I recently read a Burnley fan on social media suggesting that last season Vincent Kompany was more interested in maintaining his reputation for playing a certain style of football than he was in keeping his club in the Premier League, are we seeing that now at Saints ?
Burnley supporters were grateful to Vincent Kompany for taking their club back to the Premier League, but many feel that once in the top flight he preferred to play a certain type of game, rather than get his side to roll up their sleeves and dig in.
The Lancashire club of course went straight back down, but Kompany had maintained his reputation and his reward was to be appointed manager of Bayern Munich, something that surprised many people given his very short time as a manager.
Now it has been suggested that Russell Martin is following the same pattern at St Mary’s, like Vincent Kompany he is resolutely refusing to adapt his style of play and force his team to play his possession football game to a level that they are not capable of playing, exactly the same accusations that Burnley fans made at `Kompany.
So the big question is whether Russell Martin’s is putting Southampton FC and saving them from relegation as his first priority or whether he is pursuing his own agenda and now using the club as a stepping stone to further cement his reputation as a manager for the modern day game, who if he has the players could manage teams in the higher echelons in football.
Saints supporters may well say that is the case, if Saints go down with all hands, some will see Martin as a manager who has the right tactics, just not the quality of players and that he can do a job at a higher level.
Martin himself may feel that if he sticks to his guns then his reputation will be intact, whereas if he compromises his beliefs and the club still go down, then his own personal reputation will be in tatters.
Perhaps this is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but after the start that we have had,I can’t think of any other reasons why Martin should stick rigidly to his way of playing with no adaption of his tactics whatsoever, even though it must be blatantly clear to him that things aren’t working.