givemesport.com have reported that Saints are on the verge of replacing Russell Martin.
They say that with Everton having beaten Crystal Palace on Saturday and jumping above Southampton in the table, this has changed the outlook of the board and that should Saints lose to Bournemouth then they will make a change within hours.
They claim that talks may well have already taken place and if that is the case you would feel that it is only a matter of time before a change is made.
If Ipswich were to lose to Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon, that would perhaps also drive another nail into Martin’s future at the club.
But a victory over Bournemouth would lift Saints out of the bottom 4 and also bring the Cherries into the relegation dog fight.
If any of those making the decisions at St Mary’s were watching Wolves defeat to Liverpool on Saturday evening they would have heard Gary Neville’s scathing attack on Wolves possession football game, if we thought that we were poor and didn’t have the personnel to play possession football, then Wolves were appalling and this will have made the Southampton hierarchy jumpy.
Wolves were lucky in that Liverpool missed a few chances, but on another day it could have been different.
So this is an important week for Russell Martin, he may get a stay of execution on Monday evening, but then he will face one of the top 3 teams in the country, who may not be as accommodating as the teams we have met so far.
Some will say it is harsh on Russell Martin to be talking about sacking him after only 5 games, after all he did get us promoted last season, but that happened because he was forced to water down his tactics, the hope was that he would learn a lesson or two, but that has not been the case so far this season, although there were some hopeful signs in the game against Ipswich.
But the issue here is that he is trying to play these tactics with players that are not good enough to do so at this level, he is not adapting his tactics to the abilities of his squad, he is resolutely imposing his way or no way and sadly I think that the Southampton hierarchy have seen that and may feel that they have to make a change sooner than later.
So on Monday night at the Vitality Stadium, Russell Martin does not just have to win the game, he has to show that he has adapted his tactics to fit the situation and that he will do so at the Emirates on Saturday.
No one is asking him to abandon his principles, just to “adapt” but is he capable of doing that ? That is the big question, good managers who survive in the Premier League, know that they can’t take on the likes of Manchester City and play them at their own game.
This is not just with possession football, it has been the case for as long as football has been played and the worry for Southampton whether it is the board or the supporters is that Russell Martin is just too stubborn to change.
This will be the thinking in the St Mary’s boardroom, can they see Russell Martin changing and if not can they see his tactics winning enough games to keep us up, that is the big big question.
So will Graham Potter who had a short period at the club as a player in 1996/97 and played only a handful of games, but one of those games was the 6-3 defeat at the Dell of the then invincible Manchester United in the October of that season.
Potter was a 70th minute substitute, coming on as Saints defended a slender 3-2 lead with Egil Ostenstad & Eyal Berkovic orchestrating a 3 goal salvo in the final 7 minutes with Paul Scholes also scoring for the visitors in the explosive finish.
Graham Potter would be a popular choice with Southampton supporters, but that is mainly based on his 3 years at Brighton where he steered them from being relegation candidates to the top 10, but during that time he trod a fine line with Brighton supporters who were critical at times of his tactics and his time at Chelsea showed that he did not have the nous to manage a top side,
He has now been out of the game for 18 months and is believed to have turned down several managerial posts including Leicester City in the summer.
This will be an interesting week for Southampton Football Club and one that may well shape the rest of the season.
