THE definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.
If that is true, Russell Martin is writing the manual on footballing madness at the King Power Stadium.
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Leicester’s 4-0 home loss against Oxford in League One was a new low for a club that famously won the Premier League against all odds just 10 years ago.
The Foxes are a club in desperate, agonising soul-searching mode.
After years of catastrophic mismanagement, soft dressing room cultures, and back-to-back collapses dragged them into the third tier, they needed a steadying hand.
When a house is on fire, you do not debate the aesthetics of the wallpaper — you put out the flames.
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Instead, the board rolled the dice on Martin.
It was a staggering risk and right now it looks like a slow-motion car crash.
Martin is a fundamentalist. It is his way or the highway — but right now, his way looks like a direct route to footballing hell.
Yes, exciting, progressive, possession-based football looks magnificent.
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Monday 7 September
Bromley
20:00
LEO
Wimbledon
Thursday 10 September
Stevenage
20:00
LEO
Luton
Saturday 12 September
Notts
12:30
LEO
Bradford
L Orient
12:30
LEO
Wycombe
Mansfield
15:00
LEO
Huddersfield
Saturday 5 September
Wycombe
3 – 3
LEO
MK Dons
Reading
3 – 1
LEO
Blackpool
Luton
1 – 1
LEO
L Orient
Leicester
0 – 4
LEO
Oxford U
Huddersfield
1 – 1
LEO
Notts
Doncaster
2 – 3
LEO
Plymouth
Burton
2 – 2
LEO
Cambridge U
English Football League – League One
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0
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1
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2
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Martin got Southampton promoted straight back to the Premier League through the play-offs after an incredible run following early pain a few years ago.
But he was hopelessly inflexible in the top flight. Trying to out-Pep Guardiola with inferior players meant it was always going to end in tears.
His stint at Rangers was a complete and utter disaster. He was chewed up, spat out, and dismissed within four months.
I doubt he will ever be able to walk into a pub on the Blue side of Glasgow again — though he might find a warm welcome with Celtic fans!
Now he is in the dog-eat-dog trenches of League One, managing a club where a losing culture has been baked in for two full seasons.
When a club forgets how to win, you do not ask them to play tippy-tappy roulette inside their own penalty box.
You build resilience, grind out results, and rediscover how to win matches by any means necessary.
Wherever Martin goes, he refuses to budge. Adaptability is completely foreign to him.
Good managers win football matches. They look at their squad, evaluate the division and find a pragmatic way to get three points.
Bad managers lose because they are stubborn one-trick ponies.
Martin – who has so many good qualities — is in serious danger of cementing his place in that second category.
His reputation is taking an absolute pounding. Having played under some proper, no-nonsense managers like Gordon Strachan, Paul Lambert, Darren Ferguson and Alex Neil, you would think he’d have learned the value of pragmatism.
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It made zero sense for Leicester to appoint him after getting rid of Gary Rowett. Rowett would have been a steady pair of hands in the third tier.
They still have big earners like Wout Faes on the books on massive wages.
What is the point of paying his huge salary if you are not going to play him? Unless a Turkish or Saudi club are interested, they need to reintegrate him into the squad until the January window opens.
Leicester should be ripping up League One, but at this rate they will be in League Two next season!
It is utterly incredible how far the mighty have fallen.
If the Russell Martin experiment finally explodes, Leicester’s hierarchy must move heaven and earth to bring in Rob Edwards.
Look at Edwards’ record: two promotions, taking Forest Green into League One and guiding Luton into the Premier League.
He was flexible at Kenilworth Road and almost kept them in the top flight against all the odds.
I do not think the Hatters would have dropped to League One had they not bailed out on him mid-season back in the Championship.
Edwards did a good job with a Wolves team that looked hopelessly out of their depth when he came in.
Yet they bizarrely sacked him in the summer.
Crucially, Edwards is pragmatic, adaptable and knows how to win.
Right now, Leicester do not need an idealist. They need a winner before the unthinkable happens.
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Sullivan upping his stake angers Hammers fans
WEST HAM fans are up in arms after divisive former chairman David Sullivan actually INCREASED his shareholding in the club.
Sullivan resigned from the board this summer following damning allegations of wrongdoing with young women in an explosive Panorama documentary — claims he has firmly denied.
Yet he triggered pre-emption rights alongside Daniel Kretinsky to block Amanda Staveley‘s consortium out.
Following the carve-up of Vanessa Gold’s 25 per cent stake, Kretinsky has increased his holding to 46 per cent.
Sullivan’s share is up to 40 per cent, while Tripp Smith holds 11 per cent.
Between them, Sullivan and Smith still command a 51 per cent majority voting block.
It is a terrible look that Sullivan has increased his power base when supporters so dearly want him gone altogether.
He is still attending matches, but when the big screens accidentally cut to him against Charlton, he was met by deafening boos.
The bizarre situation reached peak farce on Tuesday night against Wolves when Staveley and her husband were spotted queuing with fans at the main concourse entrance.
After the 4-2 win, fan bloggers filming outside realised they were accidentally blocking two people from leaving — Staveley and her husband standing patiently.
Staveley, though, will almost certainly try again. Perhaps she can now target buying out Sullivan and Tripp Smith’s remaining shares instead?
It does seem strange that Kretinsky doesn’t want full control of the club himself.
If the Czech billionaire goes to 51 per cent, he is legally obliged to launch a mandatory buyout for the rest of the shares.
Staveley, on the other hand, clearly wants complete control.
It will be fascinating to see if Staveley can eventually smoke the Czech out.
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With the government wanting to sell the London Stadium, there is still staggering long-term potential at West Ham.
Yet the silver lining right now is that with Kretinsky as the largest shareholder, the club can finally focus purely on winning promotion without all the boardroom noise.