Russell Martin - Confirmed as First Team Manager

[whoareyaaa]

Just now, moore_94 said:

Might actually be a good thing with him and possibly follows on from when he was so set on his tactics previously

 

Has possibly realised he can’t do that anymore

I was thinking that as well tbh it’s more run around and fight and just play football going forward when you get the ball

[AjcW]

Just now, moore_94 said:

Might actually be a good thing with him and possibly follows on from when he was so set on his tactics previously

 

Has possibly realised he can’t do that anymore

I thought that, he looks like a man that consumed an awful lot of football between October and May last season! 

Guessing he might have done the usual going round Europe and shadowing that's popular with a lot of younger coaches after a setback.

[coolhandfox]

We want him to win football matches, not go out for a beer with him.

Edited Monday at 11:03 by coolhandfox

[Nolucklcfc]

You can tell he’s fallen for the King Power line … 

[Lambert09]

3 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

I'm definitely one of them and it's based one two things. One, the level of arrogance and delusion in post match comments in particular the 2 games under Enzo where we systematically destroyed them and he acted pathetically. Two, in the past when challenged on his methods when his teams commit continual pattern mistakes, he's a massive nose flarer and from the outside looking in comes across a tad obnoxious.

 

But like everything, as soon as you have an affiliation with someone you may have got them wrong or they may evolve and not take themselves too seriously. He's certainly come across well so far but the pressure is off right now and when the serious stuff starts let's hope he still comes across sensibly.

 

I'll certainly hold my hands up. Reminds me of cats. Always thought they were shit until I got one and then saw they eat Domino's and curries if you leave them unattended and went right up in my estimations.

I’m not making a judgment on the guy until we lose a few games. That’s the side of him that I didn’t like either, if it’s all blame games , throwing people under the bus and no willingness to improve or change then he will be as expected. 
 

if he’s genuinely grown and maintains his positive attitude, then I think he will win us all over. But so far he feels like he might actually be a good fit for us. 

[Dan]

Count me in as a doubter as well. I've no criticism of anything he has done so far. I will also stand by a view that as sceptical as I am of Martin, he still holds hardly any chance of being the main issue at the club this season.

 

I'm not going to completely cave in on this based on some friendlies though. I'm not going this early.

[Dan]

8 minutes ago, Nolucklcfc said:

You can tell he’s fallen for the King Power line … 

Put this in as my only real criticism of him. I think he's taken a huge gamble here and I'd be interested to know what we're paying him. For somebody who said he had a job abroad lined up I think he's played a very risky game taking this job, and he should've known what he was likely to be working with - there is a track record of them lying to managers.

 

For somebody who really cannot afford another bad job I think he's really took a risk taking on the biggest club in the division who have expectations of winning a league, who look increasingly underequipped to do this.

[Suzie the Fox]

1 minute ago, Dan said:

Count me in as a doubter as well. I've no criticism of anything he has done so far. I will also stand by a view that as sceptical as I am of Martin, he still holds hardly any chance of being the main issue at the club this season.

 

I'm not going to completely cave in on this based on some friendlies though. I'm not going this early.

100% agreement with you on both points. 

 

Lets see how he manages when the season kicks off

[Hales]

I'll be honest, I wasn't happy at all with his appointment but.....

 

He is actually quite a likeable guy 🤔

He is pushing the youngsters front and centre

Our players seem to have team spirit which has been massively lacking

Our players are working for one another and running and attacking! 😮

 

I am actually more excited for this season to start and feeling positive about this team than I have been in a long long time!

 

RM and his blue youngsters army! 

 

Edited Monday at 11:59 by Hales

[RoboFox]

1 hour ago, Hales said:

I'll be honest, I wasn't happy at all with his appointment but.....

 

He is actually quite a likeable guy 🤔

He is pushing the youngsters front and centre

Our players seem to have team spirit which has been massively lacking

Our players are working for one another and running and attacking! 😮

 

I am actually more excited for this season to start and feeling positive about this team than I have been in a long long time!

 

RM and his blue youngsters army! 

 

He’s only pushing the youngsters front and centre because we’ve got about 3 senior players.

[CosbehFox]

Not getting stuck it in. 

 

Not played a competitive minute yet. There's as many positives as negatives. 

 

Good of him to personally chat to fans on tour etc. The thing about him being a nice guy - I heard his interview with Lineker, very decent etc but it's not quite the same post-match when he's whinging about something. 

[inckley fox]

1 hour ago, Hales said:

I'll be honest, I wasn't happy at all with his appointment but.....

 

He is actually quite a likeable guy 🤔

He is pushing the youngsters front and centre

Our players seem to have team spirit which has been massively lacking

Our players are working for one another and running and attacking! 😮

 

I am actually more excited for this season to start and feeling positive about this team than I have been in a long long time!

 

RM and his blue youngsters army! 

 

I'm as relieved as anyone not to have been bored to death by performances, and no he's not been as smug yet as we know he can be. I'm also pleased to see the youngsters doing well.

 

However I think he has little choice but to give them game time in preseason. I also think the team spirit you mention has been absent in a number of senior pros. We know many of them still want out and that's been reflected visibly in some of their displays. Not that that's unexpected, or the manager's fault, of course. I also believe that if, in the event, we play anything remotely reminiscent of the sort of football for which Martin is inflexibly renowned, that a very young team is going to find it tough in such a physical league.

 

Above all, I think it's very unwise to jump the gun based on preseason results. You could argue that - while Cooper was always the wrong appointment, more miss-than-hit with his transfer dealings and achieved misleadingly positive early results - the poor pre-season did more than it should have to make fans restless. I don't think that sense of negativity helped, and I'm not sure it would help to read too much into pre-season the other way round either.

 

Even if we take Cooper as a lousy example, then we also had many eyebrow-raising preseasons under O'Neill and Pearson. 2015 was quite unconvincing at times. And we had wonderful preseasons under Taylor in 2001, Sven in 2011 and even Cifuentes last year. Everyone was in love with him, his style, how he came across after that Fiorentina game. Preseason results and even, to a good degree, performances are very poor indicators, as a rule, of what's to come. I wouldn't judge a manager on just three or four competitive games in charge, but one solitary league fixture probably tells you more about how well the manager is doing than the sum total of the preseason games.

 

I'll give Martin a fair chance. Yes, I'll criticise him all I like on here or in the pub, but I haven't harangued a manager in almost two decades at a game. That said, I don't see that anything has happened since his arrival which is truly substantive enough to ignite belief in him. These owners don't have a great track record when it comes to appointments and Martin, put simply, doesn't have a great track record at all. As things stand, these two facts are still the biggest clues we've got as to future outcomes.

 

There's also a danger that, if we get even slightly carried away with these vaguely-encouraging but largely meaningless early glimpses, then the disappointment if these flimsy good vibes crash into reality will be all the more stark. Whether I wanted him or not, he might need some patience against the backdrop of our current predicament, and I suspect he'll get less of that if people get too excited over what they've seen so far. HMS Piss-the-League all over again.

 

I'd just urge everyone to be realistic about where we are, what he can conceivably achieve, what he's capable of achieving, and to learn from the harsh lessons of the past. And then, you never know, we might wind up being pleasantly surprised. But if we are, that should be based on real results rather than glorified training sessions.

Edited Monday at 13:13 by inckley fox

[Chrysalis]

1 hour ago, Hales said:

I'll be honest, I wasn't happy at all with his appointment but.....

 

He is actually quite a likeable guy 🤔

He is pushing the youngsters front and centre

Our players seem to have team spirit which has been massively lacking

Our players are working for one another and running and attacking! 😮

 

I am actually more excited for this season to start and feeling positive about this team than I have been in a long long time!

 

RM and his blue youngsters army! 

 

I think the player spirit and motivation is mainly because they youngsters.  At this point I dont want us to make signings unless its an emergency position we need to fill, keep the ages down and young hungry players.

 

In terms of Martin, no doubt he will give his all as he has a reputation to recover, but ultimately I dont want this style of football, I think its wrong.  Fingers crossed he has learnt from his past mistakes of putting players under the bridge when things go wrong.

Edited Monday at 13:12 by Chrysalis

[Samilktray]

Just now, Chrysalis said:

I think the player spirit and motivation is mainly because they youngsters.  At this point I dont want us to make signings unless its an emergency position we need to fill, keep the ages down and young hungry players.

 

In terms of Martin, no doubt he will give his all as he has a reputation to recover, but ultimately I dont want this style of football, I think its wrong.

Dunno why but I cant stop laughing at this

[Chrysalis]

You can laugh, you dont have to agree with me, I just think the obsession with possession, has been a major part of our downfall over the years.  All of the player performance issues, tactical issues, are linked to it, one way or the other.  We might get away with it this season due to our sheer advantage over the rest of the league.  But its very easy to play against once up against good opponents, usually we just need to be pressed consistently and it falls apart.  We also dont have the means to build a squad suitable for the style, which is my main issue.

Edited Monday at 13:15 by Chrysalis

[RoboFox]

Bloke’s overseen a handful of friendlies and suddenly he’s the tits. 

[winteriscoming]

I’ll wait to pass judgment until we’ve played a few competitive matches. 
It’s very easy to say what fans want to hear during meaningless pre season games. 
My hope is he’ll continue with the younger players come the start of the season. 
Looking at the lack of incoming players he’ll have to play them. 

[Hales]

Im not jumping the gun at all over a few preseason games but it doesnt hurt to have a glimmer of hope which is something we havent felt for a long time with this club. Draining the swamp has also helped 😂

From being not bothered at all and with a real disconnect to the club i'm happy to just feel slightly bothered at this point! 😆

Edited Monday at 13:45 by Hales

[lcfcbluearmy]

Yes exactly I'm not suddenly changing my mind and saying Russell Martin was a good appointment but the preseason has made me go from absolutely 0% hope to maybe 5-10% hope that he will be ok and we will do well this season. But as alot of people say we will have to wait until the season starts properly to make a full judgement 

[Chelmofox]

32 minutes ago, winteriscoming said:

I’ll wait to pass judgment until we’ve played a few competitive matches. 
It’s very easy to say what fans want to hear during meaningless pre season games. 
My hope is he’ll continue with the younger players come the start of the season. 
Looking at the lack of incoming players he’ll have to play them. 

I agree with waiting, but preseason isnt meaningless. We are organised, energetic and have clear patterns of play. Thats not an accident. Results are meaningless for sure, but a lot of the comments arent really about that.

 

Its only meaningless if we then go and play completely differently in a few weeks time. But you still have to do the right things in preseason. 

Edited Monday at 13:55 by Chelmofox

[OntarioFox]

The overall style of play has been a relief to see. I think we were all expecting something a lot more pedestrian but we've been playing with intent to get forwards, and more vitally we're actually doing the Gegenpress that we've been crying out for ever since we made the baffling decision to move away from the approach that won us the Prem. That alone will help us carve out chances against stubborn teams this season if we keep doing it.

 

For me, it's how we respond when there's some jeopardy in our league campaign that matters. Even when Southampton were cruising to their unbeaten record under Martin they had a soft underbelly - they dropped 12 points from winning positions if I remember correctly, which was what ultimately kept them out of the title race.

 

Will there be a flexibility and a willingness to try different personnel and setups if we lose a couple on the bounce, or drop important points like his Saints side did? Or will we see us retreat into our shell and start playing the low-energy shite we've seen surface and resurface again and again from the day Rodgers' reign started to go tits-up?

 

Very encouraged by the signs so far, but it's been pre-season and the only side with any real quality put three past us. Our defence still evidently stinks and we're going to have to keep up this attacking approach if we want to remain in control of games.

 

Edited Monday at 14:01 by OntarioFox

[MGLCFC]

1 hour ago, RoboFox said:

Bloke’s overseen a handful of friendlies and suddenly he’s the tits. 

Nah, nobody is saying that, you're getting confused with Lucy

Edited Monday at 14:15 by MGLCFC

[suffolk fox]

25 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

The overall style of play has been a relief to see. I think we were all expecting something a lot more pedestrian but we've been playing with intent to get forwards, and more vitally we're actually doing the Gegenpress that we've been crying out for ever since we made the baffling decision to move away from the approach that won us the Prem. That alone will help us carve out chances against stubborn teams this season if we keep doing it.

 

For me, it's how we respond when there's some jeopardy in our league campaign that matters. Even when Southampton were cruising to their unbeaten record under Martin they had a soft underbelly - they dropped 12 points from winning positions if I remember correctly, which was what ultimately kept them out of the title race.

 

Will there be a flexibility and a willingness to try different personnel and setups if we lose a couple on the bounce, or drop important points like his Saints side did? Or will we see us retreat into our shell and start playing the low-energy shite we've seen surface and resurface again and again from the day Rodgers' reign started to go tits-up?

 

Very encouraged by the signs so far, but it's been pre-season and the only side with any real quality put three past us. Our defence still evidently stinks and we're going to have to keep up this attacking approach if we want to remain in control of games.

 

 The side with quality conceded three too.  Out of a negative comes a positive.

[OntarioFox]

16 minutes ago, suffolk fox said:

 The side with quality conceded three too.  Out of a negative comes a positive.

Honestly if we're winning every game 4-3 or 5-4 I'm not going to care 

[STUHILL]

2 hours ago, RoboFox said:

Bloke’s overseen a handful of friendlies and suddenly he’s the tits. 

 

Not seen anyone get that hyped. Just people saying so far so good. 

 

I think the true test for Martin will be when he loses a few games in the league, then we might see his other (highly unlikeable) side that fans of his ex clubs harp on about.