TheGoodDoctor said:
There are positives and negatives, and then there are myths and negatives.
With your budget stuff, you ventured into the latter.
“Can see what he’s trying to do” is another buzz phrase that is repeated without much thought.
Tell me what he’s trying to do when he stops the likes of Oko Flex from being direct? Tell me what he’s trying to do when he directs these ludicrous goal kicks and suicide passes along the back for no apparent gain…
What he is trying to do is what you see. He comes away from games where we have been utterly dreadful with slow monotonous and predictable patterns of play and he has said we have played “brilliantly” and doesn’t understand how we lost.
There is no great path to brilliance that we are on. What you see week in week out is what he has worked up to for 18 months, this is it. There is no pot of gold coming.
What he is trying to do has succeeded, it’s just not very good.
The fact is, this squad should be competing at the top end of this league (within playoffs) yet we are stuck languishing, often in the bottom half, excusing away results and performances by pretending we are on some great journey.
- He’s nearly 90 competitive games in now and is the 4th longest serving current manager in the league.
- Been given more to spend in 18 months than any manager in our football league history over that period of time.
- Had the luxury of writing off a whole season (?!) to implement his ideas that look the same today as day 1, if not worse.
- Has had the freedom to bring in players he knows from his former club to shape the squad how he wants.
There is no excuse.
As for “I’d prefer 10th playing this style than 7th playing Coopers style”...
Coopers average finishing position with us was 5th… Martins is 14th (including now)… largely down to his awful style.
Cooper never finished outside the playoffs with us and improved year on year. I’m afraid the Cooper vs Martin comparisons died long ago, they aren’t even in the same realm.
I can't be bothered with a long-winded reply, but I can see what he's TRYING to do. Whether he's capable of succeeding is another matter.
I understand why he wants to play from the back, and I'm really hopeful that at least you can understand WHY, even if you can't agree with it.
Cooper and Potter had much bigger budgets than Martin has, which makes it easier to achieve play off spots and I don't agree that Martin's spent more money than either of them too. From memory (admittedly dodgy one), he only spent decent money on Downes, and got a decent return on him. About 1m went on Fisher and Darling, which doesn't seem well spent, but we'd probably get most of it back if we sold them.
Look, I'm the first to admit to frustrations, but there aren't many managers who are capable of getting it right consistently. He's got a 6/10 from me so far and he'd get more if he made our players more direct and took more risks near goal. Is it that we just don't have the right players to play his way (which means he should adapt, of course) or we do but two of them are currently on strike?
One 'fact' that shocked me the other day - we're no.2 for shots on target in the whole league. I find it hard to believe because it really doesn't feel like that, but it might suggest that we're not as negative as it feels we are.
Ps we've also allowed the 2nd least shots in the league too, which also feels wrong, but isn't. Is Benda/Fisher a bad keeper, or are the chances just a lot easier?
