StrangelyBrown

Martin will bask in the glory unaware of the irony

Captain jack is an utter helmet Russell Martin is an utter helmet Sports Republic are utter helmets

I tend to use my eyes rather than worry about xG (which statistically is proven to be a flawed way of looking at football). There were 5 very good chances that they should have taken and somehow despite us defending like an u10s team they didn't take.

I'm not sure that's true though. We've not really deserved to win any games this year - even the one we did win Everton did their best not to take chances they should have taken. Blaming refs and VAR is papering over the cracks.

But we should have been 5-0 down at half time, only for some luck that fell our way. Easy to be angry with VAR, but we didn't really deserve to win.

But do you honestly think that will happen with RM in charge or are you just playing devil's advocate? I personally think we're getting worse not better... I was optimistic after the Ipswich game but my optimism was unfounded. The Everton result papered over the cracks and otherwise we just don't look like we know how to win a football match.

How's sticking with RM working out for us? I make it 5 points adrift so far.

I'm not sure Endrick's stats on needlessly passing the ball backwards in the final third are going to be good enough for us.

SRs plan seems to be to double down on failure with the hope that double failure breeds success. It's a bit like Jack Stephens getting 2 yellow cards... as my son pointed out to me tonight, contrary to popular opinion in this scenario, two wrongs do actually make a right!

The guardian have missed the point - the longer this goes on the more other teams will think RM is going to change something and then they'll fall for his cunning plan, unknowing that he's tricked them into second guessing his non-existent plan B

Probably not worth it while Martin is here. We will need to minimise the scar tissue before Martin tries to get promoted next season and let's face it Martin isn't going anywhere anytime soon - otherwise he'd be gone already.

Oh goody we're going to be brave and aggressive again. And this time we're going to "try and be better" - revolutionary stuff. Liverpool are going to need something really special to counter such radical thinking.

Is a Selles selection now a barometer of quality?

If RM stays the course, what might happen? 1) Some sort of miracle happens and we pull together some results and stay up - we'll beat a number of the better teams to get the points we need having already thrown away points against Ipswich, Wolves, etc. This is the stuff of pure fantasy. 2) we go down fighting and give ourselves a good chance of coming straight back. He gets the fans back onside by playing more attractive football and ditching the ponderousness of Russball. 3) we go down with a whimper continuing to play Russball. RM starts waffling on about scar tissue and it takes him until November 2026 to get the team firing again. He loses the fan base completely and things are really toxic I can only see scenario 3 happening. Which begs the question WTF are SR hoping is going to happen?

The latest of football innovations from Ankersen is that he's now reinvented "football manager sacking" - coming to a TED talk anytime soon...

Russball at its finest. Lose the ball in your own half, back off the man with the ball and concede. Now we need to do something different, but we won't.

... but will his name come out of the substitute tombola???

Give it a rest Gio. Perhaps a lot of the dissenters just don't enjoy the football - I certainly don't. I completely understand what we are trying to do, but sadly we don't have the quality to execute it well in the premier league which leads to excessive amounts of time passing the ball sideways and backwards waiting for mistakes that don't come easily with premier league players. You might like it and others might too, but it doesn't mean that all of the people who think it is tedious also think that "players only go to massage Russ' ego". You need to give up this condescending nonsense - it really is very tiresome.

I'm enjoying the winning feeling while it lasts - I'm not sure we will get many more this year. Hopefully we can build on the few moves where we attacked with real intent and put in a more convincing performance against wolves.... I should know better than giving in to hope

To be fair it hasn't gone well for us so far has it?

He seriously deserves some shit for that - but I expect he'll still get clapped off by a number of fans when we get soundly beaten by the dugout pioneers.

4 times better than RM at the moment...

It does beg the question of who signs all this off?? We have a ridiculous number of bang average wide attacking players - for instance rather than spunking wages on cornet and BBD couldn't we have just bought one better player (and overpaid a bit to secure them)??

Wait until we get smashed by city, there will be more than enough scar tissue going round to make up for the lack so far

Good to see #4 of Russ' 10 Russball commandments getting a run out again. It's one of my favourites along with #2 "trust the process"