HarvSFC

Chris Wilder has two league titles, a runners-up finish in the Championship (beating Bielsa Leeds and Aston Villa) and took Sheffield United to 9th in the Premier League in their first season back. He had them 5th after 12 games following 12 years out of the top flight. As opposed to our 1. He probably earned another go this season after the mess that Heckingbottom left. Martin, on the other hand hadn't finished any higher than 10th in League One, or the Championship before he arrived here. Nathan Jones has a better CV and currently Ruben Selles is outperforming his League One record with a Reading side that doesn't have any funds. Martin had a 37.5% win rate at MK Dons across 80 games. Selles has 42.11% across 76. Martin has very little to show for his five years in management so far other than getting a good Championship squad to 4th place and a play-off finish without really threatening the automatic places. You'd think conceding just two goals fewer than relegated Birmingham, who had Wayne Rooney for much of the season would also ring alarm bells. But, here we are with the worst goal difference in the Premier League by 5 goals. 8 worse than 19th Crystal Palace. There were plenty of question marks regarding last season and this season has been dreadful. Yet, some still support him. Where's the want to see us actually compete in the league again. All well and good playing alright for spells against Liverpool, Arsenal and City, but we still finished with 0 points and the points lost from winning positions was the stat used to beat Hasenhuttl with.

We've really misused him. He's good, would cause a lot of issues for teams worse than Liverpool. Shame he's now injured.

A Rickie Lambert moment. He's got his head on a few set pieces this season. If only we had a specialist coach.

This is just crap. If we dominated the Championship like Leicester last season, you could forgive the board for giving Martin a bit more time. If we had won consecutive promotions under Martin, like we did Nigel Adkins, who lost his job so that the club could go up another level, you could forgive the board for giving Martin a bit more time. But, neither of those scenarios happened. We finished fourth and nine points behind the automatic promotion spots with one of the better squads in the league. Parts of last season were really good, but there was also a lot of bad parts and a number of warning signs about what this season may bring. The facts are that we have played 11 league games this season, won one, drew one and lost the other nine. We've also had quite a favourable start to the season in terms of the fixture list. This line that Martin's rated outside of the club is also rubbish. Guardiola just blew smoke up his arse, it's a well known Guardiola tactic. He did it to Nathan Redmond. Then within the club, you have to ask if Martin is so highly rated, then why did Adams, Stuart Armstrong and now KWP turn down contracts to continue working with him and with his style of play. He won't get a Premier League job after he leaves us. Of course morale is going to be high in the squad. Martin's signed a load of his mates in Fraser, Downes, Wood and Manning. They aren't going to turn against him and they're going to have an influence in the dressing room. Alongside these you also have captain Jack Stephens, who under any other manager wouldn't be a Premier League player, so he's also happy to latch onto Martin, and he's meant to be the leader. When we get pumped by Liverpool in the next game without laying a glove on them, the fans need to make feelings clear. He needed to go in an international break, we've missed that opportunity. So, it's all just rubbish from Sports Republic and Ankersen once again. They've learned nothing about being proactive. Talking about January signings too. Like with Sulemana and Onuachu, we'll wait until deadline day to make any impactful signings, when it will be too late.

Van Nistelrooy reeks of Ole Gunna Solskjaer at Cardiff. Steer clear.

The Nottingham Forest football club group have been able to attract Edu from Arsenal to oversee their group of clubs. See who we go for, if we do look to bring someone in.

Everyone knows their mistakes of the previous Premier League campaign and the poor signings of last year, so won't list those and you could slightly forgive them for it being their first year and they did at least invest a lot, which they also did this summer. However, in 2024: 2023, but still affecting us today and all season - Didn't replace the set-piece coach. Been awful attacking and defending them ever since. Didn't replace Jason Wilcox, instead chose to promote within, and judging from the summer, it hasn't worked. We gave another contract to Alex McCarthy, still eating up a portion of our wages. We gave a new contract to Russell Martin. Despite, scraping promotion last season and not even starting the new season to see how he would fare. You can imagine the pay off is slightly in the owners mind in regards to sacking him. We went for quantity over quality in our signings again. 12 first team signings, without including the likes of Welington and the Goztepe and Valenciennes signings and the only ones who have improved their positions are Lallana at 36, Fernandes and Ramsdale. Taylor, Edwards, Wood, Brereton-Diaz and Fraser barely get a minute and Sugawara and I assume Archer from today are in and out of the eleven. That then brings us on to our two loan spots. The two loan spots that needed to be used smartly as they could have been used to get in some real quality to help us out. Instead we went for Ugochukwu and Cornet. Two more that barely ever play. Rubbish. They spend a lot of money on a lot of crap hoping to make a profit, while making a big song and dance about how having a football group can improve our scouting setup across the world. Last summer the sales of Lavia, Livramento, Tella and Ward-Prowse made up for the shitshow signings of that year and next summer Dibling, Fernandes, Ramsdale and Harwood-Bellis will earn us good money. But, this is an awful way to run a football club and so far SR have been given an easy ride by the fans.

Wolves got a dodgy penalty from VAR up there a few years back too. Think it was Moutinho, leaned into one of our players before going down and then got a penalty after a check. Seems to be a thing, even though they're the ones who think VAR has a vendetta against them.

We have no midfield, like every game Downes missed last season. Cunha had the freedom of the pitch as soon as he picked up the ball.

Tyler Dibling and Flynn Downes are on four. Adam Lallana, Jan Bednarek and Taylor Harwood-Bellis are all on three.

Also worth noting Michael Keane only got a yellow when he tactically brought down Archer, who looked to be running through at the time. Consistency.

I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I thought Everton were awful today and we controlled the ball much better. Of course in Russell Martin's way, but for the most part we also kept them at arms length. You worry about Calvert-Lewin before a game, think he'd be perfect for a Dyche team, but really he only had a good run of form under Ancelotti and he was rubbish today, did nothing. The goal came from what I was calling for earlier in the week. Break quickly when gaining the ball back and exploit the space left by the opposition, which Sugawara did. We're a team of passers, pick out players in good positions with those passes. I thought Armstrong was dreadful until his goal. Every time he tried to do anything other than pass sideways and backwards, he lost possession. Also shoutout for Manning, who when in a good position with plenty of space in the box, seemed to fall over the ball, allowed Everton to get back and ended up giving away a foul. Good players were Walker-Peters, again one of three players (Dibling and Fernandes the other two) in our team who can beat a man with the ball and bring a bit of excitement to the team. Bednarek, I thought he did very well today, the standout of the three centre-backs as he intercepted a load of attacks. Fernandes, quality again. Archer, I thought he was lazy earlier in the season, but his work rate up top today was very good and caused a couple of issues. Dibling, our best and most exciting player is an 18 year old. Caused loads of problems when he was allowed to run at the Everton defence. Ramsdale, well deserved clean sheet. I also bemoan Stephens starting every week, but I think we looked a fair bit more fragile when he went off. Anyway, hopefully this is the turning point of the season. Lets go on a 25 game unbeaten run now. Up the Saints.

It played out like a lot of last season. Good first half, poor second half, but grind out the win due to having better players. We were slightly fortunate to get promoted, although that play-off run was fantastic. However, nothing's being learnt. Football's not about being predictable and struggling to put any danger on the opposition because by the time we've got up the pitch, the opponent's half is congested and easily able to mark our players out of the game. The fact Cameron Archer only had six touches is telling. He brings nothing playing with his back to goal. He needs to be released quickly, like the two chances he got against Arsenal and Manchester City. He scored one of those, but really he isn't getting enough of those chances. We need to exploit space more. When we win the ball back (although we're also awful to watch without the ball) we need to take advantage of any gaps left by the opposition. I don't know why a football manager wouldn't want that.

Never want us to lose to get a manager sacked. But, tonight's win was anything but convincing and must be ringing alarm bells.

Never seen a player from a losing team get cramp.

I would've started Taylor over Bree and SAA over Fraser. I fear SAA might become another Meghoma if he continues to see minimal amount of minutes, especially in the cup against lower league competition and SAA has definitely shown in the past he has talent. Thought he should have cemented his place as a cup winger following his performance against Cardiff.

Proof is also in the pudding of what I've been saying all season. City have a 1-0 lead, does Pep Guardiola make five changes to completely disrupt his team. No, he makes two changes, Ilkay Gundogan in the 86th minute and John Stones in the 97th. The starting 11 that Guardiola picked were able to see out the victory and get the three points. This fixture was also between midweek fixtures for City. Please learn and copy this one Russell Martin.

Only finished 1-0 because City couldn't finish, otherwise another terrible 90 minutes. It's the pressing teams that attack with pace and get in our face when we play it around our own box that we struggle against, which is a lot of the rest of the league. City's low tempo allowed our defence to reset and setup at every attack, like we always allow, also.

City's defence has been poor for a while now, they've kept one clean sheet in the league this season. They can be broken through and that proved with Archer hitting the bar in the final moments. I'd like to think we'd switch up a bit in the second half, test them a bit more. But, I predict it will be another low tempo borefest. Nathan Jones worked out a way to beat City, which he then didn't apply to any other fixture, but Martin's going into every single game with the same tactical instructions.

https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/b-team-report-strong-saints-side-beat-boro Just a reminder that Sekou Mara bagged four and Theo Walcott scored a hat trick when they dropped into the Under-21s. So, how bad is Brereton-Diaz?

I think if we are going to persevere with Martin then best case scenario after that would be to get a coach with Premier League experience in. Like Eric Black. Sammy Lee would be good, but he has been out of the game for four years now since West Brom in 2020, so he probably isn't interested in working in the game anymore. Just someone who can pass on some more knowledge and help guide Martin, if we are stuck with him. Someone who could perhaps organise a defence too. Using Nathan Jones as an example, he was successful with Luton, but he also had Paul Hart and Mick Harford assisting him throughout. Two who weren't the greatest of managers, but two who have plenty of knowledge and could set him straight if he was going on one of his mad ones. We brought neither with him here.

Steve Cooper isn't allowed to be shown on TV pre-watershed.

Not to mention that he let the Leicester player remain on the pitch after receiving treatment, rather than the usual having to spend a period off the pitch after receiving treatment to stop time wasting. Then when Smallbone received treatment in the second half, he had to go off and we were playing with 9 men for a phase. But, yeah, today was crap. Ref was crap, substitutions were crap yet again, Archer and Fernandes didn't need to come off when they did and if Fernandes has to go off, bring on Lallana, VAR's crap. Crap, crap, crap.

Leicester were the only team to outclass us over 180 minutes last season. Hopefully it was a Maresca thing.

Norwich's legends are much better than ours.