SWLondon Saint

One other thought - which players do Martin's supporters think he has made better? Because if he's moving things in the right direction, you'd generally expect some players to be playing better than they have previously and being eyed up by the big clubs. But it seems like the opposite is happening in the last year. And no, Dibling doesn't count.

Well, assuming the club has done their PSR maths right with relegation pay cuts and suchlike, the good news is that if RM stays the whole season and we set a new low points record, everyone will think our players are so shit no-one will want to buy them...

Any links? Would be interesting to hear some proper analysis, I just don't think most ex-players and 'taters here have any real tactical knowledge.

I think part of the reason Martin provokes such anger is the whole 'the operation was a success, the patient died' attitude. We see it time and time again with institutions and PR these days and It really pisses people off. It smacks of not really caring about the patient or the actual result, only about what that person deems to have been a success - see also COVID PPE contracts, Brexit, Post Office scandal, etc etc. In this case Martin really doesn't seem to give a monkey's about what happens to the club, only what he considers to be playing the right way. So I get the anger. Personally I just think he's incompetent and put of his depth but he's hardly alone there!

Only saw the motd highlights today rather than whole game, but it looked like Manning was playing really high as a winger at times? Dibling looked off the pace, far too slow to get up in support when Archer had that chance. If RM wants to continue to try and pass it out, Lallana has to start / play as much as possible. He's the only one with the quality to get it on the half turn under pressure nearly every time. Defensive transition still looks a mess even from the highlights.

It's easy to be nice to opponents you've just beaten pretty comfortably and who frankly haven't threatened much. Look at the xG, something like 2.3 for them Vs 0.3 for us. Who wouldn't want to play that every week? Of course he can be nice about our possession stats.

The craziest thing is the starting 11 we had the last 2 games was actually kind of working. And he just ditches all of it to get Capn Jack in. Takes off 2 of the best performers in Suga and Aribo. Just makes no sense whatsoever.

Just.... Really no words. When you think the shoehorning and random changes can't get much worse, then.... This....

Well, since he just came back from injury, bringing him on in a high-intensity, super high stakes PL match doesn't seem the smartest move in the book then surely?

The yo-yo idea is plausible, but I'd have thought they'd make more money being a stable PL club doing the same thing? Basically the Red Bull model.

I'm just praying there's a plan to bin him after the inevitable humping by City. Oh, if anyone's wondering about the genius of RM's subs, you can look at Shoehorn Smallboner's stats from the other day: 23 minutes, tackles 0, blocks 0, passes 3, completed 2. Ali Dia level sub appearance. https://fbref.com/en/players/5e105217/matchlogs/2024-2025/William-Smallbone-Match-Logs

The crazy thing is we actually still have a chance to catch the pack at the moment as we're only 7/8 points adrift. Palace and Wolves aren't going to keep losing this badly. But in 3 games time, that could easily be 11/12 points and it's probably gone. I honestly don't know what people who think our squad is hopeless are looking at - there is enough quality to at least put up more of a fight than we're doing. Watch a bit of the Championship and you'll see there's a huge gap in quality even to us - go down and Fernandes, Dibling, Ramsdale and probably Archer are all gone at least. Watch the highlights and see how much pressure gets put on crosses into our box. This happened last year too so obviously the defensive setup or coaching is massively flawed somewhere.

I mean, I get it that a certain level of self belief is necessary in any profession. But holy crap we seem to have got the David Brent style zero self-awareness types lately 😑

Yeah, that's all fair. I remember Ralph looked so worn out after one game I wondered if he'd quit. The team desperately needed a proper forward and reinforcements and wasn't that the summer of all the crap Man City castoffs?

I always thought that if Ralph had stayed, we would have stayed up. Double his total, say 24 from 28 and we'd have needed 13+ from the last 10. Very doable. Instead we got the Beavis and Butthead show for the rest of the season. In contrast to this season, it's actually hard to imagine any manager doing much worse than 1 point from 8 games, including several of the supposed easiest games of the season - Forest, Ipswich, Leicester at home.

Feel a bit sorry for RM as the referee was bent as a nine bob note. Missed everything, bookings were a joke. VAR should have looked at the Vardy foul on Suga as let's face it, he has previous with injuring people. BUT also RM made some of the worst subs ever. Noone who could defend on the left side. We put zero pressure on crosses into our box. And as multiple people have pointed out, we have a huge problem at the top of our box on set pieces. Our defensive set up is a mess. It's tough, as going forward we did look better and he has compromised on going short all the time. But our defensive mess is a huge problem and I think that's on him.

We've actually played some counter-press today and had success and chances with it - somewhat speculative longer ball to where we have an overload or at least equal numbers then heavy pressure to win the 2nd ball. Winning the ball high up the pitch then trying to score in transition. It's the return of Ralph-ball!

Goals have been very heavily about KWP and he's been outstanding, definitely our key attacking player. Defensively our low block looks a bit of a mess though like with their shot off the post. Too open in our own box, no-one seems to know who is supposed to be engaging / making contact with who. I guess it's zonal, but you really need outstanding communication to make that work imo and not sure we have it.

Well, ironically after saying he's not changing his style, we have been way more direct and hit far more long passes this game and it's worked! The players seem to have a bit more license to get rid which they have when under heavy pressure.

That basically says he puts his ego and his 'method' above results, the club, and the players. It also just shows how...well, limited he is in imagination and intellect frankly. I imagine most of us on here have worked for a variety of managers and many have also managed. Who on earth goes into any project / job saying this is the way we have to do it, regardless of the budget, personnel, facts on the ground or difficulties on the way? He's just out of his depth and posturing when he should be studying and learning from the best. It's actually pretty sad.

If you want to see how much we're underperforming, have a look at the Opta predictions for now compared to the start of the season. https://theanalyst.com/eu/2024/10/premier-league-predictions-2024-25-opta-supercomputer-october Back in August before the Premier League 2024-25 season had kicked off, the Opta supercomputer made Saints favourites for the drop to the Championship (66.7%) and based on their performances so far, it’s now even more confident in that decision (90.7%). The prediction pre-season is based largely on squad strength / player profile. We've underperformed our predicted points up to now by NINE points. Looking at other teams, we're 1.5x as bad as Ipswich and 2x as bad as Leicester (based on relegation odds). You can't still think the manager has nothing to do with this?

Well yes, all fixtures are hard given we have one of the weaker squads, but our fixtures were still way easier than Ipswich or Leicester. I think we had the 4th easiest schedule to date and the 2nd hardest over the next 5-6 games or something. So it gets harder not easier. I'd also add that one of the best ways to stay up is for an established PL team or 2 to implode during the season. That happened when we went down 2 years ago for 3 teams, it didn't at all last year. It looks like possibly Wolves, Palace, Everton could be in trouble this year so it's a huge opportunity to stay up with a weak / mediocre squad and one Martin hasn't shown he's up to yet. Can't help but think even a decent manager like Ralph would have us more competitive.

Well sure, but then you can't ignore that against the teams that actually did get promoted, he had a less than stellar record of 4 losses out of 4. And do you honestly think Ipswich's squad was better than ours last year? I think where RM looks particularly bad is that Ipswich and Leicester, with squads of a similar quality to ours, have been much more competitive in their games this season. They've looked close to getting results a number of times and actually have done. Other than Ipswich, did we? Against Forest we were utterly helpless against their press, our xG was a miserable 0.2 goals for the whole game. Brentford was similar though we had a couple chances, more so when they sat back at the end though. You could argue Arsenal was a step in the right direction - but the goal we scored was nothing to do with Russ' possession-based style, it was pure counter-press - lose ball in midfield, win it back, quick pass forward, score in transition. Prior to that we'd mostly defended in a low block. The attempted short passing out did absolutely nothing for us except give the ball away in our defensive third. So for me, if Russ can adapt and get results, then fair play to him. But if he continues to play to our weaknesses and the oppositions' strengths, which will result in loss after loss, then he has to go.

Just on the whole 'No decent English coaches' thing, saw this article came up again - good read if you're at all interested in the technical and coaching side of the game. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jan/28/why-i-left-england-and-moved-to-spain-to-become-a-football-coach I've heard the ex-pros get an easy ride through the system here as well. Not to mention as this guy found, if you're not an ex-pro you'll find it hard even to get on the UEFA B course ...

I think most managers would be wary of taking over a team in such a bad position, unless you have something else to offer like a greater amount of control or a project to sell them. If I recall, that was part of the pitch to Ralph when he took over, that we'd play his way through all the age groups. That doesn't seem to be the case / plan anymore? But perhaps we could tempt someone like Edin Terzic who apparently fell out with the club leadership over control issues I think.