According to the latest reports Sport Republic owner Dragan Solak is less than impressed with Saints manager Russell Martin, however Rasmus Ankersen still backs him leading to a split in the boardroom.

mirrorsport.co.uk are reporting that the Southampton boardroom is currently split about the future of Russell Martin, Main shareholder Dragan Solak is said to feel that a change is needed, whilst Rasmus Ankersen as Sporting Director of Sport Republic still backs Martin to pull Saints out of the mire.

This is itself is causing the split to widen as it is claimed that Ankersen's role is now under scrutiny by Solak, again not good news, because if Solak left, Sport Republic would be left with a rudderless ship as Ankersen is the driving force football wise with the experience he has gained at both Midjtland and Brentford.

Ultimately the situation could well resume itself fairly quickly, whilst a defeat at Arsenal is to be expected, it will be the manner of the performance and the tactics employed by Russell Martin that will be under the microscope, defeat at Arsenal might not finish Martin, but anything less than a victory against Leicester a week later would surely make Martin position untenable.

However I would imagine that Saints already are working on their plan B and replacing Martin should it be necessary, John Eustace at Blackburn has already been mentioned, although it is also claimed that the preferred replacement is said to be Carlos Corberan, but Leeds are also said to have him on their radar.

All Photos Via Reuters

kingolaf added 20:50 - Oct 2 My opinion of Sports Republic is deep pockets / tiny brains. Martin has to go. He will not turn it around and is too pig-headed to change his bullsh!t philosophy. Dragan is the money, if Ankersen won’t sack Martin, Dragan needs to sack both of them. To have Martin leading the side for another couple of games, we are just throwing points away. If it’s true that they want Corberan or Eustace, they have learnt nothing from their previous failed appointments.

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altonsaints added 21:23 - Oct 2 I think that after our performance (or lack of) at Bournemouth, things are looking very bleak for Martin’s time at Saints. Would much rather Potter as a new manager as apposed to other Championship managers. It quite often seems that Saints are reluctant to employ people with a track record, and end up going with people who might raise their game and succeed. Even names like Moyes and Lampard have a track record of getting results in the Premier League. Will be very interesting to see how things play out over the next few days/couple of weeks

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kevleykeegle added 21:45 - Oct 2 Lampard’s record as a manager is atrocious: 104 matches, 38 wins, 45 losses, 21 draws.
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Colburn added 22:12 - Oct 2 Have the media hacked one of their phones or something? How exactly did the board send this message? They can’t sack Martin until after the international break anyway because he has a charity match coming up and that would be a bit sour. I would not be surprised if Man City is his last game in charge, whatever the result at home to Leicester.
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saintmark1976 added 22:21 - Oct 2 If mirrorsport are correct in their reporting it begs the question:- Is there actually anything that Sports Republic’s Owners, Board and Directors can do properly ? No wonder our Club was unnecessarily relegated and is now in such a perilous league position again, if between them they can’t even make a simple decision whether or not to replace Russell Martin. I’m reminded of the old expression “ to make the right decision is commendable, to make the wrong decision regretful, making no decision is simply indefensible”. If true, a decent well supported family friendly Football Club now giving every indication of being in the control of a bunch of second rate amateurs. Ted Bates must be spinning in his grave.

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JoeEgg added 09:08 - Oct 3 Sorry keeleykeegle - meant to vote your comment UP! Please save us from Lampard!
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wessexman added 10:30 - Oct 3 Is this the same Ankerson who was the driving force behind the mad decision of appointing Nathan Jones? The man is a menace.
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landsdownsaint added 10:41 - Oct 3 He needs to go now & start his project again down the lower leagues. Does he not know the likes of Bednarek cannot play his style of football? & that’s not putting Bednarek down as he’s a good pro footballer & I’m happy to see him in a saints shirt , at this level he’s got one player capable of playing RM style … Lallana & he’s not going to play to often
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redwight added 11:39 - Oct 3 Of all the personnel to come on board in the SR era, Ankerson has to be the most disappointing. What he did with Brentford pretty much defied belief, meaning that I for one was more than pleased when he was appointed. Clearly whatever gifts he had have deserted him.
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dowater added 13:20 - Oct 3 I dont want graham potter, he done well at Brighton as they had a very talented team. i would accept Moyes for a season just to get us to safety and another year in the prem. but what happened to the saint way of finding gems like Pochettino, coman and co, who were underrated managers and done us proud. how can Brighton seem to find these gems, but we cant anymore. same with the players. we used to bring through several great youth players and find the odd gem from a different league. now all we do is buy Chelsea and Man City cast off youth and hope that they work and then say they came from our youth setup, which they hardly or never played for. we need to wake up as a club and go back to what we did best. get youth team players, give them the route to first team football and then they wont want to leave to go to Chelsea or man City etc.

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Saint4Life247 added 14:20 - Oct 3 As Colburn pointed out nothing will happen before the Charity game on the 13th Oct. After that, who knows. If RM does go then I'd like to think we could attract a few quality managers - Potter seems the most likely at the moment and I wouldn't be upset if he came in. However i'm not sold on the idea that the squad is strong enough to stay up regardless of who is in charge.

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LondonSaint76 added 16:52 - Oct 3 Redwight - A good friend of mine works at Brentford and has said that Ankersen didn’t actually have that much to do with Brentford’s success but was very good at taking all the credit for the groundbreaking ideas and hard work put in by other people. From what he has said, a lot of people at Brentford, off the record, so to speak, were glad to see the back of him. Dowater - What has happened is that the people responsible for recruiting the likes of Potch & Koeman are long gone as are those responsible for bringing in gems like Mane & Tadic or spotting developing the very top quality youth players - Dibling & Amo Ameyaw excepted. Most of those highly valued personnel have either been poached by bigger clubs or left to join them of their own accord. IMO, when Markus Liebherr sadly died an aura that surrounded St Mary’s went with him and it has never really been rekindled since. Sadly I feel under our current ownership we will never rekindle that aura of success as SR not only seem incapable of running a PL club successfully, evidenced by their track record to date, but they show no signs of learning from their previous mistakes. I feel that Ankersen, in particular, is a total liability and once Solak gets to the point where he finally snaps I believe the best thing for the club would be to get rid of Ankersen along with Martin - let the oaf Ankersen go and ruin another club, Brentford & SFC excepted, there are plenty more to choose from…

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