derry

You are just a nit picking argument waiting to happen. I'm not your boy. I don't respond to stupidity.

You didn't recognise the change which was brought on by McCarthy not being able to pass out. The result was that we were much more direct and turned around a disasterous run of losses which had scuppered any chance of direct promotion. I gave Martin the credit for that however it may have been an unintended consequence, either way it worked.

If you don't even recognise that once McCarthy was in goal we couldn't play out from the back your opinion for me is worthless. Newcastle's goal was the result of McCarthy attempting to pass. Those four games were the variation that we needed. If we had retained the passing out with McCarthy we would still be in the Championship.

I think the way we changed our basic style for the Leeds away league game won well then went through the play offs in style and gaining promotion was great. The season started with us playing as if those four games had never happened. Back to the ball rotation at the back against much better teams has made us more porous and less potent. Our ponderous playing has been well and truly found out together with our lack of defensive organisation especially at free kicks and corners. For example the goals conceded in the final seconds against Ipswich and Leicester that were due to hopeless marking and a complete lack of awareness. Another thing that has hurt us badly is some of the late substitutions which have made us worse rather than improving results. Martin has imposed a straitjacket on the way we play and our lack of success is really down to that. A win would be brilliant. We have players who can hurt teams but the ponderous play neuters them. We have been well and truly worked out and need to adapt but I fear more of the same will just lead to more of the same results. Higher tempo, less passing around at the back and much quicker delivery to the front. A fast team press to win the ball back instead of just falling back. That is how Premier League teams play and it's how we should play.

If we are more direct and less negative at the back we could win but we would have to build on that. If we play our usual way and scrape a win it is welcome but only prolonging the agony.

The back four have been recycling the ball long before Martin arrived. It was easier for Armstrong and the team to score in the Championship. If we had Harry Kane he wouldn't get a sniff in the Premier League with the stupid way we play. Most passes we make come from behind and are behind the target so they mostly play the next pass back. Really only Fernandez and Dibling play the ball into the space in front of the attacker or behind the defender. Players for years have been making run after run but the ball is never played through. So they stop doing it. Even if a ball is played through it is so delayed and too late so there are only two choices keep going offside or stop and stay onside.

Strikers should play on the 45 with the goal in front on the opposite side to the ball always onside and timing the run to arrive with the ball in the box/area. Take the defenders away to create the space then cut back in. Most of all be two footed. Not as you say passing backwards. Passing the ball behind the players causes most of the attackers to have to come back. If Onuachu at 6'-8" is playing he does try to play in on the 45 from the back post to get a run at the ball he needs good crosses not recycling the ball. We never see any variation, In the dying seconds v MC a free kick with Onuachu waiting for the Hail Mary ball in it's passed sideways and the referee blows time. It needed the two centre backs plus Onuachu in there. I don't know what they are trying to achieve but whatever it is is over my head and it isn't working. God only knows what the strikers feel about the whole debacle. Against Leicester, get to the byeline twice and pass across the goal two goals.

BBD has been signed as a goalscorer which to be fair he has done consistently as has Onuachu, Archer and Armstrong. Personally I think it's the idiot manager's obsession with possession that is not only making us impotent and porous but is the most boring, slow negative counterproductive waste of game time. I think the players get this and are directionless. It really is an unwatchable mess.

I don't think he's trying to figure anything out. It's possession as an end result not tactics. The fact of the matter is neither do our opponents. We are so obsessed by this myth that we are totally predictable. The gift that keeps giving to the opposition.

That is all the costs including bringing in a new team. It was explained in the article in the Echo. I hardly think we are paying his team of four £12m. Besides just put him on gardening leave and pay his salary over the agreed term. If he takes another job that's a result.

I've just heard from Sean! He says he's got a great plan for Saturday. As he doesn't have to worry about us scoring his instruction is pass it to a Saints player so they take it back into their own penalty area then press. He reckons they should benefit from at least double the number of usual mistakes.

BBD hasn't fitted in. I think we just aren't using him correctly as his record says he can score goals. Whether he can in the Premier League is still open. Personally I see him as one of a pair of strikers not a winger. If we want a winger then play one. Play a combination of Archer, Armstrong, Onuachu. BBD up front as required.

That was total unadultrated garbage. I've seen quicker walking football. If that is what Martin is presenting as football he's just a con merchant. We scored three goals but nothing from the 78% possession, a corner, A centreback dispossessed for the penalty and a long shot after a winger went up the left wing and passed to Bree. That was a total of two passes. I've had it with Martin. He has no clue what he's doing. Imposing a passing obsession straitjacket that fails in attack and makes us porous at the back. Forward players make runs, get into the penalty area but the ball never comes instead it's being recycled backwards and sideways. The players are better than this nonsense. The organisation is non existent. Positioning defensively is haphazard. Nobody is marked, the edge of the area at corners has been abandoned, Ipswich, Leicester for example, again last night more of the same. This possession obsession experiment is ruining the football club. If we are going to have any chance of a revival he has to go. At our level we need a high tempo. pressing and breaking team not a bunch of strollers rotating the ball with meaningless possession.

Not only that, they were poor managers but great players? They never even worked out how to play together in an England midfield. The manager was wrong, he should have left one of them out, whichever he preferred. They never worked out how to play together, then manage, no thanks. I watched Burnley a lot in their promotion season as I was interested in how Tella was doing. They played an awful lot of quick breaks from the back up to Tella etc to take on the stretched defence. As most of that team were loanees he lost them for the Premier.

Patently Martin doesn't get what football is about. Fans cheer wildly and the players celebrate when their team scores whereas I've never seen fans and players celebrating after twenty passes that threaten nobody and end up with the keeper having never got in the opponents half. Maybe it's him that should be looking at another occupation. Until they give points for passes i'm passing on this garbage.😊

I think you missed the point, it's more examples of what they did but we didn't which lead to all three Leicester goals. If we had we would have probably won with that two goal lead. The same with the Ipswich corner. That's five points aquandered.

That display was entirely predictable, pack the box and stop the opposition. In that respect it went well. We managed 43% possession which was nearly twice as much as I thought we would get even though most of it was close to our goal. The pluses, Fernandes played well. Archer hitting the bar, he did well there. All the players put in a shift. That free kick at the end needed a ball into the box aimed at Onuachu. Armstrong worked hard and was a threat. I don't see any reason why we couldn't put out a decent team to play defend hard and counterattack ditching the own half possession. It won't happen under Martin.

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I watched Leicester v Notts Forest. Martin has been giving it large about his process etc but for me he's just a busted flush making noise. I wanted to see what Forest would do that we failed to do. True to form kept Wood up on the centre backs, so much so he scored from a big punt from the goalkeeper that bouncing caused Faes under pressure to try and head back to the keeper in No man's land and Wood nodded over him for the third goal. Neither side tried intricate passing but varied their passing as the opportunities appeared. Forest unlike us pressed hard and in numbers. Significantly Fatawu started and Forest pressed him tightly except for the odd time and he was unable to get in behind as he did to us last Saturday. Finally at corners Forest had players covering the edge of the penalty area so Winks had to knock the ball into the goal area. The reason we have goals is to decide the match, not a countback of meaningless passing fifty yards away from goal. All the teams in the Premier League except us seem to get this. High tempo, team pressing, varied passing and tight marking all do it in slightly different ways. The multipassing league champions press hard when losing the ball, transition at lightning pace and rapidly rotate the ball to look for openings around the opponents packed penalty area. However they have spent mega millions on the very best to suit Pep. With a bit of luck we'll get a demonstration of the difference that will show up our poundland version for what it is. Looking ahead I'm guessing something like 75% City possession and us penned in for long periods desperately trying to keep them out. If it's us with 75% and pulling City around I surrender. I think Martin is deluded and unable to admit his method is only suited to better players playing in an inferior league but a dead loss with average players in a top league. We have to give that up now before it's too late and change to a high tempo press and break style or get rid of him.

FFS he talked about missing Smallbone. Leicester couldn't believe their luck with the incompetence he showed last week. Stephens to be shoehorned in this week. At least the tough tackling Smallbone is missing for a while. If he plays either of those and fails to bring ABK and Onuachu back into the equation it will really demonstrate how incompetent we are.

I've had too much of this progessive, slowmotion,passive, porous, process crap

That hypothetical £12m estimate was all the costs plus the cost of employing a new team. (quoted in Daily Echo). If the present team was paid off over the term of their contracts until they are re-employed somewhere it's probably nowhere near that.

Martin really messed up on Saturday, his substitutions, Smallbone, Fraser FFS. The marking at the final corner. The lack of organisation allowing nine outfield players on the 6 yd line marking nobody. Anybody that thinks the ace non contact smallbone is an answer has a screw loose. Anybody who thinks Fraser trying to run five yds away from Fatawu is marking is deluded. Defensively he hasn't got a clue. We should have been tight on Fatawu, Winks and the two centre backs to disrupt them, instead we gave them the freedom of the park. Patently he didn't leave any mark on the players after the Ipswich stupidity as they wouldn't have dared not mark the players on the edge of the penalty area. If it had been me, bottles, boots, kit, trays and crates would have been flying off the walls and nobody would ever forget. Martin is deluded if he thinks his pedestrian possession football in our own half is brave, stupid it might be but brave FFS. Watch Man City, lightning transition and most of the football in the final third as different as chalk from cheese.

Onuachu and Archer up on the centrebacks and route one. Everybody else press hard.

Sorted Martinelli v Arsenal. Frightened the life out of him.