Russell Martin must give up tactical experiment sabotaging Southampton promotion hopes
Southampton must go back to basics to improve their promotion hopes.
Russell Martin is a manager who very much sticks to his principles, with some admiring the commitment to his values whilst others may lament his approach as stubborn.
Southampton secured consecutive wins in Saturday’s 4-2 victory over struggling Sunderland, having lost three in a row prior to the 4-3 win over Birmingham City last time out.
Scoring four goals in consecutive games is impressive and a promising sign for the promotion push, however the Saints cannot continue to concede goals at the rate they currently are as they will not be able to score so freely every game and it will end up costing them.
Southampton’s recent porous defensive has coincided with a recent tactical switch from Martin, with captain Jack Stephens being shoehorned into what was a settled defence whilst he spent the majority of the first half of the season injured.
Russell Martin must stop Jack Stephens experiment
The fact that Martin gave Stephens the captain’s armband at the start of the season puts the Southampton boss in a difficult position.
Stephens started the first four league games of the season before coming off injured against QPR; an injury that would keep him out until mid December. In his absence, Southampton eventually settled on the central defensive pairing of Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Jan Bednarek, with the duo forming an impressive partnership that saw Southampton go 25 games unbeaten in all competitions and concede just 16 league goals in that time.
Since Stephens has returned, though, Martin has been keen to find a way to get him into the side. Stephens has played right-back and left-back in the past couple of months, but it appears that Martin has now settled on playing Stephens centrally and shifting Harwood-Bellis to right-back.
The absence of star man Kyle Walker-Peters through injury has been partly responsible for this recent set-up, but there is a growing feeling that Martin’s desperation to fit square pegs in round holes to accommodate his captain is coming at the detriment of the side.
