CanadaSaint

Still think there’s a decent side in our squad but it’s frustrating to watch Russ take so long to figure out who should and shouldn’t be in it, and that it’s not a cardinal sin to go long and wide when we’re penned in. Jack’s a great guy but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we looked tighter and more assured without him back there. Dropping THB and keeping him in was ridiculous. It was nice to have some attacking width and pace with Cornet and Fraser, but BBD needs to either be more central or on the bench.

THB looking quite solid and Stephens not playing is not a coincidence.

Yep, that's very troubling on multiple levels. It suggests that he just won't accept that playing it long when we're being heavily pressed is infinitely preferable to surrendering possession in our own back third. It also suggests that the only target he can think of is a big guy up front - not a pacy attacker out wide, so he doesn't see the counter-attacking dimension. But, most of all, it shows how deep-seated his arrogance is, and how unwilling to accept that everyone has rumbled his style. There seems to be no room in his head for the notion that a decent Plan B makes Plan A better, because it reduces the critical weakness of a predictable Plan A and creates a fast-break option (probably not in his lexicon). Plan A and Plan B aren't mutually exclusive - unless Martin's "smartest guy in the room" mentality decides they are. But he's a bullshitter, because he was forced to change when we lost Bazunu, and that's what got us promoted. It wasn't losing Bazunu but the style change it forced on him. His arrogance won't let him admit it. He's riding for a fall.

IMO Martin hit a fork in the road when we failed to sign Biljow, who was comfortable with his “play out from the back all the time” style. We then spent 25 million on Ramsdale, for whom “playing out” is definitely not a strength. However, one of his real strong suits is the crisp out-ball to wide, pacy attackers. We also brought back Fraser and loaned Cornet – two solid targets for the early out-ball. Finally, we have the makings of a Plan B which could make us less vulnerable to the press – the weakness in Martin’s style that every opponent knows about and exploits. Nothing emboldens a press more than predictability, but a good Plan B blunts the press because they fear being bypassed. But Fraser and Cornet were unavailable on Saturday, so we don’t know yet whether Martin is willing to use Ramsdale’s special skill to give us the Plan B we desperately need. I’m willing to wait and see if pragmatism can overpower Martin’s arrogance and obstinacy. His insistence on playing out from the back, to me, is a “keeper killer”. I can’t see ownership sitting idly by if he doesn’t use their 25 million asset properly, and his confidence starts to take a nosedive.

Thank you - brain fart. 😀 The first 4+ pages of this thread say he was real quality until things started going pear-shaped on the manager front, and then everything went to hell - not just ABK. The point is that getting ABK #1 back would be very helpful right now.

IIRC he was fine until the start of the relegation season (more than fine if you check the 2022 posts), but that season was a total shitshow. Three managers, two of them dire, players checking out all around, fractured dressing room, relegation inevitable long before the season ended, SMS was a depressing place for fans and players alike. He was far from the only one who didn't want to be here for 2023-24 in the Championship. But he's still here, for whatever reason, and we have huge problems at the back. The questions for me are: What changed that early guy? Can we fix it? Why are we apparently not even trying when, warts and all, he's far better than some automatic starters who are costing us games? I have no doubt that Martin sees himself as a top-notch "man manager". This is a great opportunity to show it - the potential upside is huge.

The only thing I can see is Turk's post, from more than two years ago, suggesting that it came from that bastion of well-researched, well-informed journalism - the Daily Star. All the comment about his play is super-positive. Those are fixable issues (p.s. to Russell - fines and bollockings work wonders). That's why I think someone is in Martin's ear.

Today demonstrates (yet again) that the question shouldn't be whether Martin reintegrates ABK into the squad but how he's going to fix the attitude issue and do it. I'd rather have a strong, skilled, ball playing defender with an attitude issue than a mentally slow, ball-watching, shit-passing player with a great attitude. But maybe that's just me. A follow-up question I have is "Who is in Martin's ear telling him that ABK is bad news?" Check out the early pages of this thread and it's universal recognition that we have a gem on our hands and won't be able to keep him.

The part I can’t wait to see is how Ramsdale’s arrival impacts Martin’s tactical approach and even his starting formation. Ramsdale has some unique distribution skills that almost turn Martin’s missing Plan B into more of a Plan A. At the very least it adds a solid Plan B.

Recognizing that inflated egos are welded into most modern players, I still think we’ve had more than our fair share of really good players with bad attitudes. It’s very frustrating and it makes me wonder if there’s something on the inside at the root of it. Hate selling players like that but sometimes there’s little choice.

I’m not sure he’s ever played for Martin, so he’s going on what he’s been told. ABK’s talent has never been in doubt but he’s earned his bad reputation. Much of it was earned in a shitshow season when we had lots of dressing room issues. But Martin has also earned his reputation as a good man manager so I wonder who has convinced him not to even try to rehabilitate ABK.

I thought he was a pretty effective LWB - fast on the break, great cross, and much better defensively than Manning. He’s solid in both roles. Maybe not a starter but a good bench asset.

I don’t think a loan is a desirable for anyone. It’s a question of breaking the player/club impasse so Fraser can walk away.

I’d say that Fraser’s return is more likely now we’ve signed Ramsdale. He’s a perfect target for Ramsdale’s long, low out ball. That makes us stronger defensively (less farting around at the back) and offensively (much faster break). I’d love to see that.

This surely has to change how we play. Ramsdale is much more comfortable making an early, long, crisp pass to a wide man, but less so with short passes at the back. We surely can’t spend 25 million on a keeper, play to his weaker skillset, and outlaw his stronger skillset. Can we Russ?

I haven't given up on us getting Fraser back but I think it might be dependent on what happens late-window with KWP. I'm amazed that KWP is still with us because he's easily PL standard and not that expensive, and the collapse of the ABK deal magnified our need to sell others. We're currently using him on his "wrong" side, not ideal for him or us, which suggests that we were setting up for life without him. I really like Fraser's pace, directness (if we give him the ball when he's pointing the right way), and early, dangerous crossing. He's also a good "out ball" target - something we'll definitely need this year. The other part of Fraser's game that both surprised and impressed me last year was his effectiveness and reliability when he needed to drop back into more of a defensive wingback's role. If KWP goes (sad day), bringing Fraser back might be a good, cost-effective move.

Woke up today with steam still coming out of my ears. I posted yesterday that we’re set up to adhere slavishly to Martin’s style, regardless of the game situation. EVERY ‘attack’ is required to start with risky interplay at the back. I lost count of the number of times yesterday that we “recycled” the ball back to Stephens, Bednarek and THB even when we had forward momentum and didn’t look like losing possession. And WTF was the rationale for playing two strikers on the touchlines, negating our wingbacks and leaving us target-less in the box? It explains why his starting lineups include low-skill players who adhere to his style like robots, and have no place for creative mavericks who bring the attack-focused unpredictability we need. It’s no coincidence that we looked much better when he was forced to bring a couple on. The only positive I can glean is from the start of last season. Martin was forced to make some significant changes after we were whacked by Championship teams that found us predictable and easy to play (and coach) against, and after we were embarrassed by Gillingham. Fingers crossed for a shit-kicking at Cardiff.

We aren’t set up to “attack” and score goals, and “defend” and prevent goals, depending on the situation. We’re set up to slavishly adhere to Martin’s style, regardless of the situation. ALWAYS start with risky interplay at the back, take ages to get the ball forward so the opposing defence can get set, use our two “strikers” on the touchlines (no target in the box), and try to unlock them by over-passing in the final third. That’s why Martin likes robotic players who are woefully lacking in talent. On the good side we’ve signed a couple of players who aren’t automatons, and there’s Dibling. Hopefully Martin will permit them to show it, but I’m not sure his arrogance will let him.

Until we have a Plan B early out ball, teams can press us relentlessly without any fear, and every game will look like this. Still like to see Fraser back.

The challenge we're facing to find a new keeper is that we're basing our search on Martin's job description. That greatly reduces the number of candidates, never mind available/affordable candidates. There aren't that many keepers with the skill set to meet his "playing out from the back" demands, and even fewer who might be willing to join us, knowing that those demands place lots of additional pressure on their game, and could end up with hits to their reputation. As much as I like the way we play, Martin has to temper his expectations of his keeper, and make it clear that there are moments when "clearing our lines" is more important than ball retention. Arguably, we get better, not worse, for having a Plan B because PL teams will definitely exploit our Plan A. Now we're looking at more quality candidates. But the decision may not be Martin's. It'll come down to who's available as the window starts to close.

Overall I was quite encouraged by that. We were certainly not outclassed all over the park against a much more expensive, Top 8 PL team playing in front of their passionate crowd. Many of us feared that, but the reverse happened - we outplayed them, both before and after the sending off. We lost because the strengths of Russball are also its greatest weaknesses - we don’t know when to turn it off. We are very good in the middle 60-70 yards of the pitch, but excessive commitment to ball retention at both ends kills us. At the defensive end, we are over-reliant on our keeper to be the fulcrum. Bazunu could do that, even if it compromised his positioning and cost us weak goals. McCarthy flat-out can’t do it but is still required to, so we concede different weak goals. A keeper without those weaknesses is probably beyond our financial reach, so Martin has to compromise. At the offensive end we over-elaborate our brains out, fart-arsing around until the box is crowded and everyone is marked. Our most incisive attack today involved an early delivery from Sugawara, and BBD should have scored. Different game. If we end up selling KWP to help fund the GK and AMF we need, I still hope we’ll get Fraser back and use him on the other side. He offers pace, solid defence , and an early delivery - giving us that from both sides. And then we might discover that our strikers are better than we thought they were. For me today definitely showed more positives than negatives.

I know you’re into this stuff so I’d appreciate some clarification. Wouldn’t a book loss have to end up in P&L? And if it’s in P&L, why would it not impact FFP. Surely, “Previously undetected” doesn’t mean that it wasn’t pre-existing - it could mean that it existed but we didn’t detect it.

On a human level I feel really badly for ABK. But he’d moved on from us and we’d moved on from him, and now we’ve got to deal with the consequences. It’s going to be a long term shitshow on many levels. Obviously, it screws us in the short term because it’ll put the kibosh on some signing plans, but the longer term consequences are awful. A 12-15 million asset just depreciated to near-zero with one media release, and I have no idea what that means on the FFP front. Also, by calling it a “previously undetected” condition, Hoffenheim opens the door for our insurers to reject any claim because they’ll say it was a pre-existing condition. They really screwed us with those words. I suspect that this will end up being a protracted legal wrangle, with us having to take on our insurers and/or Hoffenheim. Doubtless we’ll want ABK back here ASAP so we can try to get some medical opinions to support our case. And we’ll need to find out if there were any “pre-existing” signs when we did our medical. This stuff can take years to resolve. What a fricking nightmare.

I fear that we have a bad case of “window constipation” – stuck with some hard-to-sell players because they were crap when we bought them or – more likely – because we never got enough out of them. That has been an issue with us for some time. Lemina always had a much better tune in him than we were able to get out of him, same for Onuachu because we never played to his strengths, Alcaraz has commitment and talent but no real playing identity, we haven’t been able to add an end product to Sulemana’s undoubted pace and skill (and now he’s injured anyway), and ABK’s injury proneness is as much in his head as his body. We value KWP much more highly than the market apparently does. If we can’t move most of those players out for decent money (and quickly) we’ll probably struggle to bring in the players we badly need. I’m not sure that loaning them out helps much if we don't have the money to buy, so some might end up in our squad. And another big question is whether (or even if) Ross Stewart can fill the striker void. That would put a ton of pressure on Martin to re-integrate them and start unlocking their potential in roles that make the side better. It's far from ideal but Martin views this as one of his biggest strengths, and that’s probably about to be really tested.

Oh, I'm not panicking. I think the first scenario is likely playing out - some quality options waiting for the right moment to arrive. But we're talking about some vital positional cogs and a shrinking timeline. The price of failing to bring them in would be very high. It's not just a quality GK and creative midfielder, but we need Downes cover (if that's not Charles); I have few doubts about Flynn's ability but I certainly have some about his durability, and we've really struggled when he was sick/injured. Unlike some folks, I'd really like to see Fraser back because he has pace and directness (we're going to need that kind of out-ball a lot more this year), he provides a good delivery into the box, and he was solid in a wingback role (reliable tracking back will also be more important). Some queasiness is understandable because time's a-ticking. It's magnified when there are questions surrounding key players (like Stewart, Fraser), and when we're not seeing much interest in the players (KWP, ABK, Sulemana, maybe Alcaraz) who could bring in the money to fund what we really need. I'll feel better when some of those dominoes start to wobble. But the longer this goes on the more I'll start wondering about SR's thinking.