Russell Martin

[rooney]

If RM had the likes of Rickie Lambert and Antii Niemi types in the team, he would have walked this league.

[coalman]

10 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

I'd be very interested to see a poll of fans on here, on whether we should sack Russell Martin - I don't think we should, personally I think he's doing a good job - but there is a very vocal number of supporters on here that seem to think he should. @Lighthousecan we make it happen? 

Easy enough to create a poll

 

[Sheaf Saint]

So, Russ... Care to explain why you decided to bring on Mara to play on the wing last night when you still had Edozie and Kamaldeen on the bench?

[coalman]

6 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

So, Russ... Care to explain why you decided to bring on Mara to play on the wing last night when you still had Edozie and Kamaldeen on the bench?

With Adams one arse cheek away from his perfect hat-trick it would've wrong to do a straight swap. It's clear he doesn't like Edozie and Sulemana. Rothwell needs to get minutes for some reason. So clearly he needed to square peg it.

[Sheaf Saint]

2 minutes ago, coalman said:

With Adams one arse cheek away from his perfect hat-trick it would've wrong to do a straight swap. It's clear he doesn't like Edozie and Sulemana. Rothwell needs to get minutes for some reason. So clearly he needed to square peg it.

Probably because of their tendency to actually try and run at defenders, which isn't good for the possession stats.

[AlexLaw76]

Edozie has looked decent for parts of this season.

[Toussaint]

29 minutes ago, rooney said:

If RM had the likes of Rickie Lambert and Antii Niemi types in the team, he would have walked this league.

He is "walking" it now, although with limited success.

[Sheaf Saint]

3 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Edozie has looked decent for parts of this season.

Yeah, agreed. He was in good form before he got injured at Norwich on NYD.

Quite why he's been completely frozen out again is beyond me.

[coalman]

2 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Edozie has looked decent for parts of this season.

He really has. Always had that ability to beat his man for fun but he's added end product. During our run teams were double teaming him which left space for other players. Then Fraser could come on when the full back was knackered and tear them apart with his directness.

Don't get why we brought in Brooks. Or Rothwell for that matter. Dibling was getting minutes and looking like the real deal.

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, coalman said:

He really has. Always had that ability to beat his man for fun but he's added end product. During our run teams were double teaming him which left space for other players. Then Fraser could come on when the full back was knackered and tear them apart with his directness.

Don't get why we brought in Brooks. Or Rothwell for that matter. Dibling was getting minutes and looking like the real deal.

Agreed. I would say it was one of the areas of the pitch where we least needed an upgrade. Rothwell in particular is a bizarre loan signing that we simply didn't require. What we badly needed in January was an alternative to Adams. 

[coalman]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

Agreed. I would say it was one of the areas of the pitch where we least needed an upgrade. Rothwell in particular is a bizarre loan signing that we simply didn't require. What we badly needed in January was an alternative to Adams. 

January, last August, the January before, the August before etc etc 😉

[woodsaint1]

9 hours ago, trousers said:

We find ourselves adrift of 3 teams that haven't had a similar unbeaten run so, yep, I totally agree with you... it was indeed a massive contributor to the position we find ourselves in... 

Yep being 9/10 points adrift has absolutely nothing to do with the poor defeats against Milwall, Hull, Bristol City and Ipswich, or the run of 4 defeats in September where we left ourselves in a massive hole. Its all because of that massive red herring that was our 22 game unbeaten run in the league 🤯

[saints-til-i-die]

Martin does make some baffling decisions. Mara on the wing? He looked dreadful. He just strolled around. At one point he tried to counter attack by walking. He offered Bree no real protection. Bizarre.
How surprising we won with no inverted full backs (trying to turn Stephens into Stones). Who’d have thought a proper back line with proper full backs would work? 

[hypochondriac]

10 minutes ago, coalman said:

January, last August, the January before, the August before etc etc 😉

We obviously believed that spending the money required wouldn't make sense given the outlay on Stewart. We still could have got a signing in. Someone like Kieffer Moore would have done but Martin would no doubt have turned his nose up. 

[Turkish]

24 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

We obviously believed that spending the money required wouldn't make sense given the outlay on Stewart. We still could have got a signing in. Someone like Kieffer Moore would have done but Martin would no doubt have turned his nose up. 

Instead we signed two players to fix problems that didn’t exist, ignoring the ones that do

I Was happy when we signed Brooks but he was a completely unnecessary signing hasn’t had the impact we hoped (yet)

Edited April 10 by Turkish

[Lee On Solent Saint]

5 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Instead we signed two players to fix problems that didn’t exist, ignoring the ones that do

I Was happy when we signed Brooks but he was a completely unnecessary signing hasn’t had the impact we hoped (yet)

He's had flashes and moments in games, but too often he drifts out of games. He should be tearing up this league with the quality he has. He was disappointing yesterday. 

[Dman]

47 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

We obviously believed that spending the money required wouldn't make sense given the outlay on Stewart. We still could have got a signing in. Someone like Kieffer Moore would have done but Martin would no doubt have turned his nose up. 

I think we'd be in the top 2 by now if we'd signed Moore. Brilliant championship player. 

[Turkish]

28 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

He's had flashes and moments in games, but too often he drifts out of games. He should be tearing up this league with the quality he has. He was disappointing yesterday. 

hes a very good player but not settled for us yet. It seems to have unsettled the team, i really thought he might be the one who would be the extra bit of quality we need to turn draws into wins or unlock tight games but he hasn't really delivered that at all. Rothwell was a strange signing anyway, although he's scored some important goals the rest of his contribution has been limited. We'd have been far better off bringing in a striker and some cover in midfield or full back.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

5 minutes ago, Turkish said:

hes a very good player but not settled for us yet. It seems to have unsettled the team, i really thought he might be the one who would be the extra bit of quality we need to turn draws into wins or unlock tight games but he hasn't really delivered that at all. Rothwell was a strange signing anyway, although he's scored some important goals the rest of his contribution has been limited. We'd have been far better off bringing in a striker and some cover in midfield or full back.

Rothwell was a particularly strange signing, not had an impact really, as you say. We would have been better off keeping Charley here to be honest. 

[trousers]

1 hour ago, woodsaint1 said:

Yep being 9/10 points adrift has absolutely nothing to do with the poor defeats against Milwall, Hull, Bristol City and Ipswich, or the run of 4 defeats in September where we left ourselves in a massive hole. Its all because of that massive red herring that was our 22 game unbeaten run in the league 🤯

Where did I say the contentment with draws in order to preserve the unbeaten run was the *only* contributing factor to our current position....? 

(btw, we've actually lost less games than the current league leaders.... go figure.... )

Edited April 10 by trousers

[The Curse of St Mary's]

33 minutes ago, Dman said:

I think we'd be in the top 2 by now if we'd signed Moore. Brilliant championship player. 

Obviously the intention was for Ross Stewart to spearhead the frontline and I have no doubt a fit Ross Stewart would have banged in the goals and we'd probably be further up the table because of it.  January was the opportunity to bring a striker in knowing RS was out and Che won't be signing a new contract but we decided to bloat the midfield / wide areas instead. Mara should have been the fall guy and a new striker to come in and make a meaningful contribution but for whatever reason RM and Wilcox/SR didn't agree which will come back to haunt them I suspect. I'm not sure playoffs will suit us. Can these players handle the big moments in both boxes? Man for man we should win the playoffs especially if it's Ipswich that drop into it alongside Norwich and WBA. Teams finishing 3rd or 4th have predominantly gone on to win promotion in recent times. 

[trousers]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

We obviously believed that spending the money required wouldn't make sense given the outlay on Stewart. We still could have got a signing in. Someone like Kieffer Moore would have done but Martin would no doubt have turned his nose up. 

 

50 minutes ago, Dman said:

I think we'd be in the top 2 by now if we'd signed Moore. Brilliant championship player. 

 

3 minutes ago, The Curse of St Mary's said:

Obviously the intention was for Ross Stewart to spearhead the frontline and I have no doubt a fit Ross Stewart would have banged in the goals and we'd probably be further up the table because of it.  

 

We've scored 1 less than current league leaders Leicester and 2 more than 2nd placed Leeds... so maybe our apparent lack of firepower isn't the main factor as to why we're adrift of auto promotion? #devilsadvocate

[sfc4prem]

10 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

 

 

We've scored 1 less than current league leaders Leicester and 2 more than 2nd placed Leeds... so maybe our apparent lack of firepower isn't the main factor as to why we're adrift of auto promotion? #devilsadvocate

I'd wager its the concentration of our defence and our conceding of goals that could perhaps be saved.

[Midfield_General]

2 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Yeah, agreed. He was in good form before he got injured at Norwich on NYD.

Quite why he's been completely frozen out again is beyond me.

Not sure it's fair to say he's been completely frozen out - he played against Blackburn on Saturday 

[coalman]

20 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

 

 

We've scored 1 less than current league leaders Leicester and 2 more than 2nd placed Leeds... so maybe our apparent lack of firepower isn't the main factor as to why we're adrift of auto promotion? #devilsadvocate

It's certainly not the only factor. We haven't put our chances away which has cost us points. We've also conceded soft goals and invited players into tons of space.

[hypochondriac]

59 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

 

 

We've scored 1 less than current league leaders Leicester and 2 more than 2nd placed Leeds... so maybe our apparent lack of firepower isn't the main factor as to why we're adrift of auto promotion? #devilsadvocate

I'd say that our style of play means that we will concede and one of our main issues is that we aren't clinical given the amount of chances we appear to squander and we don't have a killer instinct to kill off teams when we are on top. We either change our style of play to concede less or we become more clinical and outscore teams so that conceding a couple doesn't matter. 

Edited April 10 by hypochondriac

[Lord Duckhunter]

23 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Comparing Martin to Selles is a particularly snidey comparison.

He was a glorified caretaker for a club that was doomed by the time he had to step up.

Martin was specifically appointed to get us promoted this season.

He wasn't recruited to be a bit better than Ruben Selles.

The interesting thing is when you are comparing Martin’s time in league one, to Selles’ so far, it’s not particularly great for Martin. 

 In his first full season, (and  with the benefit of half the previous season to settle in) Russball had 18 wins & 11 draws. Selles in his first season (without the benefit of half the previous season) has 15 wins & 10 draws with 3 to play. In conceivable that by the end of the season Selles will have a couple of wins less than him & be around the same mid table position, with an absolute basket case of a club, probably the worst run club in the FL. 
 

And no, I don’t want Selles back to manage us, but martins record at the levels he managed at is on par or if not worse, than Jones & Selles. It just shows how fucking  average he has been in his career so far.
 

Let’s hope he has a “higher ceiling” than jones or Selles had, but people comparing him to those 2 aren’t shining the favourable light on him they think they are. 

[Galway saint]

3 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

I'd say that our style of play means that we will concede and one of our main issues is that we aren't clinical given the amount of chances we appear to squander and we don't have a killer instinct to kill off teams when we are on top. We either change our style of play to concede less or we become more clinical and outscore teams so that conceding a couple doesn't matter. 

or we just get a decent keeper - that wouldn’t solve it but it would make a big difference 

[bugenhagen]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

The interesting thing is when you are comparing Martin’s time in league one, to Selles’ so far, it’s not particularly great for Martin. 

 In his first full season, (and  with the benefit of half the previous season to settle in) Russball had 18 wins & 11 draws. Selles in his first season (without the benefit of half the previous season) has 15 wins & 10 draws with 3 to play. In conceivable that by the end of the season Selles will have a couple of wins less than him & be around the same mid table position, with an absolute basket case of a club, probably the worst run club in the FL. 
 

And no, I don’t want Selles back to manage us, but martins record at the levels he managed at is on par or if not worse, than Jones & Selles. It just shows how fucking  average he has been in his career so far.
 

Let’s hope he has a “higher ceiling” than jones or Selles had, but people comparing him to those 2 aren’t shining the favourable light on him they think they are. 

That is not interesting... like comparing Strachans time at Celtic with Koemans time at Everton? To decide who did a better job at Saints?

 

 

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

What does RM say in his half time team talks? I reckon it goes along the lines of: "The game's won lads, just walk around for the next 45 minutes!" Seriously, how many times have we bossed the first half then started to fold in the second? Could say we even got lucky today.

And I used to like his substitutions. His most recent one have been quite baffling.

 

[Saint86]

11 minutes ago, bugenhagen said:

That is not interesting... like comparing Strachans time at Celtic with Koemans time at Everton? To decide who did a better job at Saints?

 

 

Uh huh... right... and how did Koeman's Everton get on in the SPL? 😉

Selles' record at Reading is of note in comparing to Martin's - particularly as they have somewhat similar possession orientated styles. Similarly, Jones' record at Luton in the championship is relevant when comparing to how Martin has performed at Swansea and Saints - albeit with an allowance for their very differing styles 🤷‍♀️.

Edited April 10 by Saint86

[bugenhagen]

3 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

Uh huh... right... and how did Koeman's Everton get on in the SPL? 😉

Selles' record at Reading is of note in comparing to Martin's - particularly as they have somewhat similar possession orientated styles. Similarly, Jones' record at Luton in the championship is relevant when comparing to how Martin has performed at Swansea and Saints - albeit with an allowance for their very differing styles 🤷‍♀️.

Hehe, yeah, exactly - I just think there are to many different variables either way to make anything reasonable out of it... unless you have an agenda, and need something to try and make a point 😉

I guess I am more interested in what managers are doing while at Saints. Martin vs Selles in L1 tells me little about how Martin is doing right now, if we can win the play offs or not...

[Fabrice29]

7 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

So, Russ... Care to explain why you decided to bring on Mara to play on the wing last night when you still had Edozie and Kamaldeen on the bench?

I thought it was obvious this was to deal with the set pieces/physical threat they were having without messing up the set up? 

[Sheaf Saint]

17 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

I thought it was obvious this was to deal with the set pieces/physical threat they were having without messing up the set up? 

Well it clearly did mess up the set up, because we effectively finished the game without a winger and no protection in front of Bree.

And while I do think Mara has some good traits, physical strength is definitely not one of them.

[hypochondriac]

2 hours ago, Galway saint said:

or we just get a decent keeper - that wouldn’t solve it but it would make a big difference 

Absolutely. That's another issue of course. We could probably bring in the Rotherham keeper on much cheaper wages this summer and immediately improve things. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 hour ago, bugenhagen said:

That is not interesting... like comparing Strachans time at Celtic with Koemans time at Everton? To decide who did a better job at Saints?

 

 

Yeah, comparing 2 managers records in league 1 is exactly the same as comparing records in the Scottish premier league & the English premier league. 
 

 

[Galway saint]

50 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Absolutely. That's another issue of course. We could probably bring in the Rotherham keeper on much cheaper wages this summer and immediately improve things. 

I read he would be an available for £5-6Million but could be bollocks - seems about right though for a championship keeper 

 

 

 

[hypochondriac]

4 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

I read he would be an available for £5-6Million but could be bollocks - seems about right though for a championship keeper 

 

 

 

He would be league one. I bet they wouldn't turn down 3.

[S-Clarke]

6 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

I read he would be an available for £5-6Million but could be bollocks - seems about right though for a championship keeper 

 

 

 

They're in a bit of Financial trouble, there's no way they'd reject a bid in the 2-3m ballpark IMO. They'll sell anyone who moves in the summer.

[Galway saint]

1 minute ago, S-Clarke said:

They're in a bit of Financial trouble, there's no way they'd reject a bid in the 2-3m ballpark IMO. They'll sell anyone who moves in the summer.

might be a few interested but you would have thought £5million would do it 

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

Absolutely. That's another issue of course. We could probably bring in the Rotherham keeper on much cheaper wages this summer and immediately improve things. 

Is this the one who has conceded 82 goals so far and has already been relegated?

[AlexLaw76]

14 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Is this the one who has conceded 82 goals so far and has already been relegated?

Yes, him

[hypochondriac]

13 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Is this the one who has conceded 82 goals so far and has already been relegated?

Yes it's the one with a bunch of league one players ahead of him. Football is a team game. 

[Dusic]

Its almost as if when clubs hire managers and sign players they analyse the context of the manager/players performance and the methods used/reasons for it rather than simply expecting them to do exactly the same as previous in totally different circumstances. 

Edited April 10 by Dusic

[Whitey Grandad]

48 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Yes it's the one with a bunch of league one players ahead of him. Football is a team game. 

Exactly!

[Midfield_General]

1 hour ago, S-Clarke said:

They're in a bit of Financial trouble, there's no way they'd reject a bid in the 2-3m ballpark IMO. They'll sell anyone who moves in the summer.

Is he any good with his feet? Genuine question as I haven't seen much of Rotherham this year. Given his unwavering commitment to playing out, Martin would obviously only ever countenance playing a keeper who can receive, control and pass the ball well under pressure. Which for all his many, many other faults, Baz is pretty good at. 

Edited April 10 by Midfield_General

[Galway saint]

31 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Exactly!

You can be a good keeper in a shit team 

You can be a bad keeper in a good team 

Baz is the latter 

The lad at rotherham is the former 

We all want saints to be a better team so let’s get a new and better keeper

 

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

What’s his passing stats? 

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Exactly!

Yes so the fact they have been relegated doesn't make him a bad keeper. 

[Chez]

11 hours ago, Turkish said:

hes a very good player but not settled for us yet. It seems to have unsettled the team, i really thought he might be the one who would be the extra bit of quality we need to turn draws into wins or unlock tight games but he hasn't really delivered that at all. 

He's like almost all wingers. Some days they look amazing, others they disappear. Not sure I agree about him not delivering at all. He showed his quality with the lovely first touch and shot to get the winner at WBA (or is turning a 1-0 lead into a 2-0 win outside your parameters?). He made it look easy, but I doubt anyone else scores that goal for us. No one else is scoring that goal at Birmingham either.  

I think we are seeing why Bournemouth allowed him to go out on loan. He offers Prem level quality at times, but there is a lack of consistency. Also, he is a luxury player, a liability defensively. That said, I'm glad we brought him here and think he will be the guy that come off the bench and scores the winner in the play offs.