Rob DaviesRussell Martin was critical of many aspects of his side’s display, with the body language of the players and inconsistency in performance particularly in the spotlight.
The Swans boss witnessed another depressing away defeat and whilst he took some blame for his own part in the loss, it was the same old words from the former MK Dons manager which are starting to wear a bit thin.
He spoke about the mentality and body language not being good enough in his post match interview, but insisted that the instructions and preparations for the players ensures there is no “ambiguity or grey areas” for them when they cross the white line.
Unfortunately that isn’t what we are seeing on the pitch and there is clear a discord between those plans and what happens on matchday. And he has to find the answers quickly to solve it.
Sheffield United created numerous chances and only poor finishing prevented a seriously damaging defeat, as bad as 4-0 already was.
“I feel sorry for the fans who have travelled in challenging circumstances and been brilliant throughout the game,” Martin told Wales Online.
“They deserve better than what we are giving them away from home at the moment.
“We made the same mistakes again today. We have started the game so slowly, which is something we have spoken about and something we have worked on.
“The game is over after 20 minutes, and the thing that frustrates me is we have a lot of young men who are in the process of trying to improve and learn, but we are not learning quick enough, especially away from home.
“The gap between us at our best and at our worst is far too big. The gap between us at home and us away from home is too big, and that is my fault and I have to sort that out.
“We need to learn and improve quickly. We stuck at it in the second half at least, which is not easy to do in that sort of atmosphere.
“But that first 25 minutes the details were just not good enough, and that should not be the case because there is no ambiguity or grey area about what we are trying to do and what we want to do.
“I have said to the players that those details have totally cost us, and we have to find a way to learn from it.
“But there were times today our mentality was wrong, we are looking round at each other, our body language… we have to stick together much better than that.
“There is no blame culture here, we have to improve as a collective and learn as a group and make sure we are better in our next game because it is tremendously hurtful to have days like this.
“We have to make sure the pain we feel on days like this is worth it in the long run.”
It seems clear mr martin is way out of his depth . He seems not to realise that pointless possession is pointless. Away from home you have to adapt a different gameplan. Im afraid the swansea board must be close to giving up on him now. Shame
No point in chopping and changing. Given our stingy owners no ambitious manager will come to Swansea anyway. We have to stick with Martin for this season and much of next. It’s clear he needs to learn a few things. He clearly overrates players he knows and has imported another lemon from MK Dons. He should know players who have performed in the Championship are likely to be better than ones who did ok in league one. Then he has to adapt formations for the players he has. We don’t have the players to suit his preferred formation so he needs to change it to 4 at the back. We leak goals for fun. Our midfielders have to be challenged to turn with the ball and play forward. The team needs to be solid at the back and faster at the transition. I’m sure Martin can see that. He can fix it but he can’t afford to be dogmatic. Let’s give him a chance to improve. Remember all the moaning about Steve Cooper? Two play-offs and now look at what he’s doing at Forest. Swans fans need to wise up. This isn’t Real Madrid.
Spot on!
I’m afraid mr Martin is wrong .There clearly are grey areas .When you have no authentic full back you are asking a centre half to play part of the time as a centre half and decide when he should play as a full back .That is one grey area .The best sides can latch on to this weakness very quickly – the poorer sides find it more difficult.That is why basically we are wy in not just losing but are conceding so many goals to the better sides with thinking managers.
We have not got experience players to play out from the back but this manager can not see that the club needs an overall from top to bottom since these two of Levien & Kaplan have been in charge the club has gone backwards fast and the supporters trust has not helped much by doing what they did the other week playing into the hands of them two without notifying the Supporters first I for one will not be renewing my season ticket for next season to watch a team that is going to struggle in the championship and also putting money into the pockets of them Americans.
I’ve listened intently to what the Manager has been saying over the peaks and troughs of results this season and he seems to get annoyed at silly things like players looking at each other ( today’s comment),body language and wellbeing.Well this is professional football and people pay a big sum of money to watch this ” every two game blip”.We won 3 1 last week ( unconvincing personally) and he started talking about Cabango and his tough times.Again personally and no dis respect I think Cabango is absolutely awful and an unfit carthorse,yet he praises him.However the most fundamental thing for me is this stupid passing from the keeper.What is this guy doing any better or worse than Hamer? We pass pass pass ..1 nil 2 nil 3 nil and 4 and yet we keep passing passing passing ..Awful style and nonsense from Martin.I and We can see through it like a Payne of glass.
The poorest team to visit Bramall Lane this season .All that passing around your box is an accident waiting to happen .It could see you relegated either this season or certainly the next
All the comments above hit the nail on the head. Fisher should be dropped and Hamer re installed as no 1. Away from home why not play with a back 4 shielded with 2 defensive midfielders, with 3 forward thinking attacking midfielders and 1 striker. also as already said we are too slow building attacks giving opposition time to regroup and we do need to go forward from midfield rather than sideways and suicidal passing at the back.
At this rate Cardiff will finish above us – what an embarrassment that would be. Sadly, I think Martin may go looking for new employment elsewhere without needing to be pushed like our previous manager was wise enough to do
Yes I have said all along that Russell Martin was got on the cheep l and has not got a clue on how to manage a team in the championship we lost a good manager in Cooper with one thing and another and the players we have got are not up to it and for our defence wel is this another manager who has got his favourite players no matter how bad they play and them two in Lavien & Kaplan who own our club will not be investing any money into our club we are a sinking ship with them in charge and all through our former chairman who sold out to them .
Having endured a 9 hour journey on Friday to get to Sheffield, encouraged other members of my family to come and watch the Swans have finally given up and I am not going to renew my season tickets to watch this useless out of depth Manager anymore.
We had a great weekend away, great atmosphere at the ground but a very poor performance.
Having a few beers after the game with some Sheffield fans they couldn’t believe how poor we were.