Will Still

[goodymatt]

8 minutes ago, trousers said:

Agree that Martin should only take partial blame for the recruitment side of things but the one significant thing that you missed out, for which Martin shoulders full blame for, is sticking with a playing philosophy that was never going to work (in the Premier League) with such a mediocre squad. Not getting good enough players through the door is one thing, but then expecting them to play in a way that they weren't capable of (in the Premier League), a persisting with it regardless, was an even bigger faux pas, in my humble opinion.

Agree on the philosophy and stubbornness, I did make a similar point on the Martin thread. That is the reason we ended up battling Derby’s record. The recruitment is why we had no chance of survival. At Championship level though, it did work most of the time. The question is would it have worked again. Perhaps not after the season we have had and how that affects the players and fans belief in it.

[goodymatt]

32 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

I don't think anyone can really come to any conclusion yet, we know little about him.

I'd suggest that Still has more higher level experience, I know people class the french league as low, but he still has experience of managing against the likes of Mbappe, Veratti, Messi and the likes. He managed against, and with, a much higher calibre of player than Martin ever has in my opinion.

Rohl was probably my pick because of his experience at the level we're at, and also his experience at high profile clubs, but he was obviously umming and erring and we didn't really have time to piss around. Leicester don't have time either, but they seemingly are pissing around as they've still got a manager in place that they want to sack. 

Martin got lucky with promotion last time, we were no more than a playoff team under him which is pretty naff given the ability we had at this level - when compared to Ipswich. So, I wouldn't say that if he was in charge of us we'd be in a much stronger place. We'd probably get rid of him mid-season after we sit level with Swansea and 30 goals conceded mid-season.

I'm intrigued to see what Still can bring. We'll know the answer this time next year I guess, but I don't think we should ever look back on regret hoping that we'd kept Martin.

Agree that it is very hard to assess. Will Still could in theory completely flop but I think that’s unlikely. Automatic promotion should be the target and that is going to be a big ask. Like Martin experienced there is going to be a lot of change and I’m sure there will be bumps in the road.

Rohl has 18m experience managing in the championship but no experience of fighting for promotion (neither did Martin as a manager until us). Keeping Wednesday up was a fantastic achievement the year we got promoted but there’s a similar risk feeling around him for me. He’s been in a circus with that club but he has showed his real personality towards the end of last season.

The other thing on Will Still is he doesn’t seem to hang around anywhere long, so building for medium to long term with him seems unlikely. The same would have been said about Rohl. Still has managed at a higher level and that is most encouraging.

On whether Martin was lucky to get promoted, I think we finished 4th but we were expected to finish 3rd and got promoted anyway. I think you need over 90 most seasons for autos, that number is rising more due to yo-yo-ing of the same clubs. But finishing above Leicester and Leeds wasn’t really expected so it was always most likely going to be playoffs. He beat Leeds all 3 times we played them and got us up, I wouldn’t say that was all luck. He delivered on the target and in the main it was an entertaining ride. Sadly the same cannot be said for the PL experience that followed.

[Doctoroncall]

Martin did the job in the championship, he turned things around and perhaps games were coming too fast but I think he relied on the quality of the players to win games when things were not going well tactically. 
 

He managed the playoffs really well. 
 

Still comes across better able to manage a game and players in all aspects. 

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

5 minutes ago, goodymatt said:

The other thing on Will Still is he doesn’t seem to hang around anywhere long, so building for medium to long term with him seems unlikely. The same would have been said about Rohl.

 

6 minutes ago, goodymatt said:

He delivered on the target and in the main it was an entertaining ride

In an ideal world, we want a manager who gets us promoted and then stays with us and helps us build a competitive premier league team. These types of managers are rare, though I just get the feeling that Still is more of a longer term prospect than Rohl.

The target has to be automatic promotion. Given just one of our £20m players costs more than some of the championship club's entire squads, we should be right in the mix. I like Still's talk. He seems to favour an aggressive, adaptive style and I am looking forward to the forthcoming season. Two years ago, it was different. Yes, the ride was entertaining but mainly because there was the Wembley experience and the West Brom games. Martin got lucky and his style was particularly dire. I remember going to Blackburn & Huddersfield and seeing such negative tactics and thinking what's going on, we should be beating these teams 4/5-0?

 

[goodymatt]

23 minutes ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

 

In an ideal world, we want a manager who gets us promoted and then stays with us and helps us build a competitive premier league team. These types of managers are rare, though I just get the feeling that Still is more of a longer term prospect than Rohl.

The target has to be automatic promotion. Given just one of our £20m players costs more than some of the championship club's entire squads, we should be right in the mix. I like Still's talk. He seems to favour an aggressive, adaptive style and I am looking forward to the forthcoming season. Two years ago, it was different. Yes, the ride was entertaining but mainly because there was the Wembley experience and the West Brom games. Martin got lucky and his style was particularly dire. I remember going to Blackburn & Huddersfield and seeing such negative tactics and thinking what's going on, we should be beating these teams 4/5-0?

 

The ideal is that Will Still does get us promoted at the first attempt and then builds with us. More likely to be poached if we go up and don’t survive again but let’s hope he is invested in the project for longer than a season or two, assuming he lives up to the hype.

I’m still not buying Martin just got lucky. We made playoffs as expected and didn’t lose to a single side in those playoff places all season. It was a deserved promotion in the end, playoffs were managed very well. Beating Leeds 3 times that season was impressive.

I do agree that when the style wasn’t working it was a bad watch, Blackburn in particular was a terrible performance (I was also there), but the results the previous game week did leave players and fans believing autos was gone and the performance on the pitch reflected that, as unprofessional as that is/was.

Edited yesterday at 09:35 by goodymatt

[Mr X]

44 minutes ago, goodymatt said:

The ideal is that Will Still does get us promoted at the first attempt and then builds with us. More likely to be poached if we go up and don’t survive again but let’s hope he is invested in the project for longer than a season or two, assuming he lives up to the hype.

I’m still not buying Martin just got lucky. We made playoffs as expected and didn’t lose to a single side in those playoff places all season. It was a deserved promotion in the end, playoffs were managed very well. Beating Leeds 3 times that season was impressive.

I do agree that when the style wasn’t working it was a bad watch, Blackburn in particular was a terrible performance (I was also there), but the results the previous game week did leave players and fans believing autos was gone and the performance on the pitch reflected that, as unprofessional as that is/was.

In hindsight we should have maybe stuck with him as juric appointment was absolutely pointless by that point not sure what juric was all about or why! Martin was definitely in a rut though what was it one point in 15 games? I think it was his insistance on not even trying a plan B when plan A was clearly failing. It was good when it worked but his style sucks the life out of how the game should be played, risky passes for possessions sake and not much more

[Saint Fan CaM]

1 hour ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

 

In an ideal world, we want a manager who gets us promoted and then stays with us and helps us build a competitive premier league team. These types of managers are rare, though I just get the feeling that Still is more of a longer term prospect than Rohl.

The target has to be automatic promotion. Given just one of our £20m players costs more than some of the championship club's entire squads, we should be right in the mix. I like Still's talk. He seems to favour an aggressive, adaptive style and I am looking forward to the forthcoming season. Two years ago, it was different. Yes, the ride was entertaining but mainly because there was the Wembley experience and the West Brom games. Martin got lucky and his style was particularly dire. I remember going to Blackburn & Huddersfield and seeing such negative tactics and thinking what's going on, we should be beating these teams 4/5-0?

 

See that’s a problem - cost is not necessarily the same as value. A £20m player can be priced as such because of a number of factors. And there are times when we’ve arguably had our pants pulled down in terms of player cost - e.g. Sulemana @ circa £20m. Then if the main positive attributes of said player do not match the job he’s required to execute then value is diminished and if that is duplicated across various areas, team cohesion is shot.

I bet we’ll see Championship clubs with a much lower priced squad, but holistically fitness is at a peak and the players are invested in the manager whose system suits that key attribute of the team. We will lose at least once to a ‘lower priced’ team like this and be left blaming various factors like ‘crisp packet hands’ etc, but VALUE will largely get forgotten. It would be interesting to make a cost versus value comparison for each of our players from this last season - take Dibling, allegedly would cost a suitor £100m, however Saints fans might agree that realistically we might achieve a maximum £50m and yet his value has been more akin to £5m this season in terms of useful return.

In short this is why it is imperative for sentimentality to be given a back seat in this window and unsuitable/unstable/unworthy players shown the door pronto (or put out to garden leave). It’s potentially going to be a tougher season than many on here will be expecting IMHO, especially if Still/Spors do not act carefully in the window.

[Sevvy]

Problem is Will could have a team which wins the Championship at a canter, then we are promoted to the Premier league, then all the big teams come in and buy our players and we are back to square one.

Edited 22 hours ago by Sevvy

[Saint Fan CaM]

1 minute ago, Sevvy said:

Problem is Will could have a team which wins the Championship at a canter, then we are promoted to the Premier league, then all the big teams come in and buy our players and we are back to square one.

Standard, but the least of our problems right now mate.

[sockeye]

10 minutes ago, Sevvy said:

Problem is Will could have a team which wins the Championship at a canter, then we are promoted to the Premier league, then all the big teams come in and buy our players and we are back to square one.

Happens to everyone in the PL, see Wolves, Brentford, Bournemouth this window. That’s why you have to be on your a game with transfers every summer

[CB Fry]

37 minutes ago, Sevvy said:

Problem is Will could have a team which wins the Championship at a canter, then we are promoted to the Premier league, then all the big teams come in and buy our players and we are back to square one.

Tell you what, let's win the Championship at a canter and worry about the rest of it later.

[goodymatt]

 

[sockeye]

17 minutes ago, goodymatt said:

 

Hope West Ham go down this year. Nothing personal, but if we go up and Potter does poorly then they may look at poaching Still. It wouldn't be much of a move for him and he's a West Ham fan himself supposedly...

[BERMUDASAINT]

33 minutes ago, goodymatt said:

 

 

From the article i got a bad chill:

-In control of games, expects us to end up with a rigid horseshoe approach, with lots of control.

Are you RUSSEL MARTIN in disguise? 

[BarberSaint]

I would rather have WS and think he'll go farther and do better.  Either that or I'll be calling him names when bored at SMS.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

1 hour ago, BarberSaint said:

I would rather have WS and think he'll go farther and do better.  Either that or I'll be calling him names when bored at SMS.

Better than organising a Bring A Horseshoe Day, to celebrate that about them. That would end badly. 🙂