Defence Is The Best Form Of Defence
Friday, 5th Apr 2024 11:45

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

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Flamingbankers added 12:17 - Apr 5

Martin really doesn't have a plan B, he just deals with the situation sometimes in a skewed way according to biases that are not based on solid reasoning. It's been said many times recently but use 'round pegs for round holes' not square pegs for round holes. It's obvious but Martin can't see and/or stubbornly won't apply the logic that most fans can now see. Over the decade or so most fans also realise that Stephens can only operate effectively in one position - centre half. Other clubs also know this because whenever Stephens is out of position then that area is easily targeted and leaves Saints with a crucial weakness. Don't get me wrong, I think that Stephens is a reasonably good centre half (and I thought was one of our best players against Middleborough - but, and this is my point, in his accustomed centre half role). That should be his playing role in the squad and presently that should be as a replacement if THB or Bednarek, who are clearly our best centre-half pairing, aren't available. Martin complicates something that should be very simple. We simply don't have the defensive quality to tinker with positional changes..