Marti Cifuentes appointed new manager

[SouthStandUpperTier]

His preferred style has no tempo or urgency to it. We play as if we're 4-0 up and just playing out time no matter what the actual score is.

[hebangsthedrums]

Seems a likeable chap. Not sure he is going to get the best out of these players, need a bastard to sort some of them out. 

[Fox92]

22 minutes ago, em9999 said:

Will judge next season we have too much dogshit for any manager to get a tune out of them ..

 

 

Too many excuses, we have gained 2 points from Wrexham H and Portsmouth H. Not good enough.

 

Pretty much every other manager in the division would love to have our squad (possibly aside from McKenna at Ipswich). Yet again I’ve just watched a manager with less resources, and a worse squad, get a result against us. Some of our players might be poor but they are not worse than the opposition.

 

The manager keeps picking these players despite the fact they continue to make mistakes btw. 

[em9999]

34 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Too many excuses, we have gained 2 points from Wrexham H and Portsmouth H. Not good enough.

 

Pretty much every other manager in the division would love to have our squad (possibly aside from McKenna at Ipswich). Yet again I’ve just watched a manager with less resources, and a worse squad, get a result against us. Some of our players might be poor but they are not worse than the opposition.

 

The manager keeps picking these players despite the fact they continue to make mistakes btw. 

It's kinda hard blaming the manager for the state we are in today ..

 

Yes he's made mistakes but don't we all ..

 

I blame the players 

Edited 18 October 2025 by em9999

[iancognito]

His subs game after game are completely ineffective. Part of that is who the subs are but swapping Carranza for Daka basically put us down to ten men. Soumare, Reid and Ayew contributed almost nothing different and changed nothing about the pace of the play. 

 

I like him, he says the right things but we need a plan b. We need urgency and too often we just look......slow.

[kingfox]

In all fairness, I think both the manager and the squad deserve equal criticism. 
 

This Championship season so far looks seriously low on quality, I think they’ll be many fanbases in this division all questioning their managers and squads this season. Somehow we’re 4th despite numerous crap halves of football, but teams like Ipswich and Southampton currently languish in mid table and have question marks too. 
 

In terms of Marti, there’s been glimpses of promise, but I think the negatives are currently outweighing the positives. From a tactical perspective, he has clearly knocked some principles on the head which made us an exciting watch against Fiorentina. We’ve hardly strung a good 90 minutes together in the league, which imo is becoming worrisome. While at numerous times so far this season, our only tactic seems to be, get the ball to our wingers and hope for the best. 
 

In terms of our squad, is it really promotion material when our depth in certain areas is so poor? It’s alright moaning about substitutions, but our central midfield depth literally consists of Soumare and Skipp, two players that the majority of our fanbase want to see the back of. While our striker options consist of Ayew, Carranza and Daka, if one of them don’t start firing, it doesn’t really scream promotion does it. Our defence also still consists of numerous players we want rid of, they can’t help but make mistakes, and giving new contracts to the likes of Vestergaard and Thomas in recent seasons just epitomises how far we’ve fallen. 
 

I said it weeks ago, but where are our goals going to come from if one of our strikers don’t start firing, we can’t rely on a Fatawu or James worldie every week. To get promotion, you’re probably looking at Fatawu or Mavididi to have a season like Crysencio Summerville did for Leeds back in 23/24, or for Ramsey or James to produce like Josh Brownhill did for Burnley last season, it’s difficult to see any of those scenarios happening. 
 

There’s a good reason why many question marks hang over us, I’m just finding it difficult to see how it gets rectified. At this moment in time, all I can see is a team who will continue to be on even par with numerous other teams jostling for a play-off spot. 

[Dan]

90% of my judgement from him going forward will be about how strong he is and how tough he makes life for the board. Pretty confident his football isn't the answer.

[sm1]

If Marti insists on playing Thomas, Vesty and Faes as 3 of our back 4, he deserves all the criticism he gets. Our LW (whether Mavs or Monga) has no support because our LB wont cross the halfway line. Our CBs spend half the game passing to each other or the GK. On top of which, non of those 3 can defend. We have no striker which is the club's fault, but the slow monotonous tone and tempo of our play is all Marti. 

Edited 19 October 2025 by sm1

[KFS]

I’m a bit sick of going after the manager when I hate about 75% of the squad 

[Dan]

3 hours ago, honeybradger said:

You can accept a patchy run of form if we were building for the future and playing our academy talents but he's chosen to bank on the short term and play the senior players instead.

 

If Cifuentes is going to gun for promotion at all costs and leave our academy players out in the cold frankly the short term results have to be better than what we are seeing.

Yep. If we're picking this lot I want automatic promotion. We're in a totally false position even being 4th.

 

He's doing a bad job. Very much on the edge for me.

[Dan]

**** me I've just seen Pompey's injury list. That's an absolute shower from us. Totally embarrassing result and second half.

[Blanchflower78]

Were a mid table side enjoying a slightly better return. Don't be fooled by it, easier to accept.  Had our time in the sun but we are now more QPR than QPR!

Edited 19 October 2025 by Blanchflower78

[CarolinaFox]

My biggest criticism is Faes starting, or really being in a Leicester shirt at all. I guess Marti must think he fits his system best but his poor positioning on the ball and inability to think under pressure have cost us two games and almost cost us vs. Swansea. Faes is a liability on defense and the biggest weakness in our team right now. 

[sylofox]

4 hours ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

His preferred style has no tempo or urgency to it. We play as if we're 4-0 up and just playing out time no matter what the actual score is.

Just like Bodgers and Enzo then. And once sussed out we have no fecking answer.

 

But Top wants Pep ball with park players.

 

😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣   And people think we will go up.

Edited 19 October 2025 by sylofox

[fox_favourite]

13 minutes ago, sylofox said:

Just like Bodgers and Enzo then. And once sussed out we have no fecking answer.

 

But Top wants Pep ball with park players.

 

😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣   And people think we will go up.

With this lot, we would get slaughtered if we went up, probably worse than  than last season. 

[Ric Flair]

My mind is made up on Cifuentes, he's bang average.

 

Would he make sense if he was building a young squad around a nucleus of our best academy players such as Nelson, Aluko, Page, Monga etc? Yeah and you take the rough with the smooth over the short to medium term, step off the ideology we simply have to get promoted every time we're at this level.

 

Does he make sense going against the track record he supposedly had at other clubs of utilising the academy - despite this being our golden generation of academy talent? Not really no. It's just very workmanlike and middle of the road EFL guff. I don't see what the plan is? I'm not overly happy with a promotion shot with the same failed players who a chunk won't be here next season, even if we achieved it. Then what? Last season was hideous, I don't want to go back up like this. 

 

I want us to rebuild properly at this level, but that probably required significant changes off the field in directorship and ownership to sign it off. We won't achieve the former either, so we wait to decline further and likely waste any last glimmer of hope that this club has from our academy as we ensconce ourselves in the lower leagues.

 

Life under Aiyawatt. 

 

Conclusion, would not lose any sleep over Cifuentes going. Probably little point in getting rid right now but i've no burning affiliation with him. He'll barely register in my memory in later years i'm sure.

[JimJams]

4 hours ago, iancognito said:

...swapping Carranza for Daka basically put us down to ten men...

That seems like a gross overestimation of how productive Carranza was.

[Matt_Lcfc]

Question here: is this squad as good as people make out? There needs to be a serious conversation regarding this. I said this back in May - if people think this is 23/24 all over again, they’re wrong. This isn’t exclusive to our fanbase, but everybody refers to our ‘quality’ as a redeeming feature in this squad. I am not convinced. 
 

Winks? Good player when fully committed, but his continued inconsistency hampers his impact.

Ricardo? I like the guy, but his career has been impacted by the 2020 injury.

Mavididi? Blows hot and cold too much. Seems to alternate between flashes of brilliance and underwhelming performances - it’s been the latter for nearly 12 months now.

Stolarcyzk? One of the better goalkeepers in the division, but his tendency to palm shots into dangerous areas remains a real flaw.

Fatawu? Without a doubt, the shining star in this squad, but our one dimensional gameplan will see him isolated.

That leaves us with an average crop of players like Faes, Vestergaard, Thomas, Soumare, Skipp Daka Et.Al. The issue is that people see that we signed Player X for £20,000,000 and assume that they’ll steamroll the Championship. Not true. 
 

To put simply, price tags are not directly correlated to performance. The BBC live feed can quote how much we spent on our squad all they like, but fundamentally, it means nothing. Footballers should be judged on the eye test & very few from this squad are passing right now.

 

The point I’m trying to make is this: Do I think Cifuentes should have converted some of these draws into wins? Yes. However, is he solely to blame? No. I’m putting the blame at the door of the board. They've overpaid for multiple players and allowed the club to regress. In essence, I just do not believe that this squad is good enough to be promoted by default. You can bash Cifuentes all you like, but I do not believe that he is the primary problem here.

 

 

Edited 19 October 2025 by Matt_Lcfc

[SafewayFox]

4 minutes ago, Matt_Lcfc said:

Question here: is this squad as good as people make out? There needs to be a serious conversation regarding this. I said this back in May - if people think this is 23/24 all over again, they’re wrong. This isn’t exclusive to our fanbase, but everybody refers to our ‘quality’ as a redeeming feature in this squad. I am not convinced. 
 

Winks? Good player when fully committed, but his continued inconsistency hampers his impact.

Ricardo? I like the guy, but his career has been impacted by the 2020 injury.

Mavididi? Blows hot and cold too much. Seems to alternate between flashes of brilliance and underwhelming performances - it’s been the latter for nearly 12 months now.

Stolarcyzk? One of the better goalkeepers in the division, but his tendency to palm shots into dangerous areas remains a real flaw.

Fatawu? Without a doubt, the shining star in this squad, but our one dimensional gameplan will see him isolated.

That leaves us with an average crop of players like Faes, Vestergaard, Thomas, Soumare, Skipp Daka Et.Al. The issue is that people see that we signed Player X for £20,000,000 and assume that they’ll steamroll the Championship. Not true. 
 

To put simply, price tags are not directly correlated to performance. The BBC live feed can quote how much we spent on our squad all they like, but fundamentally, it means nothing. Footballers should be judged on the eye test & very few from this squad are passing right now.

 

The point I’m trying to make is this: Do I think Cifuentes should have converted some of these draws into wins? Yes. However, is he solely to blame? No. I’m putting the blame at the door of the board. They've overpaid for multiple players and allowed the club to regress. In essence, I just do not believe that this squad is good enough to be promoted by default. You can bash Cifuentes all you like, but I do not believe that he is the primary problem here.

 

 

Some good points but ignoring our academy options.

How many posts have a lot of us done about Nelson, re watch Pompey’s goal and Faes’ role in it, example number 5 this season alone.

 

Imagine on our bench having Page as a like for like sub for Ramsay rather than the plodding Ayew/Reid?

 

Aluko should be getting minutes ahead of Thomas IMO but at least have him on the bench.

 

There are probably more cases too.

[Matt_Lcfc]

7 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

Some good points but ignoring our academy options.

How many posts have a lot of us done about Nelson, re watch Pompey’s goal and Faes’ role in it, example number 5 this season alone.

 

Imagine on our bench having Page as a like for like sub for Ramsay rather than the plodding Ayew/Reid?

 

Aluko should be getting minutes ahead of Thomas IMO but at least have him on the bench.

 

There are probably more cases too.

Nelson should be getting more minutes, yes. I do not disagree. At the same time though, people act like our academy is a silver bullet for our problems. You quote Page - he looked out of his depth when he played at the start of the season. Subsequently, he is back with the U21s and he is regularly quoted as one of the better academy players.

 

For me, there are two options. We either loan these players out or we get them involved with the squad. It does not have to be for ninety minutes, but giving them a role will enhance their development. Unsurprisingly, we are doing neither. It goes back to my original point though: the club hierarchy have no plan here.

Edited 19 October 2025 by Matt_Lcfc

[SafewayFox]

Just now, Matt_Lcfc said:

Yeah, Nelson should be getting more minutes. I do not disagree. At the same time though, people act like our academy is a silver bullet for our problems. You quote Page - but he looked out of his depth when he played at the start of the season.

 

For me, there are two options. We either loan these players out or we get them involved with the squad. We are doing neither. It goes back to my original point: the club hierarchy have no plan here.

Page looked our best 10 at pressing though.

 

We look old, lethargic and dare I say it unfit which is criminal for professional footballers.

 

I’m not claiming that Page should start but him coming on at the end of games would see some legs and desire, what did Reid or Ayew offer when coming on?

 

I could even stomach him going with one of Reid/Ayew on the bench if he had Page on it too, otherwise we’re just serving up the same one paced dross.

[Mickyblueeyes]

2 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

My mind is made up on Cifuentes, he's bang average.

 

Would he make sense if he was building a young squad around a nucleus of our best academy players such as Nelson, Aluko, Page, Monga etc? Yeah and you take the rough with the smooth over the short to medium term, step off the ideology we simply have to get promoted every time we're at this level.

 

Does he make sense going against the track record he supposedly had at other clubs of utilising the academy - despite this being our golden generation of academy talent? Not really no. It's just very workmanlike and middle of the road EFL guff. I don't see what the plan is? I'm not overly happy with a promotion shot with the same failed players who a chunk won't be here next season, even if we achieved it. Then what? Last season was hideous, I don't want to go back up like this. 

 

I want us to rebuild properly at this level, but that probably required significant changes off the field in directorship and ownership to sign it off. We won't achieve the former either, so we wait to decline further and likely waste any last glimmer of hope that this club has from our academy as we ensconce ourselves in the lower leagues.

 

Life under Aiyawatt. 

 

Conclusion, would not lose any sleep over Cifuentes going. Probably little point in getting rid right now but i've no burning affiliation with him. He'll barely register in my memory in later years i'm sure.

Yeah. I’m with you. Could probably put up with the poor standard if he was building something and we were having to bed in guys like Nelson, Okoli, Aluko etc. and that’s not me saying they are superstars and would change this immediately - they are not. They are young and will have mistakes in them. 
 

However, he has gone senior and it was not only a mistake it was incompetent, we are wasting another season on below average, overpaid, uninterested players. They’re the guys he has chosen to fight his corner, can’t be surprised they have let him down. 
 

Bang average is probably kind due to the error.

[dayday]

6 hours ago, iancognito said:

His subs game after game are completely ineffective. Part of that is who the subs are but swapping Carranza for Daka basically put us down to ten men. Soumare, Reid and Ayew contributed almost nothing different and changed nothing about the pace of the play. 

 

I like him, he says the right things but we need a plan b. We need urgency and too often we just look......slow.

A bit harsh on Ayew , he was the only sub to make some sort of impact

[Noahfence]

People will probably say 10 games is too early to be judging him but there’s been no improvement. I can’t see anything to suggest he’s starting to get us going anytime soon.

 

I actually thought his subs in the first few games were good but recently seems to have become a mess (admittedly the bench is hardly inspiring) 

 

That’s two home games in a row now we’ve come out in the second half and seemingly just stopped playing. Now I know the opposition play a role but questions have to be asked on what the **** he says to them at HT. 

 

So far a lot of what he says doesn’t really line up with what we’re seeing. “Attacking non stop football” I believe was his quote the other day in a Rob Tanner article. Yeah right. I’ll believe it when I see it. 

Edited 19 October 2025 by Noahfence

[LCFCJohn]

48 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

Page looked our best 10 at pressing though.

 

We look old, lethargic and dare I say it unfit which is criminal for professional footballers.

 

I’m not claiming that Page should start but him coming on at the end of games would see some legs and desire, what did Reid or Ayew offer when coming on?

 

I could even stomach him going with one of Reid/Ayew on the bench if he had Page on it too, otherwise we’re just serving up the same one paced dross.

Page was thrown in to start and did just fine. It at least coincided with some better results (I am not saying he was the reason before any anti-academy nuts pile on). 
 

Now we have Ramsey who looks good, if he can’t manage a full 90, Page is an obvious choice to bring on in his place.

 

Ayew actually might be a good option if we are holding a lead, but as soon as Ayew and Soumare came on at 1-1, I gave up on it as best case scenario became the draw but I knew we’d just be holding on.