DJ Barry Hammond

Really? Bring a young player in, maybe he gets a morning training session at most, and then here you go; play against this Premier League attack. I just don’t see it myself.

This is more like us!

I’m more tempted with his teammate in this game, the striker dubbed the Icelandic Ahmed Musa 😉

Why are they trying to play out like that on such a water logged pitch? Are they managed by Russlarø Märtinzinski?

Our first signing that isn’t a first 😉

He’s not finished, he’s only 19.

That’s actually the wrong tactic and Burton showed us that yesterday. They didn’t overly press, they just sat off and maintained shape, conceding the ball to our players that couldn’t hurt them. Of course they pressed when a good opportunity to do so presented itself. But by and large, they just stayed disciplined, stopped passing lines into central midfield and waited for us to turnover the ball from a poor pass before springing counterattacks in the spaces we left behind. It felt like Burton didn’t even have to work that hard physically yesterday.

Done some stat digging. I make it that Martin has managed just 9 wins since the start of 2024/5 season, with a lot of those wins coming in cup games. That’s a record of; • Southampton - 3 wins out of 19 games (vs Cardiff, Stoke & Everton*) • Rangers - 5 wins out of 17 (vs Panathinaikos, Viktoria Plzen, Alloa, Hibernian, Livingston*) • Leicester City - 1 win out of 3 (vs Northampton That’s 9 wins out of 39 games. The sides marked with a * represent a league win; so across this period there has been only 2 league wins (from 24 league fixtures). That’s right - just 2 league wins since 17 August 2024!

A further highlight of the big issue Martin. He does have solutions to the problems he’s seeing on the pitch; but he’s failing to properly identify why they’re happening and how to correct them.

The growing issue for me is it appears Martin doesn’t even understand how his preferred formation / play style works! You look at the signings that look like he’s had a big influence in; McCarthy, Cullen, Chaplin - they don’t really make much sense in terms of fitting into what he wants to do. You can also look at his team selections - it’s quite clear that neither Skipp or Cullen suit the roles he’s asking them to play. Cullen is quite clear more of a 10 and Skipp has neither the athleticism to provide the crucial defensive cover or the passing range and vision to be an effective quarterback. The placing of Skipp feels even more egregious when you consider it’s such a crucial position for his chosen formation and play style? Finally, only of key attacking ideas when playing with two 8’s is to use them to attack the half space, those channels between full back and centre back - something we would see regularly under Enzo with KDH and Ndidi. These sort of movements / combinations have been barely witnessed in our games under Martin to date, to the extent you have to question is he even coaching this key pattern of play concept during the week?

https://tenor.com/qI09Cnm2NGa.gif

He won’t get one - I don’t see any club looking at him and saying “yep, he’ll improve us.”

Why not - the guy gave up in the 55th minute by taking our taking off our best 3 attacking players. Keep them on (and make decent substitutions instead) and we still have a chance.

Come on! 😂

Well then @Phil Mitchell ???

That’s harsh on Begovic.

I don’t know - we actually have quite a few exciting players. The problem is they haven’t been supplemented and managed well.

**** me. Nice play by Howell, who clips a standup ball… only you’ve taken Biscuits if you prat!

Martin switched him and Cullen in the 8 spots… made absolutely no sense, weakened both of them in the process.

Like - throw the game and protect his 3 better players on the day (as insane as that sounds at 55 odd minutes 3 games into the season)?

No-one shit on this freekick… I’m looking at you Bobby!

I have no idea what he thinks BDCR could offer right now?

I’d accept this if it wasn’t for the case that Martin is making a clear mistake in not playing a double pivot. Our players would be much better suited to that style, especially as this provides extra central defensive cover. It would also allow for more runs from deep and reduce the onus on our centre halves and goalkeeper to start attacks. The players he’s got at the moment are not suited to his favoured formation (with two 8’s) and what happens is too many players end up beyond the ball, we lose it and teams can counter and gain space / chances too easily from very little possession.

Burton have gone far too passive since the sending off… so maybe.

To add to this… our fullbacks are much better suited to this as well, rather than playing inverted.