The Blobster
Prediction Champ
I've lost my stream , that's why I've been fitted with a catheter 
Stoke v Swans
- Thread starter Yankee_Jack
- Start date
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As I said, our club is crap from top to bottom. I'd be really pissed off had we been doing well in a good game. But this is so typical of the rank amateur nature of our club. It's in the hands of donkeys - with apologies to donkeys everywhere. I mean, doing development work during a GAME???????? Are these people bigger idiots than we ever thought??
We're working hard. We'll be back as soon as we can.
Our developers are working hard on some site improvements to make your experience better.
As I said, our club is crap from top to bottom. I'd be really pissed off had we been doing well in a good game. But this is so typical of the rank amateur nature of our club. It's in the hands of donkeys - with apologies to donkeys everywhere. I mean, doing development work during a GAME???????? Are these people bigger idiots than we ever thought??
Victoria Swan
Key Player
If this is what watching the Swans has reduced you to then thank God I'm not watching it at the moment!I've lost my stream , that's why I've been fitted with a catheter
The Blobster
Prediction Champ
3-0 , nightmare game
The Blobster
Prediction Champ
Blow your whistle ref , I've had enough of this crap .
Stream eventually came back. Irrespective of the sending-off we were complete and utter crap and deserved bugger all from tonight. Professional footballers my arse! They should be ashamed to call themselves that....... but they won't be. As the saying goes - where there's no sense there's no feeling and that describes those bunch of bone idle, talentless wankers perfectly.
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
I thought Fulton looked pretty tidy today. One pearl in a pile of shit in midfield. He’s played next to nothing this season so it’s going to take him a few games to get him up to speed.
The Blobster
Prediction Champ
Martins excuse was that again his players were tired .
Are we the only team to play twice a week ? NO
Fuck your system Martin , get your players fit enough to compete then you can tinker all you like .
Are we the only team to play twice a week ? NO
Fuck your system Martin , get your players fit enough to compete then you can tinker all you like .
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Tired cannot be an excuse. The number of players we have loaned of quality that have seldom been played and could have contributed to a useful squad capable of executing a regular system … it’s bordering on the ridiculous.
Begs the question, were players loaned out to get them game time because Martin refused to play them … an asset development purpose … or because the Club needed to curb payroll v revenue … a business purpose.
it’s no secret that the Championship has a grueling season. It’s nuts in the knowledge of that that a system not readily adaptable to all members of the squad is being developed. Look how martin’s madness last night had Downes at CB flanked by Bennet and Cabango with Wolf playing a LWB role. And because he only wants to play with one man up top we have Piroe … our goal scoring leader … on the bench.
Begs the question, were players loaned out to get them game time because Martin refused to play them … an asset development purpose … or because the Club needed to curb payroll v revenue … a business purpose.
it’s no secret that the Championship has a grueling season. It’s nuts in the knowledge of that that a system not readily adaptable to all members of the squad is being developed. Look how martin’s madness last night had Downes at CB flanked by Bennet and Cabango with Wolf playing a LWB role. And because he only wants to play with one man up top we have Piroe … our goal scoring leader … on the bench.
According to Martin the players were drained emotionally and physically after Saturday. Was that because of the game on Saturday, or the piss-ups I've heard about as some players went out on the town? Or maybe it's because our training is crap as our players seem to be permanently "tired".
Some stats, which are distorted because of the red card although Stoke enjoyed some 60% of the ball before that anyway:
POSSESSION: 59-41 SHOTS: 22-3 OT: 7-1 CORNERS: 8-1 FOULS: 7-14 GOALS: 3- FUCK ALL!
This really was a shocking, abysmal display and, frankly, the players performed as though they didn't give a shit - either for the fans, the manager or indeed their personal pride. We were DISPOSSESSED 14 TIMES! EIGHT PLAYERS HAD A PASS SUCCESS BELOW 70% WITH CYRUS CHRISTIE AT 46.7% Not much chance of playing possession football with those sort of figures!
WOL ratings showed Cabango as star man with a mark of 5. Ntcham and Smith got 3 apiece whilst the rest of the shower reached a heady mark of 4!! This corresponded with what I saw and gelled with the comments of the match commentators one of whom was Lee Trundle.
As @The Blobster remarked above, we aren't the only team with a heavy fixture load but the other teams seem to be dealing with it a damned sight better than we are. For me, this is a condemnation of Martin's training methods and the players' characters. Any player who feels his fitness is not up to scratch should be in his manager's face asking WTF??!! And if that doesn't work then there's nothing stopping that player putting in extra work himself.
Last night was a shameful debacle and I hope Martin and his squad realise that it must NEVER be repeated.
Some stats, which are distorted because of the red card although Stoke enjoyed some 60% of the ball before that anyway:
POSSESSION: 59-41 SHOTS: 22-3 OT: 7-1 CORNERS: 8-1 FOULS: 7-14 GOALS: 3- FUCK ALL!
This really was a shocking, abysmal display and, frankly, the players performed as though they didn't give a shit - either for the fans, the manager or indeed their personal pride. We were DISPOSSESSED 14 TIMES! EIGHT PLAYERS HAD A PASS SUCCESS BELOW 70% WITH CYRUS CHRISTIE AT 46.7% Not much chance of playing possession football with those sort of figures!
WOL ratings showed Cabango as star man with a mark of 5. Ntcham and Smith got 3 apiece whilst the rest of the shower reached a heady mark of 4!! This corresponded with what I saw and gelled with the comments of the match commentators one of whom was Lee Trundle.
As @The Blobster remarked above, we aren't the only team with a heavy fixture load but the other teams seem to be dealing with it a damned sight better than we are. For me, this is a condemnation of Martin's training methods and the players' characters. Any player who feels his fitness is not up to scratch should be in his manager's face asking WTF??!! And if that doesn't work then there's nothing stopping that player putting in extra work himself.
Last night was a shameful debacle and I hope Martin and his squad realise that it must NEVER be repeated.
As you say Yankee it boarders on the ridiculous, the man is clueless, without him the Dons are now joint second in league one.
,
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Exactly. At this point in the season if a player is not "fresh and ready" to play a game then ... especially with today's sports science, nutrition and the supposedly stellar facility at Fairwood ... it is the Manager and his staff that are failing the players. And certainly, any player can hit the sand on Swansea Bay and run a few miles. Wasn't Monk who was always pissing and moaning about Sousa's fitness regimen - and I don't remember Sousa's squad looking totally knackered taking the field. And, if there were players not fresh and ready for the Stoke match ... why wasn't the balance of the squad not injected into the starting line-up ... because they've never been used. Stoke had Clueless and other typical starters on the bench and they still ran over us. Is Piroe now an every other game player.
The TV color commentator before the game started made a point that the Rover's result would give the team a lift and an impetus heading into the game. The exact opposite happened.
CroJack
Key Player
"One day a man walks into the hospital and tells the desk nurse that he wants to see the eye/ear doctor.
"There is no such doctor" she replies.
"Perhaps you would like to see some other doctor?"
"No, I need to see an eye/ear doctor" he says.
"But there is no such doctor", she replies.
" We have doctors for the eyes and doctors for the ear, nose and throat, but no eye/ear doctor." No help. He repeats, "I want to see the eye/ear doctor."
And they go around like this for a few minutes and then the nurse says:
"Comrade, there is no eye/ear doctor, but if there were one, why would you want to see one?"
"Because," he replies, "Mr. Martin keeps telling me one thing and I keep seeing another."
---------------------
This Russian joke is the reflection of propaganda no longer working.
"There is no such doctor" she replies.
"Perhaps you would like to see some other doctor?"
"No, I need to see an eye/ear doctor" he says.
"But there is no such doctor", she replies.
" We have doctors for the eyes and doctors for the ear, nose and throat, but no eye/ear doctor." No help. He repeats, "I want to see the eye/ear doctor."
And they go around like this for a few minutes and then the nurse says:
"Comrade, there is no eye/ear doctor, but if there were one, why would you want to see one?"
"Because," he replies, "Mr. Martin keeps telling me one thing and I keep seeing another."
---------------------
This Russian joke is the reflection of propaganda no longer working.
Martin now saying that he thinks his team isn't fit enough to play the style of football he wants. So whose fault is that then? What do we pay the manager, his coaches and trainers for? In addition there are nutritionists, dieticians, game analysts and God knows what to help the players be as fit as they can be - not to mention the state-of-the-art facilities that the club has invested in for the players.
This seems to be yet another excuse in the long litany of reasons Martin has trotted out to justify our position in the league that is far lower than when he took over. Too much football; too little football; emotionally drained. The list goes on and on and now lack of fitness is being blamed. As far as I can see, lack of investment is the only genuine excuse he can fall back on.
It seems to me that the players aren't good enough to play how he wants and Martin just hasn't got a Plan B let alone a Plan C or D when things aren't working. It looks like he's being found out, or rather his lack of managerial experience at this level. He is being out-thought time and again by run-of-the-mill Championship managers who at least know what they're doing and what they can expect from their teams.
I thought Steve Cooper was poor for us despite our top 6 finishes under him but now he's taken Forest into the playoff places after beating Blackburn away last night. He's making progress whilst Martin has hit a brick wall at full tilt. If his fitness training isn't working, if our brilliant facilties aren't helping either, then I suggest he adopts @Yankee_Jack 's suggestion that they drag their sorry arses to the beach and put in some good old-fashioned work on the sand. A couple of weeks of that hard slog will see them only too grateful to make better use of what they have.
This seems to be yet another excuse in the long litany of reasons Martin has trotted out to justify our position in the league that is far lower than when he took over. Too much football; too little football; emotionally drained. The list goes on and on and now lack of fitness is being blamed. As far as I can see, lack of investment is the only genuine excuse he can fall back on.
It seems to me that the players aren't good enough to play how he wants and Martin just hasn't got a Plan B let alone a Plan C or D when things aren't working. It looks like he's being found out, or rather his lack of managerial experience at this level. He is being out-thought time and again by run-of-the-mill Championship managers who at least know what they're doing and what they can expect from their teams.
I thought Steve Cooper was poor for us despite our top 6 finishes under him but now he's taken Forest into the playoff places after beating Blackburn away last night. He's making progress whilst Martin has hit a brick wall at full tilt. If his fitness training isn't working, if our brilliant facilties aren't helping either, then I suggest he adopts @Yankee_Jack 's suggestion that they drag their sorry arses to the beach and put in some good old-fashioned work on the sand. A couple of weeks of that hard slog will see them only too grateful to make better use of what they have.
Behindthegoal
Key Player
Garry monk had the right ideas about fitness training. I wonder if he’s available ?
Not many people know this, but he took to our highest finish in the PL.
Not many people know this, but he took to our highest finish in the PL.
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Here's what Martin doesn't get. The players we have have been among the top at every age level they've played in since the age of say 10. They've had bona fide coaches that have played standard systems that have been drilled and acquired by rote. Now, football players are not stupid, they're not the sharpest knives in the draw by a long way, but they have football intelligence. But this intelligence is constrained by the programming they've had since the age of 10. Old habits and methods die hard.
He arrived with a concept of how he wants the game to be played. The trouble is that the concept is unique to him. He inherited a squad that's probably never seen anything like it before. The players started the season with trepidation - remember the early games where the ball was like a hot potato that nobody wanted. They have molded into Martin's Madness but not all of them can get it and many - especially the defenders - are being asked to be what they've never trained or been coached to be ... midfielders and even forwards when their walk-about puts them into the attacking third.
Instead of coming in like Sousa, Rogers, Laudrup and adopting what they inherited, continuing the theme, and enhancing here and there style-wise and player-wise, Martin trashed what Cooper had spent two years drilling into the squad (good, bad or indifferent) and went off at a right angle. From Martinez to Laudrup you could look at the team sheet for any given match and it was pretty clear who was playing where and how - for all practical purposes the shape was the same, the roles were the same and above all it was relatively simple so that players could be swapped in and out and could express themselves naturally. Look at the last 4 team sheets of Martin and it's almost impossible to figure out WTF is going on especially defensively until the game is 15 minutes old. And, worst of all, what Martin is doing is being countered, stopped, and defeated too easily by opposition that just work cohesively, work hard and apply themselves.
I don't see this turning around anytime soon; not this season. We have a cushion of points, but as I have said for a while, Martin's mission is now to avoid relegation.
Martin, like a dog with a bone, is not going to admit defeat and walk away from his football concept. He's going to have to get fired. The Club have rightly curtailed their spending because the Club has acquired decent resources (e.g. Piroe) for money that is significant under the economic situation and the league we're in. Martin hasn't gotten the best out of them, hasn't worked with them naturally, but tried to force them into his system ... and it's looking like shit. It's inconsistent. Martin's press conferences are laughably predictable, evasive of responsibility and counter to common sense. If I was a club exec, I would be reticent to spend now to have a player enter into a system, when I'm not that comfortable with the Manager's performance and his system ... a system that would automatically change on the appointment of a new manager because nobody would come in and attempt to play like this. As a club exec, I would also be concerned about the talent we had on our books that was not/under utilized and we had to loan out.
The Club's greatest risks at this point are two-fold: relegation, lack of playing system continuity. The first would be economically disastrous. The second compounds the starting situation for the next manager ... and there's always going to be a next manager. This is what every exec has to be concerned with.
He arrived with a concept of how he wants the game to be played. The trouble is that the concept is unique to him. He inherited a squad that's probably never seen anything like it before. The players started the season with trepidation - remember the early games where the ball was like a hot potato that nobody wanted. They have molded into Martin's Madness but not all of them can get it and many - especially the defenders - are being asked to be what they've never trained or been coached to be ... midfielders and even forwards when their walk-about puts them into the attacking third.
Instead of coming in like Sousa, Rogers, Laudrup and adopting what they inherited, continuing the theme, and enhancing here and there style-wise and player-wise, Martin trashed what Cooper had spent two years drilling into the squad (good, bad or indifferent) and went off at a right angle. From Martinez to Laudrup you could look at the team sheet for any given match and it was pretty clear who was playing where and how - for all practical purposes the shape was the same, the roles were the same and above all it was relatively simple so that players could be swapped in and out and could express themselves naturally. Look at the last 4 team sheets of Martin and it's almost impossible to figure out WTF is going on especially defensively until the game is 15 minutes old. And, worst of all, what Martin is doing is being countered, stopped, and defeated too easily by opposition that just work cohesively, work hard and apply themselves.
I don't see this turning around anytime soon; not this season. We have a cushion of points, but as I have said for a while, Martin's mission is now to avoid relegation.
Martin, like a dog with a bone, is not going to admit defeat and walk away from his football concept. He's going to have to get fired. The Club have rightly curtailed their spending because the Club has acquired decent resources (e.g. Piroe) for money that is significant under the economic situation and the league we're in. Martin hasn't gotten the best out of them, hasn't worked with them naturally, but tried to force them into his system ... and it's looking like shit. It's inconsistent. Martin's press conferences are laughably predictable, evasive of responsibility and counter to common sense. If I was a club exec, I would be reticent to spend now to have a player enter into a system, when I'm not that comfortable with the Manager's performance and his system ... a system that would automatically change on the appointment of a new manager because nobody would come in and attempt to play like this. As a club exec, I would also be concerned about the talent we had on our books that was not/under utilized and we had to loan out.
The Club's greatest risks at this point are two-fold: relegation, lack of playing system continuity. The first would be economically disastrous. The second compounds the starting situation for the next manager ... and there's always going to be a next manager. This is what every exec has to be concerned with.
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
It's a gut wrenching thought.
CroJack
Key Player
When he took over we were in the relegation places with 0 points.
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
You have to be a lawyerWhen he took over we were in the relegation places with 0 points.