The Sacking Season - Should it be more than Martin?

I realise that we’re only midway through December, but it also feels like we should just be off work for the rest of the year and possibly think about starting back on say… January 6th. A holiday hibernation, if you will.

However, if we, the general population, have sacked off work, we also demand that he football keep rolling, if only to find something which fills our now copious free time that also allows us to avoid talking to in-laws and relatives for extended periods.

The spice must flow!

The Season of the Sack
Normally I do the roundup and focus on interesting bits from each game, but one of the promises I made when I started this whole shindig was to tell people when their Director of Football should be fired. And I have to say… whomever was responsible for letting Russell Martin hang on this long as got to be close to the chopping block.

It was crystal clear TWO MONTHS AGO the football he had this team was playing was not going to avoid relegation. In my expert opinion, the squad is good enough to compete, so lack of results comes back to the person deciding the tactics. Those tactics have been a disaster at this level, resulting in a variety of horror show goals for the opposition. (And they merely adequate last season, but whatever.)

Firing him in order to place Martin with an average head coach would have been an upgrade.

And then there was the whole “Martin being Martin” thing. If this were improv (like Whose Line is it Anyway) and someone gave the clue: “Give a press conference in the style of a man who would like to be fired/released from his current misery,” it would look exactly what Russell Martin has been doing since October.

I saw a notable Southampton fan defending him recently, saying the team’s problems were actually out of Martin’s hands, and to me it’s just another classic fan delusion. You fell in love with the guy because he got you promoted, then he proved horribly unqualified to competently manage the team at the next level, even with decent players.

You can’t fix him, Gloria. Just admit your boyfriend’s failings and move on.

Fans who think Martin was playing The Vincent Kompany Game and proving his team could be stylistically great with better players, so that he could get a plush job in the future are also delusional. Last season, Burnley acted like a team that were 100% certain and comfortable they were going to yo-yo. Everyone they bought was for the future, and the entire club was comfortable with their PL season being a development one that set them up for future promotions.

(They might be less comfortable with the fact that Burnley are now tied for fifth bottom in attacking expected goals in the Championship, but that’s a Scott Parker issue and not a Vinnie one.)

Southampton’s spending this summer was much more practical and present (Ramsdale, Flynn Downes, Brereton Diaz, Sugawara are all peak age), which indicates they were happy to take a shot at staying up, while Martin’s execution has failed spectacularly.

Finally there are the stripes of fan and media that were reading tea leaves, and felt the club was keeping Martin around was so Southampton would be tactically great next season when relegated back to the Championship.

Which is a thing people actually said and apparently believed!

The problem here is that they are in the Premier League NOW. Staying up for an extra season is worth a lot more than riding this one out with a Championship-level head coach (assuming said coach even sticks around), and then hoping you bounce back up next year. Maybe.

Compound probability is still, like, a thing, both for and against your assumptions.

Had Southampton brass moved during the October break, they might have had a legit chance to stay up! The league is so weird this season - like when Leicester fluked an entire Premier League title - that genuinely anything feels like it could happen before we get to the end of the year. With an average head coach, Southampton could easily get enough results to keep them in the PL this year, and potentially many more.

You’re telling me this team couldn’t be Leicester or Everton right now? GTFO.

But for whatever reason, those at the top sat on their hands for two more months and dug their own grave by keeping Martin around.

Speaking of dumb shit… I saw a rumour today suggesting Bridgerton (Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall) is “available for loan” in January, like presumably half of the Chelsea Cup Squad.

Whomever sanctioned £30M on his transfer should also be fairly close to the chopping block. Despite the Pokemon-esque collection spree Chelsea embarked on this summer, that squad needed very little to compete, but they especially did not need a 26-year-old luxury attacking midfielder from the English Championship.

No malice toward Bridgerton - he’s a PL quality player and we almost always root for players to secure the bag whenever possible during their all-too-short careers - but he doesn’t belong on this Chelsea team.

So why is he here? And who should take the blame?

Imagine another job where you could just do something unjustifiably stupid with £30M*, and no one bothers to mention it because the rest of the company is doing fine.

IANAL but… Those who look at Chelsea’s league position and think none of this matters had better hope that the PL vs Man City fight goes City’s way, or else the long arm of PSR/FFP and Chelsea’s general disdain for it since Boehly/Eghbali took over may find that 30M extra to be extremely expensive in a few years time.

*Okay, another job outside of Venture Capital firms since 2020.

Other Notes

• It was not a good match, but the Amad goal to win the Manchester derby… wowsers.

• Arsenal win that match against Everton about 64% of the time. They’ve only given up two shots in each of their last two matches. I know, I know the current meltdown is around lack of goalscoring and production from the left attacking spot, and I get it. But I also wasn’t terribly excited about their summer purchases, and this feels like a continuation of that plus injury accumulation as much as anything.

• Spurs are 10th in the table with +17 goal difference. It’s like living in AVB bizarro world.

• I had been noting for weeks that Palace are not as bad as their table position. They are currently moving upward, reverting to their mean, which is approximately midtable. Glasner is good. Firing him would have been dumb. Not all coaches who are having a bad run should be fired.

• Newcastle got a lot of joy on set pieces against Leicester. They had a lot of joy in general too, putting up 27 shots and 3.29 expected goals. Leicester are still a team that can haemorrhage against decent teams, especially away. We’ll see if RvN can fix that between now and February. Newcastle, meanwhile… 🤷 

• As Kim wrote about Friday, Brentford’s away struggles are epic and continued against Chelsea Sunday night.

• Speaking of, Sunday night games are confusing af to my brain schedule.

• Aston Villa had zero shots for the 35 minutes after they took the lead at Forest. Then they had one more after Elanga put Forest ahead in the 93rd. Trying to sit on and grind out wins with a single goal lead is really hard in league play. Also, Forest are legit.

Variance Betting
I did not get a chance to do the VB analysis this weekend, (the only bet I got in was Fulham +1.75, and I missed the Man United bet - none of this will count on the summary stats), but there's a game tonight! (And then a blissful midweek off, filled with transfer analysis.)

FYI: I am on Bournemouth at home -.75 -113 vs West Ham.

—TK