Southampton successfully negotiated their Championship play-off semi-final against West Brom to book their place in the final.
Russell Martin‘s side followed up a solid 0-0 draw away at The Hawthorns with a 3-1 win in front of a lively St Mary’s atmosphere to set up a Wembley final against Leeds United on Sunday.
The Southampton boss deserves enormous credit for the season he has overseen at the south coast club, completely overhauling the playing style whilst also losing a number of players in the summer following the club’s relegation.
Martin is very set on his beliefs, with his possession-based philosophy the main reason Southampton decided to appoint the 38-year-old in the summer.
However, one EFL pundit has suggested Martin has now made one key change that has seen made the Saints better.
Russell Martin showing he can be adaptable at Southampton
Martin’s style can be divisive and when results are not so good he can be accused of being a manager more concerned with style over substance.
Martin will argue that one brings the other as far as he is concerned, staunchly believing that his teams’ dominance of the ball is the best way to be successful long term.
EFL podcast Not The Top 20 were discussing the play-off semi finals and co-host Ali Maxwell identified Martin’s recent tactical flexibility as a reason Southampton have looked better.
Maxwell explained: “I think Martin deserves huge credit to be honest. There’s a tale on him that he’s been very dogmatic about his style of play.
“He’s been open about why he plays the way he does and clearly up to this point – having never finished above 10th in a league before – it’s easy for people to say ‘well obviously you need to be more adaptable, you need to be at times a little more mindful of opposition threats’…
“…And i think, over the course of the season there’s now growing evidence that Martin is performing in that way and is acting a bit more on how opposition might hurts Saints and his team have become better as a result of it.”
Martin now has luxury of two winning systems
For much of the season, the argument that Martin only seemed concerned with his own side would probably be a fair assessment.
However, in recent weeks he has shown he can be pragmatic too, starting with the 2-1 win over Leeds on the final day of the season.
Having primarily played a 4-3-3 shape for the bulk of the campaign, Martin switched to a back three against Leeds with great success.
Southampton then used the 3-5-2 system again in the first leg against West Brom as they sought to be defensively sound in the away game and earned a hard-fought clean sheet.
Then, in the home leg, the Saints boss initially set his side up in a 4-3-3 but switched between the two systems during the game.
The fluidity with which Southampton played made it extremity difficult for West Brom to defend and now Martin now knows he can trust his players to change system in-game which could be a valuable weapon in the final.