HarvSFC

Aston Villa have kept two clean sheets in the league this season. You just have to actually get shots in against them.

What an ambitionless shadow of a club we have become. If Bournemouth, Brighton, Brentford can do it, then we can. But, we're so below standard in multiple areas.

He still has a few defenders on Twitter, far more than on here, who you would believe support Martin over the club. Their argument is that he'll be good for us next season in the Championship... We've played two Championship clubs this season, conceded 5 and needed two Bree wonder goals to get through them. They weren't automatic promotion sides Leeds or Sheffield United either, they were 21st placed Cardiff and 15th placed Stoke. We're going to have a weaker squad next season... Oh, and we finished 4th in a three horse race last season. Coming back up isn't a formality, look at Luton, who have stuck with Edwards and the same thing happened to us with Redknapp in 05-06.

Lurch in goal. We know he's got a number of weaknesses, getting down to shots and distribution. Issue is, will we actually test the goalkeeper, or press him when he's on the ball? Tottenham also leave a lot of space when they all move forward. Will we exploit that, or allow them to get back into position as our centre-backs and goalkeepers pass between themselves before giving Son the ball.

Arsenal have 71% possession, Fulham pick up the ball, send Raul Jimenez through, scores, 1-0. Criminal in the eyes of Russell Martin, but actually quite effective.

Can't be a majority owner of two clubs in the same European competition. Why Bloom had to sell shares at Union Saint-Gilloise. Ankersen's repeatedly said that Goztepe are the number one club for SR. He's heavily involved there, being their president. I said in the summer that it was weird that we didn't have anyone from SR at the fans forum, only their employees, so we don't actually know what their goal is. However, this season is giving a feeling that we're not a priority. We're the money club of the model. We're the one that will bring in the most due to the Premier League and so far we've been used to sign three players for Goztepe, plus that one who went there in the Alcaraz deal, who we don't own. While, it looks like Goztepe are the club who they can make a success in football. It takes far fewer resources to be successful in Turkey than it does in England. I'm sure Goztepe also sacked their manager last season despite being in the promotion places, while we can't shake one of the worst manager's in Premier League history And, on the topic of Ankersen, he said this a couple of weeks back: "I also think it is important to have a style of play that the fans and the community behind the club like. I think Göztepe fans like this type of football. They like action. I think they don't want to watch a classical music concert every week, they want to go to a rock'n'roll concert. And we offer them rock'n'roll at the stadium." Well, your other club, Southampton fans do not like the style of play being served up every week. It's shite.

0 shots on target, just like against Wolves, despite all the possession. No excuses for that. He's got to go.

It's very strange. No forward planning was made regarding Martin's appointment last season. There needs to be a level of context to understand what tactical setup would be best suited to a club of our size. Just to let Ankersen know, it isn't total football. We're never going to be able to outplay Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, even Bournemouth these days. Because, we don't have the resources to do so and therefore aren't able to attract the level of player needed to outplay a De Bruyne in the centre of the pitch. But, what we could have done is outworked a lot of teams with pressing tactics. On occasion hard work beats talent, but at the moment we're trying to play a talented style against teams with greater talent than us and that's why we're losing every week. Although I was bored of this style last season. We got fortunate on a few occasions against much weaker squads with late goals. Watching Bournemouth is also quite annoying. They made a left field appointment, that was criticised by many when they replaced a successful manager at the time in O'Neil with a relatively unknown Iraola at the time. However, the people who are paid to make the decisions at Bournemouth clearly did their homework, they didn't just settle for staying in the Premier League, although Martin Semmens would say they should feel fortunate just to be up here. No, they wanted to go higher and now they're sitting in 9th after beating Tottenham. It's a very comparable situation to when we replaced Adkins with Pochettino and there are hundreds of managers out there who are better than Martin. Who, exactly, I don't know, but I'm not paid to know. But, Sports Republic just appoint managers from Luton and Swansea. Recruit players who won't ask for too much in wages (barring Ramsdale) and accept that we're relegated, when no other Premier League club would accept so. A lot of the Martin defenders keep pointing to next season being better also. We'll likely be up against Ipswich again, a possibly established club in Wolves or Palace, or Leicester again and then going up to the Championship is potentially the bankrolled Wrexham and Birmingham. Oh, and we won't have Walker-Peters, Harwood-Bellis, Stuart Armstrong, or Adams next season either and with those players Martin was only able to achieve 4th place. So, who knows where he would finish with a weaker 11.

I agree. Our work off the ball is also horrendous, it isn't just on the ball where we're making mistakes. For whatever reason we don't put pressure on players on the ball, giving them a lot of time and space, which you can't do at Premier League level as they can all pick out a pass. Alongside this, when opposition players run forward, we either go for a tactical shirt pull, resulting in a yellow, hence the disciplinary issues, or our defence will just back off and back off until the opposition finds themself in our box and with a shooting opportunity. Examples of this from last night (purely off the highlights) were when Palmer hit the post. Joao Felix had all the time in the world to pick Palmer out. Madueke's goal. Manning just kept back off him, scared to go near him, give him distance, he shoots, he scores. Felix's big miss in the second half, Palmer received the ball in our box, goes wide, has two Saints shirts marking space around him, but not threatening to go near him and he's then able to pick out an unmarked Felix in a good position. Sancho's last goal, slightly harsh, but again Wood doesn't make any movement towards the player, or the ball, giving Sancho time and space in our own box. Has to be tactical instructions also, as Martin's never had a good goals against record in his managerial career. Can't believe he was a defender during his playing days.

I think any player who picks up two red cards in the same season should be banned from professional football for life. And so should their manager and club owner for paying their wages.

Indeed. Two of the top five passers in the league are Bednarek and Harwood-Bellis... And they haven't played every week this season. All the football is being played in our half of the pitch. Most teams in the league play out from the back now, Chelsea did tonight. But, you don't see teams giving away the goals that we do. It would be a hell of a lot better if the footballers were in the middle of the pitch, rather than our last line of defence. This isn't a Kompany/Maresca situation either, which I think the board are clinging to. Yes, they were both known for playing attractive football. But, they also got their big jobs from walking the Championship with both Burnley and Leicester. Martin had a good Championship side, and he took it to fourth with a relegation battling goals against tally. The fans turned for the first time tonight, anyway. Wasn't quite a Jones situation, but the sounds of "you're getting sacked in the morning" will have been noticed. Whether we actually do something for a change will be another story.

Shame that Guardiola coached out the fun and spontaneity of Grealish's game. If Dibling makes it to that level, the same could happen to him.

Maresca's Leicester side schooled us for 180 minutes last season and he seems to have got Chelsea in their groove now too. Ah well, we can all but hope.

The transfer window closed.

Terminate the loans of Ugochukwu and Cornet in January and get some actual loans that benefit the starting eleven. Probably easier to agree a termination with Chelsea, as they should be wanting him to get more minutes than what he has been. West Ham probably just grateful to have Cornet off the wage bill, and like with Holgate last January will need another club to come in for him for any movement. Evan Ferguson's available, apparently.

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.