League One - Who manages us?

[murphy]

1 hour ago, Super_horns said:

He was linked to us but even our fans didn’t want him .

I'm convinced that there are only two people in the football world that are daft enough to want him.  Unfortunately for us, they are our dipshit owner and Jon Rudkin.

Edited 2 hours ago by murphy

[Great Boos Up]

Ah sod it. He’s shit, we’re shit. Top is shit. Rudkin is shit. Half our fans are shit. We’re in shit league and our finances are shit and we just keep going from shit to shitier. I’m just going to embrace the shit. It’s the only way to cope. Bring on more shit. Stupid game but I love it. 

[GLC]

10 minutes ago, Great Boos Up said:

Ah sod it. He’s shit, we’re shit. Top is shit. Rudkin is shit. Half our fans are shit. We’re in shit league and our finances are shit and we just keep going from shit to shitier. I’m just going to embrace the shit. It’s the only way to cope. Bring on more shit. Stupid game but I love it. 

Yeah, fair 😭

[Guppys Love Child]

46 minutes ago, Great Boos Up said:

Ah sod it. He’s shit, we’re shit. Top is shit. Rudkin is shit. Half our fans are shit. We’re in shit league and our finances are shit and we just keep going from shit to shitier. I’m just going to embrace the shit. It’s the only way to cope. Bring on more shit. Stupid game but I love it. 

Narrr mate, I think you're just taking shit 😛

 

(Totally agree by the way.)

 

[fox_favourite]

54 minutes ago, Great Boos Up said:

Ah sod it. He’s shit, we’re shit. Top is shit. Rudkin is shit. Half our fans are shit. We’re in shit league and our finances are shit and we just keep going from shit to shitier. I’m just going to embrace the shit. It’s the only way to cope. Bring on more shit. Stupid game but I love it. 

 

5 minutes ago, Guppys Love Child said:

Narrr mate, I think you're just taking shit 😛

 

(Totally agree by the way.)

 

I hope you were taking a s**t when you posted about how s*** the s***** club s**** on fans. A big satisfying brown floater

Edited 1 hour ago by fox_favourite

[Flannel_Fox]

Anyone ever watched the series Tracker? Main character has a brother called Russell who sort of looks like Russell Martin. Good times. 

[Mike Oxlong]

Signed 

 

[fox_favourite]

Just now, Mike Oxlong said:

Signed 

 

Now I've been really sick in my mouth!

[Chrysalis]

11 hours ago, Lionator said:

They play completely different systems though, it’s not even as if Martin is poundshop Maresca. Enzo’s teams are far more assertive and he always tried to promote individual talent. 

Im not a fan of Enzo's style but I recognise he does get the respect of the players more and then they buy into his system, which probably translates to your observation, it felt professional under Enzo.  I expect a factor in Enzo's hasty exit is he knew the squad wasnt really capable of the style.  
Martin on the other hand when it starts going wrong just starts demonising players.

Edited 50 minutes ago by Chrysalis

[Chrysalis]

11 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

The style of football you play, possession, direct or counter attacking, is less important than actually being good at that style and playing it well.

This is fair, which is really why if Top wants this style, the squad for it should be built before getting the manager, not the other way round.

Usually when clubs successfully achieve it, they are already established in the top division, and have spent time building the squad, the manager then becomes the final piece of the jigsaw.

I also agree with you its not black and white, and styles can be mixed when appropriate during games.

For me I have observed 3 main issues in all recent seasons.

 

1 - Perceived lack of fitness, which in turn hinders our pressing and positional play.

2 - Lack of aggression.

3 - A over reliance on slow build up play (possession), we do so little sprints with ball now, even dribbling forward slowly with it.

Our last manager said he recognised the team was incapable of defending without holding on to the ball, which is an indicator as well, that too much attention is been put in to one area.

[Fox-LMA]

Like most of this board, I have little time for Martin. He's overrated, will be expensive, & has an unearned arrogance that I find massively irksome. He is tactically naive & has this constant whiff emperor's new clothes about him. As in his methods are a mere fashion statement rather than genuine beliefs, or knowledge & expertise for that matter. & I say this as a lifelong supporter of technical (so called possession) football. His insistence on playing out from the back against Man City (!!) was pure stupidity & arrogance. I shudder when I think about it.

I - as harsh as this is to say - don't think much of him as a man. He's thin skinned, vain, immature, quick tempered & has a knack of turning toxic when things don't go well. I remember in 23/24 he called out Jack Stephens by name after we beat them at home. Stephens -as we all know- isn't prime Maldini by any means, but he's a good honest trier who wasn't much to blame for any of the goals they conceded. I fully agree that underperforming players need to be dug out at times, especially our lot, but to throw an honest pro under the bus when approaching the culmination of a long, hard season strikes me as poor man management.

 

I'm sick of all the small men at LCFC - & I fear that with Martin - we may accumulate another.

 

However....

 

At 40 he's still a very young manager with plenty of scope for learning. Let's hope he's used his downtime since the disaster at Rangers to take stock of his practices. Modern managers have shown that they can learn from sackings (Emery & to a lesser extent Lampard) & adapt their methods.

 

I think some of the revisionism on here over his time at Southampton is mostly unfair. We all know that success in football is largely dictated by player quality. You can have the best tactical plan but the players are the ones that get it done. & in 23/24 Leicester & Leeds had stronger squads than Southampton. We had Vardy, KDH. Ndidi & a motivated Winks. Leeds had Rutter, Summerville & Archie Gray among others. All PL proven & even Euro competition standard. Who did Southampton have by comparison? Joe Aribo, Ché Adams & Ryan Fraser.... 

 

Getting that Southampton side promoted was a good achievement. Just that it was dwarfed by the outstanding Ipswich that year. I watched that play-off final & they beat Leeds fair & square with (to my mind) inferior players. I know that the season after was a disaster, but their recruitment was as bad as ours, & bear in mind that they had a weaker squad than us to begin with. Their headline signing was Aaron Ramsdale ffs.. One win in 16 is terrible of course but it wasn't as if things improved after he left. The experienced & competent Ivan Jurić looked lost.

 

It's also worth noting that he's the only manager (along with coach Simon Rusk) to get a tune out of the highly talented but temperamental Tyler Dibling. David Moyes so far hasn't been able to. Harnessing youth is an absolute priority for us going forward & Martin has shown that he can.

 

We all know by now that when appointing a new manager, most of the conversations between clubs & candidates centre around 1. Coaching methods & style of play 2. Players already on the books (staying or leaving) 3. Recruitment budgets & transfer targets (very important - often a sticking point). Personal terms are usually straightforward. Normally the last item discussed. So does appointing Martin when we are in L1 mean that we have an outstanding budget for next season?  I doubt he will be in it for the salary after two good payoffs from Southampton & Rangers. He can still easily command a good job in the Champ or abroad either now or during next season. Would we be able to convince a candidate of that standard to join us if we sod all to offer?

 

 

 

 

[BlueBus]

The Mercury said the following on Russell Martin "the prospect is one that has divided fans".

 

I know they want to keep the club happy but come on, I have never seen the fan base so aligned on an issue, absolutely nobody wants Russell Martin.