CarolinaFox

Sadly we will never see a goal like that scored with Marti as our manager.

I get what you mean, but your metaphor doesn't really match what's happening. Is our squad unbalanced? Yes. Does it need an overhaul? Yes. But it's not a bowl of jelly either. There are far less talented squads in this league performing much better than us right now. A good manager with the right tactical identity, and man management skills would be able to get more from the squad we have. Doesn't mean that we don't a rebuild - we do, but we also need to be winning, and that takes priority. We need to find a solution to that problem first. A director of football can shape the long-term success of the club, but the club's immediate future depends on what's happening on the pitch - and the person with the most influence over that is the manager. So ask yourself: does it really make sense to believe a manager who has us 16th in the league, with just 6 wins from 18 games, will suddenly turn things around with 40% of the season already gone? Or is it more realistic to accept that Marti-ball only has one likely outcome — at best, staying in the Championship next season; at worst, relegation? And if you were in charge, what would you do about that?

A club that has sacked a manager isn't in the position to thumb through all of the best fit managers in world football and take its time. It has to make a calculated risk based on several factors: past performance, personality, availability, overall fit in terms of playing style, affordability, impact on PSR etc. But I do think we have to keep in mind that right now we are not appointing a manager for next season in the premier league. We are appointing a manager to get us back to basics, putting together a product on the field that plays with confidence, intensity, identity and passion week in and week out for 90 minutes a match. Using those criteria, is there a decent pick out there? We are talking "realistic" managerial replacements after all.

Who do you have in mind?

Have to be realistically monitoring Daniel Farke at Leeds. He has his limitations in the premier league but is a proven manager for the Championship. Marti has to go, we are sleep walking towards the relegation places with him in charge.

Shouldn’t have been down 2 nil in the first five minutes. So it’s not fair play to the lads, you don’t get a participation trophy for putting in effort in this league.

I don’t think he keeps his job much longer. With a points deduction and these results becoming the norm we are starting to drift too closely toward the bottom of the table. Again, Marti has no goodwill in the bank, this isn’t a dip in form it’s par for the course. We have been on life support all season. This will get worse if he stays.

But that's the thing for me, the first 10-15 minutes of the match, at home, should be us playing with real fire in our bellies and passion. Regardless of the two goals in the second half my mind is made up, Marti out.

Is it bad to want Sheffield to keep scoring so the board must act? Asking for a friend....

Its literally the same story line every game - start off behind, only option for scoring is going out wide. Expecting any difference is the definition of insanity. Keeping Marti after today would be literal madness.

Martin O'Neil once he's done with Celtic. Has them looking pretty decent.

The real question, sitting midtable in the league, is whether Marti has shown enough to justify keeping his job. I'm not expecting perfection, and yes the squad is weaker than last time we were in the Championship. But still, can we honestly say Marti has had a positive impact? I’m open to an honest discussion with any supporter who believes he still deserves backing, and I’d like to hear what evidence they see that supports his continuation. I think we've seen enough to say we need a change. I like Marti and was excited about his appointment and if I were seeing genuine improvements in the team’s identity, intensity, and overall performance I'd be inclined to give him more grace to keep going. But right now, the squad doesn’t look fit enough to press, nor is it set up or encouraged to play with the necessary intensity to win. We look lazy, unstructured, and one dimensional. The buck stops with Marti, when its not working he needs to be fixing it and it hasnt been working for weeks. He needs to go.

Very few managers will be looking at a squad 13th in the table with a points deduction looming as an exciting project. We are so far from being that type of club. Edward’s was an anomaly and left for sentimental reasons. So no it’s not the same.

We also need to start thinking in context of the points deduction. We are 13th on paper but with a 6 point deduction we are really 18th. The performances just Don’t support keeping Marti. We are constantly playing from a losing position early in matches. Negative football with no improvement week after week. Haven’t been confident about any of our performances. It’s not a question now of if he’s going to come good, we’ve had enough Marti ball to know how this ends it’s whether or not the board will be proactive and stop the rot before we are so far adrift that a mid table finish is the new season target.

People criticized Enzo for only having a Plan A, Marti has no plan. Again - its not the losing that gets me, its that we don't ever look like we are being set up by the manager to win. If we lost 1-1 in a tight match I'd be disappointed but understand that these things happen. I want to be proud of my club in terms of their performance on the pitch. These performances are embarrassing. 3-0 to Southampton with 1 shot on target. Really?? If that's the best he can do, we can manage without you Marti.

My biggest issue with Marti is that his teams play far too casually. He sets them up to keep the ball, but there’s no urgency or drive behind that possession. For a side that doesn’t score easily, this slow, carefree style leaves us looking flat and without the hunger to win. What we need instead is football played with intensity, identity, and control. We should use possession as a tool to control momentum, push the game at key moments, and create scoring chances. Possession only matters if it leads to goals and real control of the match. Without urgency, we’re just passing the ball around while the game slips away. I see a huge lack of intensity in this team in terms of mentality, and fitness and footballing identity. Those three things are down to Marti. He is either failing at accomplishing a successful football vision and identity based on what he said he wanted us to look like, or he has no clue what he's doing. And I think either are good cause to move on from the Marti experiment. Its a hard job managing this squad, they aren't going to win by just showing up, but we need someone who can talk the talk and walk the walk and produce a product on the pitch we are proud of. The questions is, are you proud of the performances you see? I'm not, even when we win it looks like a total fluke.

The questions is, will the board sack him after this game if the result is bad enough? I'd don't like to see us lose, but if we are gonna lose please let it be the end of the Cifuentes era. Cifuentes = RVN 2.0

Faes being found out on a counter...could have never predicted that would lead to a goal....its just too easy at this point for the teams playing us, they see him on the team sheet they must be grinning ear to ear.

Boring unimaginative selection again...look for Faes to give away an easy penalty or just fall down on a counter attack and let Stoke score. I don't see us scoring anything more than 1. Stoke 3, Leicester 1. We will be down most of the game until Marti wakes up to what's actually happening on the pitch and actually starts making rational choices when its to late. Gearing up for a frustrating watch. The question is will it be really ugly or only slightly ugly looking football?

We were 8 points off 18th. I guess the point is that Puel would be a better fit now than Marti. It is a hot take and not meant to be taken 100 percent with a straight face but in hindsight without Puel there’s a strong argument that we don’t win the FA Cup, or really reach the peak we were at in the years after. He brought in Tielemans, Maddison, Evan’s, Cags, Ricky P, integrated Barnes into the team and really improved Maguire into a better player. His Achilles was his lack of strong communication skills with the players and the supporters. Had Vardy liked him he would have been given a lot more slack, like Rodger’s. But he did a good job changing the squad and given the challenges we face now I don’t think it’s silly saying we need that type of squad overhauling skill set. Not exonerating his flaws or wishing him back just adding perspective,

Always liked Mads and think given the right set up he'd flourish. It's hard being a goalkeeper for team at the bottom of the premier league. Surely being treated like a scapegoat by Nuno. West Ham are relegation fodder anyway, it isn't like the the other players are helping him out. I'd have him back for sure if that was an option. Loan maybe until the end of the season?

Claude Puel would have us winning again….and was sacked because Vardy personally didn’t like him.

My biggest issue with Marti is his inability to find a system where we create opportunities to score. We are averaging around 1.2 goals a game. I disagree that all parts of this squad are better than our championship rivals. Our strikers are rancid. If we could score more goals our lack of defense wouldn’t matter. Think about Ipswich when they got promoted. They were defensively very poor but could score goals in spades. All we do is pass the ball with no end product. I know Marti needs help with new transfers but he literally run out of ideas. It’s the same game plan every match. If he starts Daka we need to be playing on the counter. If he plays Ayew it should be as a false 9 with Daka or Carranza. Either we get Marti the players he needs or find a manager who can change us to a team that can score with what we’ve got. Relying on Fatawu every game is so frustrating at this point.

Unfortunately I don't see any transfers being in the cards for us. Marti was probably told at the beginning of the season that he needed to deliver with the squad he had, now it seems our hopes are turning away from promotion to damage limitation and making a stronger effort next season. Instead of looking externally we need to look at our academy players as the hope for the future, it might not be this year, but giving those younger players with a higher ceiling a year to gel and build a team identity is better than what I'm currently watching. As it stands I don't see too many realistic pathways to promotion at this stage. The club are not going to go out and splash cash in January on players for a manager they may sack. And they will have hopefully learned a lesson that breaching PSR is an unending catch 22 that has to stop at some point. My overall thoughts are that this squad doesn't need a few additions, it needs a big shake up - its not like we've hit some dip in form and just need to discover winning ways. They haven't had any real form under Marti. If we aren't going to change the manager, we need to change the players. Without cash, the academy is really our only hope right now of getting the shake up we need. It wouldn't be pretty, but it might just be the thing our club needs to hit the reset button.

We've won 5 games, 2 of which were against the two teams at the bottom of the table. We shouldn't just be looking at one result, but the whole season so far: its been a massive disappointment. Too many draws, too few clean sheets, too few wins. I think the lack of clear and obvious replacement candidates makes his job more secure right now after a win, regardless of who it was against. We were still very poor in large spells against Norwich, had they been a better side they would have beaten us. The big take away is that the Marti experiment isn't working. Winning today didn't feel like it was a byproduct of an intentional tactical decision by Marti but dumb luck. We should be bossing a team like Norwich, creating chance after chance. We looked toothless as we have all season for most of the game.