Midfield_General

It’s absolutely a game of opinions mate and of course you are very welcome to share yours but with the greatest respect, did you see some of the mental shit that Martin was doing in terms of formations and players out of position? I can’t be bothered to list them all out but two very obvious ones were: 1) Forest at home with that absurd U-shape with Armstrong on one far touchline, BBD on the other and no-one at all in the middle, and 2) Bournemouth away where he had five strikers on the bench but started Fernandes (a midfielder) and Dibling (a winger) as a two up front. We were a complete mess in both games. In terms of ‘self sabotage’, it’s hard to think of any manager who self-sabotaged more than Martin with the way he forced our very limited players to play out and put themselves under immediate pressure in our own box when it was entirely unnecessary. As a direct result of that we gave away more goals from errors than anyone else in the league, and gave up more goalscoring opportunities to the opposition than anyone else in the league. That was all self-inflicted and was entirely on him. He was the absolute definition of self-sabotage and that’s why so many people were so furious with him. Yes we had a poor squad, yes we probably would have gone down anyway, but the way he made us play meant that in most games we were having to do it with one hand metaphorically tied behind our backs so we couldn’t even give ourselves a chance of grinding out a few confidence (and points)-boosting 0-0s or 1-0 wins early on in the season when we still had a bit of hope that we might be able to compete, at least against the bottom sides. But no, we pissed those games away, the players realised it was hopeless and gave up, and here we are. Juric has been awful too but that doesn’t change the fact that Martin was completely out of his depth, was in cloud cuckoo land thinking that this awful squad could play out like Man City against premier league opposition, and he absolutely had to go. I also didn’t hear any contrition at all during his Sky appearance. During the bit I watched he had the sheer brass neck to criticise Spurs for playing out, and said how surprised he had been that premier league players were fast and physical. At that point I switched it off before I did my telly a mischief. All just IMHO of course. (Welcome to the board btw )

Yeah the level of interaction between the fans and the players/ staff is another brilliant thing. We went to an away game and were basically the only away supporters there. We were still in the bar after the game when all our players came in. They recognised us and brought us over to sit and have a drink with them to say thanks for coming out to support them. We were absolutely made up afterwards, it was great.

Two words: non-league. I live too far away from Southampton now to get to St Mary's very often, so I go to my local non-league club instead to get my Saturday afternoon fix and it's brilliant. 3pm Saturday kick-offs, turn up and pay on the gate, £10 to get in, £4.50 for a pint you can drink while you stand on the rail by the touchline with your mates, close enough to the pitch to hear the players abusing the ref. Decent quality football and every game is competitive. You don't have the same burning passion for the club of course, but you still get invested in the result. Saints are in my blood and will always be my club but if you just want to watch a game and have a few beers and you miss the traditional football experience then you can't go wrong really.

There’s no way he’s staying to play in the Championship, unfortunately. At this point it’s just a case of how much we can rinse someone for him, and hoping we can get a manager in who is decent enough to be capable of influencing these buffoons to spend it wisely.

Given that he's only got a year left on his contract, I'm going to go ahead and suggest that that may be a little punchy. Obviously no-one's going to pay that, but as it's the Telegraph it's probably been fed by the club to set the bar at an appropriate £50m+ level for bids, given he's young, English, has Premier League experience, clearly has a ton of potential and has now had his breakthrough season and got enough of the big boys* interested to the extent that there would probably be competition among them for his signature. Hopefully it offsets some of this 'we'll probably let him go for £20m' nonsense. SR have royally bollocksed up many, many things, but they've got reasonable form for getting decent prices when selling talent. (* and Spurs)

Who would you go for?

I'm surprised O'Hara could work out which end of the microphone to use to share that red hot opinion, he's that fucking dumb. Him, Cundy, Jim White, Alan Brazil, Andy Townsend... Christ, there are some thick people given airtime on TalkSport. It's like their strategy is to put together a dream team of the stupidest people in the world, and that's before you even start with the people who call in. I wouldn't back any of them to sit the right way round on a toilet seat.

I think Charles is going to be an important player for us next year as well, presuming that he actually wants to come back, which I would say probably isn't a given just yet. So I wouldn't write him off as a dud, albeit he'll be performing at a level lower than the one we presumably intended to use him at.

I'm struggling to see any similarities between the tactics and formations of Jones and Martin, they seem like polar opposites to me - what would you say the similarities are?

Those prices for Livramento and Ings are what we sold them for. He means the record amount we've paid for someone, which is the €25m/£22m for Sulemana. Also, those figures don't look in line with what was reported at the time of those transfers. The reported figure for Livramento was £32m (€39m), not €26m, the reported figure for Vestergaard was £18m (€21m), not €25m, and the reported figure for Danny Ings was £25m (€29m), not €25m.

Jones just needs to learn that he should not do media interviews, ever. He should send his assistant out to do them, or a coach, or a tea lady, or take the fifth - just anything to avoid opening his mouth and letting the swivel-eyed madness that passes for his thoughts spew out.

More to the point, he needs to decide whether that is a centre parting or a side parting. I’ve noticed that he has been unable to truly commit to one or the other ever since his playing days. Pin your colours to the mast man.

Here you go fella https://www.eplsite.club/stream9.html

Jesus fucking christ

Connolly was absolute class at the level we were at then. Lovely player. Lambert, Barnard, Connolly and Papa Waigo with Puncheon and Oxlade-Chamberlain. Those attacking options were quality for L1, I loved that side.

Very harsh on Rideout, that. He got 19 goals in 73 games for us which is better than 1 every 4 games. At his peak he banged them in everywhere he went. Scored 38 in 95 for Swindon which is one every 2.5 games, 19 in 54 for Villa is one every 2.8 games, 23 in 99 for Bari is one in 4.3. He was a good player and streets ahead of anyone we've had in recent years since Ings. Colin Clarke also scored 36 in 82 for us in the top division which is one every 2.27 games. What we wouldn't give now for someone as prolific as that at this level. Baker I'll give you

How would that help?

I think he was referring to people's lack of appreciation for Moyes

That clip is the exact bit I saw when I turned on MNF last night. It's absolutely hilarious, watching him standing there preaching his knowledge like he's some guru of the game, and not the person who has literally just been sacked for creating a mess so bad that the team he created, coached and managed has a strong chance of being the worst in the history of the Premier League. They should have brought up some other clips for him to share his sage wisdom on - for example I'd have loved to hear him talk through a video showing: Each of the 36 goals we conceded in the 16 games we'd played when we sacked him - the second highest of any team in the league at that point Each of the 27 errors we made which led to shots for the opposition - the highest of any team in the league Each of the 11 errors we made which led to goals for the opposition - the highest of any team in the league Obviously none of these could be down to him, so presumably he'd just blame the players... the ones he signed, picked and coached?

No - if you only have one idea, and a) you can’t see that it won’t work with the players you’ve got against the quality of opposition you’re playing, and b) you can’t or won’t change it, and you keep losing game after game after game because of it, that absolutely does make you a bad manager. Good managers don’t say ‘My plan would have worked if only I’d spotted the very obvious fatal flaws in it, and everything had been different.’ Good managers know that winning is all that matters, and adapt and find a way to win with what they’ve actually got. Look at the results Moyes has got at Everton in a matter of weeks with the same set of players that Dyche had. They were very much in the mix to go down, only 1 point away from the bottom three. He's come in, and in 9 league games he's won 4 and drawn 4, and the only one he's lost was the first one. They've scored 5 more goals under him in those 9 games than they did in 19 under the previous manager. That's all with basically the same squad. That’s a proper manager at work. Melchett Martin isn't fit to lace his boots.

I turned it on and he was standing in front of the video wall having a right pop at Spurs for making risky passes early in their game against Bournemouth and putting themselves under needless pressure at the back, which apparently you shouldn’t do because it immediately gives the opposition team and crowd a lift and they smell blood which makes it harder for you. Yeah, what sort of twat would coach a team to do that? The absolute brass neck on him. EDIT: Watch him here: https://www.skysports.com/football/video/36396/13325975/tottenham-hotspur-vs-bournemouth-jamie-carragher-and-russell-martin-break-down-how-cherries-press-caused-chaos-for-spurs

'Press well with a low block'. It sounds so sensible, obvious even. So if he is aware that we need to go back to basics, why does he then set up to do the maddest shit imaginable like playing a 3 man defence with an out-of-position, championship level full-back and an out-of-position midfielder where the centre-backs should be, and then put the nutcase cherry on top of his mental cake by telling these poor confused souls to mark man-to-man? This season has got to the point where the only real entertainment comes at 1.45pm when we see how whoever is managing the team has managed to outdo themselves in terms of how barmy they can make the team selection and tactics. So in that respect, I'm almost looking forward to it, if only out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Spot on. When there’s that little balance and that many players playing out of position you don’t get away with it at any level. To actually deliberately set up like that, against PL level players and managers, is suicidal. He lost me the second he chose to play Aribo as a centre half when we had 3 actual centre halves fit and available to play. I mean what the actual fuck.

Who would you target?

Who do you think we should go for who is better and would take the job?