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Comment | Southampton V Stoke City The Verdict
at 16:56:56
Nick, below is an example of what is possible using selective statistics.
Bazunu was in goal for every game of the four consecutive early season defeats from which we have never successfully recovered.
How many goals did he concede during that four match period ? That’s right, twelve, or three per game ie more than during the four game example you quote for McCarthy.
Having said the above I can’t but agree with you that all season long we have been crying out for a keeper better than either of them. |
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Comment | Southampton V Stoke City The Verdict
at 13:08:49
LordDZLucan, we have a decent left footed defender who played in The Premiership last season.
For reasons best known only to our owners and management, they thought it a good idea to send him out on loan to a club in France, compounding their misjudgment by replacing him with Manning. |
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Comment | Southampton V Stoke City The Verdict
at 12:40:25
A muddled insipid team selection and display totally in keeping with a manager who in the last couple of months appears to have completely lost the plot.
Alex McCarthy deserves some praise Nick. He made some very good saves which at least kept the score respectable.He may not be able to play tippy tappy very well but he is a far superior actual goalkeeper than Bazunu.
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Comment | Southampton V Stoke City The Preview
at 17:58:21
It’s not so much about team selection Nick, although I agree that for much of the season Russell Martin’s choices have been utterly incomprehensible in this regard.
The problem is his inability to see that there are ways of playing football other than his tippy tappy nonsense. Witness Tuesday when he achieved 63% ball possession but without a single shot on goal.
Any half decent manager would have seen that he had been found out after the Huddersfield home game when they attacked us and scored three goals in the first half. Yes, we won but ever since then every other half decent team has seen a way of succeeding against his sole method of play and that’s what has cost us automatic promotion.
In my opinion whatever happens tomorrow is irrelevant. It’s now entirely evident that Russell Martin can’t or more likely won’t change his method of play. This being the case he is now a dead man walking, it matters not whether we stay in The Championship or obtain promotion through the playoffs. Either way I hope that Russell Martin’s time at S F C is coming to a close.
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Comment | Southampton At Leicester The Debacle
at 23:06:18
Your penultimate paragraph says it all Nick, you are 100% correct, there is no way forward with Russell Martin as manager.
Everybody and their dog can see that the players have given up on him and his tippy tappy ineffectual method of play. He has no plan B, doesn’t know his best team, has no idea whatsoever how to use his substitutes proactively and can’t close matches out from winning positions.
Swansea’s fans warned us that he was a stubborn one trick pony chancer and so it has proven.
If by some fluke we were to win the playoffs, with him as our manager in the Premiership, our points total at the season end would be less than Derby’s all time record low. |
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Comment | Southampton At Cardiff City The Verdict
at 09:47:01
A very fair and reasonable report Nick with wholly justifiable criticisms of players and manager for what was a truly pathetic showing by all concerned.
The question now is can we achieve promotion through the playoffs ? Despite one of if not the best squad in The Championship I just can’t see it because:-
1. Russell Martin is wedded to tipping tappy, sideways and backwards possession based football.
2. Russell Martin has no plan B when tippy tappy etc etc doesn’t work.
3. Russell Martin doesn’t know and hasn’t known all season long what his best starting team is.
4. Russell Martin only ever makes reactive substitutions during a match never proactive one’s
5. Russell Martin cannot game manage from winning positions.
Put simply and as we told by numerous Swansea fans before a ball was kicked he just hasn’t got what it takes.
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Comment | Saints Announce New Season Ticket Details- Good For Some A Kick In The Teeth For Others
at 13:24:44
What is it with the management of our Club in regard to ticketing? Isn’t there any body with any common sense in a position of authority?
The current on line ticketing system is simply not fit for purpose and today the Club announce major changes to the pricing structure but appear only to give pricing details for the new all standing area.
According to the Southampton Echo those who don’t want to stand will need to wait until the end of the season to find out the additional cost of renewing their seat.
I freely admit I’m not particularly computer literate and if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick can anybody tell me what the cost of my O A P ticket in Block 11 will be please ? |
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Comment | What Brought About Russell Martin U Turns Against Preston
at 16:55:21
Come on Colburn give Nick a break. He doesn’t really mean it, he just needs a hate figure every season to up the site’s click bate.
At the moment it’s Jack, next season rumour has it that The Saints Band are in his sights. |
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Comment | Southampton V Watford The Verdict
at 12:30:25
The Gods of Football smiled on Russell Martin yesterday, no last gasp winner and your report would have looked drastically different Nick.
At 2-1 Martin’s substitutions ( as they have been all season long ) were utterly mind boggling, culminating In replacing Adams with Mara.
Baz may be ideally suited to playing tippy tappy ( in the fashion of an old fashioned sweeper ) at the back but his actual keeping ability is almost non existent.He failed to come for the ball that resulted in Harwood Bellis kicking off the goal line and any half decent keeper would have saved Watford’s second goal.
Win on Tuesday evening and who knows? The pressure of expectation can do strange things as Leicester, Leeds and Ipswich are currently finding.
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Comment | Can Southampton Expect Any Help from Elsewhere This Weekend
at 22:41:17
If we win the last six games of the season we are in with an outside chance of automatic promotion purely because two of the games are against Leicester and Leeds. Anything less from us and it’s playoff time I’m afraid. |
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Comment | Southampton At Blackburn Rovers The Verdict
at 12:56:21
There is a saying in football “ Good players don’t become bad players overnight” and generally the same applies to managers.
Unfortunately for us,Russ Martin was never a good manager in the first place. A fact pointed out by numerous Swansea fans before he ever put pen to paper. |
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Comment | Southampton At Ipswich The Verdict
at 13:29:54
WestSussexSaint, “ so RM has 8 games to work out how he wants to play for the playoffs and the players/tactics for that”.
With respect to you that’s the whole problem with Russell Martin. He’s had 38 games already and with the best and most expensive squad in The Championship he has failed abysmally. Why give him the opportunity to fail again?
As I posted earlier on the Forum section of Nick’s site, our owners should immediately take the opportunity of rolling the dice, sack Russell Martin and replace him with Steve Cooper.
Cooper has successfully negotiated the playoffs and would install a different way of playing as well as invigorating and providing confidence to the players, some of which have clearly lost belief in Russell Martin. |
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Comment | Southampton At Ipswich Town The Preview
at 13:29:49
Nick, I appreciate that the clocks were adjusted overnight which may have caused a problem for some but we didn’t play Middlesbrough on Saturday, we threw two points away on Good Friday.
Secondly, it wasn’t Jack Stephen’s fault that our automatic promotion prospects were all but ended on that day. It was down to our forwards being unable to convert numerous chances together with Russell Martin’s now regularly inability to use our substitutes properly. |
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Comment | Southampton V Middlesbrough The Verdict
at 12:16:15
Boris 1977, “ we’ve not had a solid reliable old hard at the back for several seasons” ? Would have
been a great line in a Carry On Film. |
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Comment | Southampton V Middlesbrough The Verdict
at 19:37:35
A performance lacking in desire to win. As others have suggested on the Forum part of Nick’s site, yesterday to me it looked as though some of our players aren’t that interested in being promoted. They looked to be in “ let’s just do enough to get by mode”.
Alternatively perhaps some of the more senior pros have seen that Martin’s tippy tappy method of play without a plan B simply isn’t worth putting the effort in any more. |
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Comment | No Room For Error In Southampton Promotion Push
at 11:45:18
Hope springs eternal Nick but realistically the two consecutive home defeats against Hull and Millwall have killed off our chances of automatic promotion.
If we don’t make the playoffs from here it will be one of the biggest chokes in the Club’s history. |
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Comment | Russell Martin Should Not Face Selection Dilemma as Walker Peters Returns
at 17:13:30
Spot on JoeEgg.
The Hull and Millwall results absolutely killed us, not Jack Stephens.
Both were self inflicted wounds. The first caused by Martins ridiculous decision to play a light weight forward line of Mara, Armstrong and Edosie. The second by our keeper’s decision to leave his line to try and catch a ball he should have at best punched.
One win and a draw would have done us. Even a couple of draws would have kept us in contention. |
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Comment | Russell Martin Should Not Face Selection Dilemma as Walker Peters Returns
at 09:37:46
For goodness sake Nick please change the record.
We are not on the cusp of missing automatic promotion because of the efforts of Jack Stephens.
I appreciate that we are in the middle of a three week period without a game but honestly can’t you find anything more constructive to post ? If the answer is “ no “ then perhaps it would be better not to post anything ? |
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