Martin's Madness ... a New Twist

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
I have finally been able to obtain copies of the Club's claim against Martin filed in the High Court of Justice on April of this year. These are attached. Quite an interesting read.

Brief details are:
The Claimant alleges: (a) various breaches of contract, and breach of confidence, by the Defendant that enabled Southampton FC to secure the early termination of the Defendant's contract by payment of a fee specified in the confidential terms of the employment contract as being applicable where the offeror is a team outside of the Premier League (as opposed to the larger fee required where the offeror is a Premier League team), despite the fact that Southampton FC had made its approach for the Defendant prior to its relegation from the Premier League; and/or (b) various breaches of contract and/or inducement of breaches by the Defendant that enabled an unlawful team move of employees of the Claimant to Southampton FC.
Needless to say, his on the field madness continues. Pundits are likening him to Kompany with Burnley in his stubbornness to his "madness" and if he persists in this Soton are coming straight back down. Say one thing about Rogers, he did a fine job of adapting and applying our Swanselona to the Prem and keeping us up.
 

Attachments

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
My interpretation of this is that before and during the close of the January transfer window in 2023, something transpired that reconfigured Martin. During his press conference immediately after the transfer window closed, Martin presented as a person stunned or in a state of shock - my observation and interpretation. I probably opined on this forum on that event something to this effect. From that point forward, again my interpretation, Martin was not exactly a team player.

These sort of shenanigans may be common place, but I applaud the Club for calling bull shit on the Soton Affair.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
A couple of months ago, Simon Jordan on Talk Sport royally slagged off Martin basically saying that, in his opinion Martin had broken his contract and should face the consequences. He commented that Martin was happy enough to sign his contract to get the job in the first place, should have seen it out and not broken it because something better had come along.

Simon Jordan divides many opinions. He is a former club owner (Palace) and lost an awful amount of money in the process. He knows football inside out because of this having been very much at the sharp end. He is also an extremely intelligent and articulate presenter and doesn't hold back with his opinions. I certainly don't always agree with him but you are never left in any doubt as to why he's expressed a particular opinion. Sometimes our views are polar opposite but I always respect and listen to what he has to say. In this instance he is firmly in our corner.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
After you posted on SJ's commentary a few months back, I went and listened. Jordan called bull shit on the play for sure. Reading the complaint, Soton went about it all head-up-arse with total disrespect for us. I would love to been privy to the conversations between the Club and Martin back in that January transfer window.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
The Madness could be coming to an end at Soton. Rumor is (Scottish gossip: McCoist, Martin, Lawrence, Tisdale, Dhanda, Hale, Carver) he has one game left to avoid the sack. Will he stick or twist?
He's still making the same mistakes that he did with us except at a higher level. He got away with it in the Championship and won promotion because his Soton squad had better players than rival teams. However, in turn, they have now found that Premier League players have more quality than his. If he wasn't so stubborn and set in his outlook and approach, he does have the players who might just keep them up if he adapted his tactics to suit their ability. But he's so blinkered he won't change.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
All of the pundits that comment on Soton are now shaking their heads, stiffling guffaws at the stupidity of playing out from the back with lead footed players, and effectively labelling him as Kompany Version 2 and destined for demise. Soton execs having seen the way this story ends and seem poised to hit the brakes and course correct.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Well this past Saturday Martin's Madness got undone by Andy Pandy at home. Isn't the irony stunning. Coleman made the playoffs twice, the final once, but none of this was good enough for Club Execs that thought it a stroke of genius to sever the relationship with Andy Pandy and hire Martin and his Madness that had produced mediocre results for MK Dons the previous two seasons ... top of the pass table, bottom-ish of the points table, where it really counts. And lo' and behold the Madness continued with us and we haven't really recovered since. Thankfully Soton, bereft of integrity, relieved us of our misery and are suffering mightily as a result. But, the symptoms of Madness continue as Williams hasn't yet found a better way forward.

And questions are being asked about how long he continues ... the latest damning analysis is here (Southampton boss Russell Martin faces test of principles)
 

Behindthegoal

Key Player
By ‘eck we’ve had our share of managers these past 11 years since we lifted the trophy. Forgive me, I can’t remember a coalman, though we’ve had a few of his donkeys 😄😄😄
 

jackodiamonds

Set-Piece Specialist
Staff member
I believe the execs appointed Martin as a knee-jerk reaction to fan pressure because a lot of fans were unhappy with Cooper's "boring" and "pragmatic" football.

I've always believed they chose Martin having decided to appoint a possession-based manager because "that's what the fans want". They must have thought they struck gold when they saw that the team with the third best possession stats in all of Europe at the time was MK Dons, with a manager affordable enough to poach. It was a well-intentioned but misguided idea, because - as I'm so fond of saying - it's not 2011 anymore.

It's difficult for the Swans brass because the fans loved the success of the Prem years and cling desperately to the memory, hailing "possession" as part of the Swans DNA but it never was, at least not over the long haul. It was a thing for about a decade, that's it.

It's easy to understand why it meant so much. Swansea got the very rare treat of not only being one of the best British teams at playing the style, but actually playing it consistently before the big boys. Swansea were a lower-league 4-2-3-1 tiki-taka team when most of the top flight was still playing 4-4-2. That's a golden feather in any small side's cap, so no wonder the fans are reluctant to let it go.

Truth is, that style of possession play is dead. The only teams who still dominate possession do so as a function of having much better players than their opponent, not as a key component of their strategy.

Martin shows how anachronistic this style now is - it simply does not work anymore. Football has moved on, and Swans fans need to move on too. Based on Martin's Swans years and what we've been seeing from Williams lately, most of the fanbase is ready to move on, but they need to see a new system to inspire some belief and show a new way forward (*cough* JIMMY THELIN *cough*).

I believe the Swans execs realised their mistake with Martin and tried to find a new system by going against the grain with appointing Duff, but that was of course an even bigger mistake. I think the notion was correct - find a new style - but the choice was too extreme to work, and with all due respect it is hard to believe the next wave of tactical evolution was ever going to come from Duff.

There was always a taint of "be careful what you wish for" to the clamour of "Cooper out". Martin was the ironic punishment, and Williams - Martin's protege - has become the possession-credentialed life-raft the execs clung to when the Duff experiment imploded.

I just hope Williams starts watching Aberdeen and Elfsborg matches on repeat, because Swansea might have to wait a long time for another blind Saint to poach a manager who is doing just enough to not get fired, especially now Martin's system - to which Williams is sadly a minor adherent - has been very publicly exposed as the dated madness it always was.
 

CroJack

Data Analyst
Staff member
Some metrics show that Williams is an improvement on Martin, while others show the opposite. It's a common misconception that Williams is simply a copy of Martin.

Positives
  • Our pressing game was poor under Martin. Now we are one of the best pressing teams in the Championship.
  • We don't play out from the back all the time anymore and we don't invite pressure in order to 'find openings' in the opposition defence. Our goalkeeper plays it long. In 10 games we have played so far Vigouroux has played 245 long passes/balls, which is by far the most of all Championship goalkeepers. Palmer and Trafford are joint second with 176. Under Williams we play 11 more long passes per game than under Martin.
  • We've only conceded seven goals in ten games. If Martin was at Swansea, we probably would've conceded twenty. We still allow too many chances against, but that's nothing compared to Martin's madness. We simply don't give away so many big chances as we did under Martin.
  • Under Williams we play almost 100 passes less per game than under Martin. We don't play as many short ping-pong passes as we used to do under Martin.
  • We put in more (accurate) crosses and we dribble more.
  • We are more physical under Williams. We attempt and win more tackles.

Negatives
  • We had a lot more shots and shots on target under Martin. The main issue under Williams is the lack of shots and shots on target. However, in the last two games, we've made a big improvement when it comes to number of shots.​

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Martin (season 2022/23) v Williams (season 2024/25)
(per 90 minutes)
MartinWilliams
Attempted passes total639551
MartinWilliams
Progressive distance27412859
MartinWilliams
Attempted short passes309225
MartinWilliams
Attempted medium passes234233
MartinWilliams
Attempted long passes6576
MartinWilliams
Progressive passes4240
MartinWilliams
Crosses into penalty area1.852.6
MartinWilliams
Key passes10.28.3
MartinWilliams
Through balls1.31.4
MartinWilliams
Switches31.7
MartinWilliams
Attempted crosses18.422.3
MartinWilliams
Shot creation actions23.217.7
MartinWilliams
Goal creation actions2.521
MartinWilliams
Tackles won8.2410.3
MartinWilliams
Tackles attempted13.716.9
MartinWilliams
Recoveries46.741.2
MartinWilliams
Touches in attacking 3rd162.6147.2
MartinWilliams
Touches in attacking penalty area20.520
MartinWilliams
Attempted take-ons12.716.7
MartinWilliams
Progressive carries21.920
MartinWilliams
Carries into final third16.913.5
MartinWilliams
Carries into penalty area4.023.7
MartinWilliams
Shots139.9
MartinWilliams
Shots on target4.612.8
MartinWilliams
Average shot distance17.615.9
MartinWilliams
Progressive passes42.440.7
MartinWilliams
Shots allowed/against9.7412.8
MartinWilliams
Shots on target allowed/against3.53.7
MartinWilliams
Passes allowed into final 1/320.123.1
MartinWilliams
Passes allowed into penalty area5.485.5
MartinWilliams
Progressive passes allowed24.728.9
MartinWilliams
Progressive carries allowed11.815.7
MartinWilliams
Progressive passes allowed24.728.9
 
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