Victoria Swan
Key Player
Yep, Martin's subs have pretty well killed off what looked like a good chance for points out of this game
THE RETURN OF CONNOR ROBERTS
- Thread starter The Blobster
- Start date
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Every step a backward one
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Our new midfield players are jogging when they should be hustling and bustling
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Yet another 2 yard goal kick against a fierce press by Burnley ,,, why
Nothing has changed to make me believe that we'd be better off without Martin. He just keeps shooting himself, and us, in the foot - him and whoever is chipping in with 'advice' on the sideline.
The Blobster
Prediction Champ
Good work from Congreve but ntcham fires wide
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Why pass not shoot by Ntcham.
The last few minutes of a game require desperate measures when you're losing. Long regarded as the best way is to lump the ball into the opposing box and keep doing it. Mistakes happen; defenders panic; chances appear. And our best chance of converting one of them is back sitting on the bench.
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Still not happy with Piroe. What flattery there is deceives. Wood is technically better and shaper than Darling,
You’re not going to win games by removing all of your best players that have gained control, because even at 50% they are still better than the joggers that came on. Congreve looked good but not the solution we needed. We needed Flex not Ntcham
You’re not going to win games by removing all of your best players that have gained control, because even at 50% they are still better than the joggers that came on. Congreve looked good but not the solution we needed. We needed Flex not Ntcham
Victoria Swan
Key Player
That was disappointing after an impressive first half.
Martin robbed us of momentum with his substitutions. Time and again he costs us points with his crap, unfathomable decisions. Why change things? Joe was having his best game in years according to the radio comms and Jay was being Jay and having a very decent game. Then he removes Cullen, who's on a hot streak, when we need to be loading the ball into the area for him to use his poaching instincts to snatch something.
I think Martin's tactical plans are akin to people painting by numbers. He's limited and inflexible. If the number ain't there you can't colour it. Improvise? What's that? For me his thought processes are a complete mystery and I've been involved with football for far longer than he has. I know what I'm looking at and, all too often, I don't like what I see and I certainly don't understand it.
I listened to a podcast about Martin the other day. The basic gist was that Martin is a detail-oriented manager who goes by the numbers, and who believes that if his team can routinely create more chances than average while giving up fewer chances than average then they will eventually end up on top. I can see that in Martin, but it's lunacy to expect a team to play to the figures. Football is a game of emotion and artistry, it is too unpredictable to pin down to numbers.
So far, Swansea are 11th best in XG and 3rd best in XGa, although the comparatively few chances Swansea do give up are almost always clear-cut scoring opportunities. @CroJack has talked about these figures a lot before.
Mathematically, Martin's idea is sound. He aspires to create a "set-and-forget" football system in which the players will follow the same detail-oriented plan every game to achieve consistent XG and XGa numbers in the belief that over the long haul superiority in those metrics will show up in the table.
If only football was played by mathematicians. I would argue that while football is played by humans and not robots, Martin's aspiration to football-strictly-by-numbers is an impossible and lazy dream.
Impossible because when a team is demoralised by a defeat, it is hard for the players to see the big picture in terms of fractions of XG and XGa which supposedly means everything will be ok in the end. In the heat of the moment, a player is more likely to forget the detail in their head and follow their heart instead. Clearly these players hate the detail, as evidenced by all the brain-fart goals against and Martin's never-changing press conference frustration about players not executing the detail properly. And what better way to stifle creativity and create hesitation by making sure your players have a ton to think about in every moment during every game?
Martin's approach is lazy in that he seems to want to play the same way every game. The art of management, at least on the tactical side, is to assess the opposition, set out a team capable of undermining the opponents strategy, and make timely and insightful changes on the fly during the game to ensure your team wins. Sure, there's "having a style", but you can be tactically flexible and still retain some basic core values. "But we dominated possession" is a meaningless whine after the fact and does not excuse a 33% win percentage. There is no easy option managing in a division as competitive as this one. It requires either a deep tactical understanding with the ability to communicate complex ideas to an entire team (sometimes mid-game), or confidence-building bravado so even if the tactics stay simple, the players feel like world-beaters and will always go the extra yard for their manager. Confidence counts for a lot in every walk of life, and it can win football matches. Teams with managers who can't do at least one of these things do not get promoted.
Also, Martin's claim that his team play well between the boxes is tragic. You know why his team play well between the boxes but poorly in either? Because all the other teams know that the game will be decided on what happens in the boxes, not so much in between them. They sit back and let Swansea pass themselves tired in harmless areas but when the play moves into either box, the opposition step up their game, and suddenly Swansea can't handle the challenge. It's self-inflicted rope-a-dope football almost every week.
I've said before I'd have canned Martin at the end of last season so a new guy had a full summer to make changes. What progression will we have seen at the end of this season's lower-mid-table finish to justify having kept him?
So far, Swansea are 11th best in XG and 3rd best in XGa, although the comparatively few chances Swansea do give up are almost always clear-cut scoring opportunities. @CroJack has talked about these figures a lot before.
Mathematically, Martin's idea is sound. He aspires to create a "set-and-forget" football system in which the players will follow the same detail-oriented plan every game to achieve consistent XG and XGa numbers in the belief that over the long haul superiority in those metrics will show up in the table.
If only football was played by mathematicians. I would argue that while football is played by humans and not robots, Martin's aspiration to football-strictly-by-numbers is an impossible and lazy dream.
Impossible because when a team is demoralised by a defeat, it is hard for the players to see the big picture in terms of fractions of XG and XGa which supposedly means everything will be ok in the end. In the heat of the moment, a player is more likely to forget the detail in their head and follow their heart instead. Clearly these players hate the detail, as evidenced by all the brain-fart goals against and Martin's never-changing press conference frustration about players not executing the detail properly. And what better way to stifle creativity and create hesitation by making sure your players have a ton to think about in every moment during every game?
Martin's approach is lazy in that he seems to want to play the same way every game. The art of management, at least on the tactical side, is to assess the opposition, set out a team capable of undermining the opponents strategy, and make timely and insightful changes on the fly during the game to ensure your team wins. Sure, there's "having a style", but you can be tactically flexible and still retain some basic core values. "But we dominated possession" is a meaningless whine after the fact and does not excuse a 33% win percentage. There is no easy option managing in a division as competitive as this one. It requires either a deep tactical understanding with the ability to communicate complex ideas to an entire team (sometimes mid-game), or confidence-building bravado so even if the tactics stay simple, the players feel like world-beaters and will always go the extra yard for their manager. Confidence counts for a lot in every walk of life, and it can win football matches. Teams with managers who can't do at least one of these things do not get promoted.
Also, Martin's claim that his team play well between the boxes is tragic. You know why his team play well between the boxes but poorly in either? Because all the other teams know that the game will be decided on what happens in the boxes, not so much in between them. They sit back and let Swansea pass themselves tired in harmless areas but when the play moves into either box, the opposition step up their game, and suddenly Swansea can't handle the challenge. It's self-inflicted rope-a-dope football almost every week.
I've said before I'd have canned Martin at the end of last season so a new guy had a full summer to make changes. What progression will we have seen at the end of this season's lower-mid-table finish to justify having kept him?
Kompany conceded that Swans were as good as his team, which they probably were. But, as usual, we gift-wrapped them two goals which was enough to lose us the game. Familiar story and one that will see us lose out on the play-offs if we don't sort it out. Some stats:
POSSESSION: 56-44 SHOTS: 10-8 OT: 3-3 CORNERS: 4-5 FOULS: 7-12 GOALS: 1-2
These are respectable figures given the calibre of the team we were facing. But it seems our generosity knows no bounds when it comes to giving goals away. Martin gets paid to solve these problems and if he can't then we need to get someone who will. Results win matches and points. Excuses don't.
POSSESSION: 56-44 SHOTS: 10-8 OT: 3-3 CORNERS: 4-5 FOULS: 7-12 GOALS: 1-2
These are respectable figures given the calibre of the team we were facing. But it seems our generosity knows no bounds when it comes to giving goals away. Martin gets paid to solve these problems and if he can't then we need to get someone who will. Results win matches and points. Excuses don't.
I read again today Kompany waxing lyrical about us. He said:
I knew this was going to be a difficult game. There isn't a single team in the league, not even us, who can manipulate the ball like they do. We went to Old Trafford and pressed, and we found it more difficult here. Go figure!
I also read another piece where he said that we were so hard to play against because when his team found an answer to what we were doing, we promptly changed shape and created an entirely new set of problems.
To Martin's credit this is praise indeed because it comes from a man with top experience who very much knows what he's talking about. That said, I still remain baffled by many of Martin's tactics and decisions. For sure he IS being let down by various players getting brain farts but it KEEPS happening. On the odd occasion it is acceptable within the fortunes of football but, when it becomes a regular occurrence, then you have to look at the coaching that isn't sorting the problem. Some extra stats:
PASSES: 546-444
TOUCHES IN OPPO BOX: 13-12
There's still time for us to have a crack at the top six but we won't make it unless we deal with our defensive issues.
I knew this was going to be a difficult game. There isn't a single team in the league, not even us, who can manipulate the ball like they do. We went to Old Trafford and pressed, and we found it more difficult here. Go figure!
I also read another piece where he said that we were so hard to play against because when his team found an answer to what we were doing, we promptly changed shape and created an entirely new set of problems.
To Martin's credit this is praise indeed because it comes from a man with top experience who very much knows what he's talking about. That said, I still remain baffled by many of Martin's tactics and decisions. For sure he IS being let down by various players getting brain farts but it KEEPS happening. On the odd occasion it is acceptable within the fortunes of football but, when it becomes a regular occurrence, then you have to look at the coaching that isn't sorting the problem. Some extra stats:
PASSES: 546-444
TOUCHES IN OPPO BOX: 13-12
There's still time for us to have a crack at the top six but we won't make it unless we deal with our defensive issues.
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
But, the same "various players" keep getting brain farts. And Martin persists like we're operating a charity.
Why turn back to Darling in place of Wood. Darling has shown poor decision making and application time and again. Wood for the most part has been pretty solid.
Against Burnley, you had the absurd situation of Allen, at 32, in the twilight of his career, with nothing to prove, taking on 50-50 challenges, one after the other, with gusto and winning ... meanwhile Darling having a much bigger frame, with everything yet to prove, fail time and again to apply courage and technique. Not the best pass from Cabango, but it was there for Darling to run onto, yet he froze and then committed a terrible lazy tackle resulting in the free-kick for the first goal.
I'm tired of Martin bemoaning how young the players are. FFS ... they are professional footballers. Darling didn't fall off the back of a turnip truck yesterday. To get this far, he's been playing organized coached football since an early age (say 10). Yet, time and again he shows a lack of fitness for purpose. He is too slow in the head and on the foot, yet we paid a lot of money for him. And, then we send a solid player in Brad Cooper to the lower leagues on loan.
If Martin is in two minds over Wood or Darling, then he should have played Cabango and Cooper and observed two well-schooled academy products plying their trade. Grimes, Fulton, Oli Cooper, Allen, Cullen, Benda ... all our own academy products are the core of our team, functioning well. It's those that have been brought in from outside in preference to other academy players that frankly are sub-par.
Why turn back to Darling in place of Wood. Darling has shown poor decision making and application time and again. Wood for the most part has been pretty solid.
Against Burnley, you had the absurd situation of Allen, at 32, in the twilight of his career, with nothing to prove, taking on 50-50 challenges, one after the other, with gusto and winning ... meanwhile Darling having a much bigger frame, with everything yet to prove, fail time and again to apply courage and technique. Not the best pass from Cabango, but it was there for Darling to run onto, yet he froze and then committed a terrible lazy tackle resulting in the free-kick for the first goal.
I'm tired of Martin bemoaning how young the players are. FFS ... they are professional footballers. Darling didn't fall off the back of a turnip truck yesterday. To get this far, he's been playing organized coached football since an early age (say 10). Yet, time and again he shows a lack of fitness for purpose. He is too slow in the head and on the foot, yet we paid a lot of money for him. And, then we send a solid player in Brad Cooper to the lower leagues on loan.
If Martin is in two minds over Wood or Darling, then he should have played Cabango and Cooper and observed two well-schooled academy products plying their trade. Grimes, Fulton, Oli Cooper, Allen, Cullen, Benda ... all our own academy products are the core of our team, functioning well. It's those that have been brought in from outside in preference to other academy players that frankly are sub-par.
Didn't Grimes come from Exeter? I get the sense of your post though. Martin should be giving more game time to home produced players because they have been better schooled in our own Academy. Much of this is down to the Cam Toshack/Richards era where they were hugely successful routinely beating Academy players from the top Premier League teams and doing a League and Cup double in the process. How on earth this duo was never given a crack at the top job with us at some time is above and beyond my comprehension. Politics or similar? They had the track record; they produced the results and it was done under the noses of the decision-makers at the club. In my opinion it is plain scandalous that they were never given the shot that their hard, and HIGHLY successful, work deserved. But that's our club for you - morons unlimited at the top, imo.
Yankee_Jack
Key Player
Grimes arrived as an 18 year old. Although he had played for Exeter in L1 or 2, he had to earn his spurs in our academy and then went out on loan to a number of places in subsequent seasons. He may even have finished the season of the transfer back at Exeter on loan.
In writing my previous post, the success of the U23 under Toshack/Rogers was top of mind. I dare say that the U23 team of Toshack/Rogers would do exceptionally well in today's Championship and certainly not prone to the lapses of some of our current players.
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CroJack
Key Player
It's not the players guys, it's the style of football.
Our Academy players have made more defensive mistakes under Martin than the so called Martin's pets. Don't you remember the games we lost because of Cabango, Grimes, Fulton, Benda, Allen's mistakes??? I do. I have all our games recorded on my hard drive. Benda lost us the Burnley game yesterday, not Darling. What was Darling supposed to do after that poor Cabango pass? Better foul that Burnley player than let him run alone towards our goal.
When we play direct football, pass the ball quickly, run, fight and tackle, then we look good and normally win our games, no matter what our starting XI looks like. When we pass the ball slowly from the back when under pressure, and pass it from side to side and back again, then we tend to lose the ball in dangerous areas, give away clear-cut chances, and concede soft goals.
Blame Martin, not the players.
By the way, this season Championship is extremely competitive, and imho at least 10 Championship clubs have better squads than we have.
Our Academy players have made more defensive mistakes under Martin than the so called Martin's pets. Don't you remember the games we lost because of Cabango, Grimes, Fulton, Benda, Allen's mistakes??? I do. I have all our games recorded on my hard drive. Benda lost us the Burnley game yesterday, not Darling. What was Darling supposed to do after that poor Cabango pass? Better foul that Burnley player than let him run alone towards our goal.
When we play direct football, pass the ball quickly, run, fight and tackle, then we look good and normally win our games, no matter what our starting XI looks like. When we pass the ball slowly from the back when under pressure, and pass it from side to side and back again, then we tend to lose the ball in dangerous areas, give away clear-cut chances, and concede soft goals.
Blame Martin, not the players.
By the way, this season Championship is extremely competitive, and imho at least 10 Championship clubs have better squads than we have.
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