In the last 8 Championship games, Russell Martin seems to think that Attack is the best form of defence, but two games aside that has not proved to be the case and now the manager needs to rethink his tactics.

Russell Martin should be revered amongst Southampton fans, yes he didn't exactly excite the fanbase when his appointment was announced, but he proved that he could manage when he took his side on a club record unbeaten run and in doing so to become the favourites for automatic promotion.

But then it all went wrong, so why did it go wrong, some say it was because he did not have a plan B, well he has disproved that theory in the manner in which he has tinkered with the back four and changed it from being the tightest defence in the division to the leakiest defence.

That is down to the manager's insistence that at every opportunity he has tried to shoehorn Jack Stephens in and now culminating in the defeat at Ipswich Town where he dropped Kyle Walker Peters, only a few weeks ago the most consistent and best defender in the team and indeed you could use the same label's in general with KWP perhaps being one of four players who are in the running for player of the year.

Kyle Walker Peters was supposedly dropped for one error, his failure to mark the man who headed Middlesborough's equaliser, if that is the case then that is disgusting, but it is a symptom of what the manager has been thinking in the last few of months.

He has had a plan B and that is to play Jack Stephens at any cost and that cost is that defence is no longer the best form of defence, in those 8 games we have got out of jail twice, firstly at Birmingham & then at home to Sunderland, but in the main soft goals conceded have left us with uphill tasks to rescue games.

This plan B has now stripped the consistency and the confidence out of not just the back four but the goalkeeper and culminated in that absurd back four selection at Portman Road where only Taylor Harwood Bellis in the back line found himself playing in the same position he was in a few days earlier against Middlesbrough.

This is scatter gun selection, how could we hope to keep tight organised and disciplined against the highest scoring team in the Championship when we have not just tinkered we have changed it completely and more to the point left out one of the best players in the side, is there a Saints supporter out there who would have picked either James Bree or Jack Stephens ahead of Kyle Walker Peters, I still can't believe this decision and ultimately it cost us this game individually and over the past two months it has cost us any chance of automatic promotion.

Therefore despite the fact that we are only a couple of wins away from securing a play of place, a position that many thought would be the most we could achieve this season, it feels like we are in a relegation battle.

Russell Martin has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory so to speak, I have seen many poor Southampton sides, I have seen most of them dig in and save themselves from relegation, because ultimately despite the manager not having the quality to work with that other sides had, he recognised the strong points of his squad and utilised them and the players knew where they stood and were behind him.

Martin has arguably the best squad in the Championship both in terms of quality & quantity and it is the latter that he has the problem, he has found himself with too many decisions to make, he hasn't stuck to the winning formula, when things have gone wrong it has been too easy to just change for changes sake, rather than stick to doing what we do best.

So now we need to see if we are seeing the real Russell Martin, is it the one who plays his favourite and has no plan B other than to keep changing things, or is the real Russell Martin the one who moulded us into a solid side that went unbeaten in 22 League games ?

That Russell Martin knew that Defence is the best form of Defence and that a strong defence is the foundation that builds victories, the one we are seeing clearly does not believe that, he believes that tinkering is the best form of defence and that attacks will just happen, they are not built from the back where each and every player know what they are doing.

The trip to Blackburn will be a key moment of this season, it will show whether the manager is in charge or whether he is floundering in a crisis of his own making and now can't find a way out of it.

At Ewood Park we play a side that scored 5 goals away from home on Monday, they know how to attack and have the league's highest scorer, this might not go well for Russell Martin and i fear that if it doesn't then the fans could turn on him.

If he wins that then we could secure a play off spot by beating Coventry on Tuesday and then we can rebuild the season and concentrate on getting that consistency back that will see us through the play offs.

Photo: Action Images

SaintPaulVW added 12:11 - Apr 5 Deja vu is the best form of deja vu
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stmichael added 13:14 - Apr 5 If it wasn’t for Manning the back four would be very settled.. We are tinkering because we have no left back or at least not one we can trust..
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Kingsland34 added 14:06 - Apr 5 Another mean spirited attack on Jack Stephens, RM and in effect all things Saints. Yes a settled défence would be for the best but you and others deprecate certain players and gloss over others as if they never put a foot wrong, which is something that all defenders ( at every club) are very much open to. For instance KWP is a very good footballer and an asset to us but he is not the strongest defender and is often caught out of position. Something that Stephens and Manning would be endless castigated for. If you take a look back at past videos including Saints defensive greats, you will often see them stranded in the wrong space and lagging behind attackers. A touch of realism is needed.

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mushinexile added 20:01 - Apr 5 Realism? The manager hasn't worked out how other teams have rumbled him and keeps playing confusing selections in the hope that something else happens. The Keeper is not fit for purpose and RM has not heard the quote attributed (possibly apocryphally) to Einstein that repeating the same experiment and expecting a different result is stupidity.
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davidargyll added 22:16 - Apr 5 I do find it ridiculous that you blame our entire loss of form on RM including Jack Stephens in the team I’m sorry but that is rubbish. JS may not be Roy Keane but then we are not Man U. He’s nothing like as bad as you make him out to be and furthermore you seem to have this idea that including KWP in the team (rather than him?) and all our problems will be solved. Hogwash. There is one very simple reason for our drop off in form. The team is knackered. Why? Because playing tippy tippy for 40+ games is exhausting the players and, as others have said, the rest of the league have found us out, JS or no JS. You also seem to continually voice the opinion that we have the best squad in the Championship. We haven’t and we never will have. Maybe we cost (almost) the most but everyone knows price certainly does not equate to quality. You only have to look at the sides around and above us. What’s that expression about the table never lying…?

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Monksway added 11:30 - Apr 7 I think Leicester and Leeds have better squads and most observers would have them above us. We have been competitive and in the mix for most of the season, played attacking passing football but with the same vulnerabilities as most championship sides - strikers miss chances and defenders make mistakes. It makes it an exciting league. Get behind RM , IS and Saints and enjoy the last nine/ ten games!

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