with the ball as we spread it sideways and backwards across the midfield for what feels like an eternity.

So predictable and dull is the way Saints play under Martin Sisyphus himself would choose the boulder over watching us (and most of us would prefer to watch that too).

Usually with RussBall the sensible money would be on 74% possession and a 3-0 loss, but i'd imagine Martin's reaction to Saints actually winning a game will be to double down on us wastefully giving the ball away to Everton by putting it in the net and drop all recognisable strikers and keep it tight. 

So a 1-0 loss it is then. Which is probably a good thing due to the fact that Wolverhampton is such a shithole you can't even invoke the 3-0 rule properly as there's no pubs that'll let you in.

WE PASS IT SIDEWAYS ON!

On 31/10/2024 at 12:33, sfc4prem said:

I'm going back to my original position at the start of the season. Chopping and changing managers has seen us deteriorate (alongside many other factors, particularly piss-poor player recruitment).

 

I therefore reiterate the idea that Russ should stay even when we get relegated. Let's build something long lasting. Russ is young and has shown signs of adapting and learning - not radically, admittedly - and therefore could easily take us back up next season.

Basically, let's endure the shite served up this season and hope next summer's recruitment is sensibly ambitious.