Russell Martin’s hopes of securing promotion are far more personal than mere sporting achievement.
Martin will lead his Southampton team at Wembley Stadium where they meet Leeds in the Championship Play-Off Final on Sunday.
As well as vying for a place in the Premier League in the richest game in football, Martin has the chance to get one over on the man who ended his nine-and-a-half year stay at Norwich City.
Having initially joined Norwich on loan in November 2009, Martin made a permanent move from Peterborough in January 2010 before spending almost a decade at Carrow Road and being named as club captain in 2013.
Martin played a crucial role in helping the Canaries into the Premier League in 2011 where they stayed for three seasons, before suffering relegation and earning promotion again the following year after beating Middlesbrough in the Play-Off final in 2015.
The defender was a true leader under then-boss Alex Neil, but following Neil’s sacking in March 2017, Norwich moved to bring in one of Europe’s most highly-rated coaches in Farke to the club for the upcoming season.
Martin spoke to the Talk Norwich City podcast in 2019 about the arrival of Farke and initially claimed to have picked up a positive vibe about the German boss.
Farke had attracted plaudits for his work as head coach of Borussia Dortmund II, where he worked closely with then Dortmund boss Thomas Tuchel.
Heading to Norwich in the summer of 2017, Farke was tasked with refreshing an aging squad and working within a structure under director of football Stuart Webber that was based around developing young talent from around Europe and turning them into stars.
That meant for experienced stars including Jonny Howson, Steven Naismith and Martin, the future was seemingly clear – even if Martin had just signed a new contract.
The experienced defender initially kept the captaincy and started four of the first five games under Farke in 2017/18 before suffering a back injury that led to his Norwich career coming to an abrupt end.
Reminded on the Talk Norwich City podcast that he’d previously said he was excited to work with Farke, Martin joked: “I got that wrong, didn’t I?”
“Going back to then, I’d just signed a new contract, the plan was kind of in place with Stuart [Webber; director of football] and the club to start looking towards the end of my playing career and finish at Norwich with the hope of working there in whatever role.
“That was the plan, but things don’t always go to plan.
“Daniel had other plans – and it became fairly obvious, fairly quickly. Unfortunately I left, went on loan to Rangers.”
A loan move to Ibrox in January 2018 saw him make 17 appearances for the Scottish giants before coming back to Norwich and terminating his contract by mutual consent.
Explaining the decision, he said: “Summer came and it was obvious I wasn’t going to be part of the plans again, so you have to make a decision.
“It’s not nice just getting paid and not playing after you’ve been a big part of something somewhere.
“It’s then difficult to become – not even a bit-part, I was totally out of it, training with the 23s – and I was trying to add value to them and help them, but it just became difficult.”
Martin added: “It was never personal, it was never a power issue.
“I still tried to help when I was out of it, particularly with the young lads because it’s difficult to be consistent when you’re young.
“I still tried to play a role in the dressing room but it was obvious that things were going to change, it was just about how long it would take to change and the club probably needed it.”
Martin went on to join Walsall as a player-coach, before heading to MK Dons as a player, before getting his first role as a manager of the club there in November 2019.
Attracting plaudits for his possession-based style of play, Martin was given the opportunity to manage Championship side Swansea in the summer of 2021 where he spent two years before joining recently-relegated Southampton last summer.
After finishing fourth in the Championship, Martin is just one game away from announcing himself as a top manager, something that Farke believes was always on the cards for him.
Asked about Martin ahead of the Play-Off Final, Leeds boss Farke said: “I was blessed when I went into Norwich and he was my captain.
“It was my first experience of English football as a lesser experienced coach and Russell was in the later stages of his career.
“He was the club captain and in the first weeks you could tell in this time he would become a manager.
“He judged the games and what was happening in the dressing room with the eyes of a manager.
“I was quite sure he would do a good job as a manager as he was desperate to do this one day.
“As a captain he was a leader of men and I sensed many skills that are important if you want to lead a group as a manager. Right now he’s proving me right.”
Martin also addressed the topic pre-match, saying: “He (Farke) was a young manager at the time, I was an old player at the time whose hip and back was giving up on me and he was honest with me which is all you can ever ask for.
“I really didn’t like his decision at the time. I can’t pretend that’s the case because I was at a club I’d been at for a long time and I wanted to help and I wanted to contribute and it wasn’t with his team because he had other ideas which is completely fine.
“I think when someone is honest with you you have to respect that – whether you like what is being said to you or not.
“He was fine with me – I went and trained with Gilly (Matt Gill) and the under-23s and that was meant to be because he’s my assistant manager.
“Who knows if that was meant to be the right thing or not but I don’t hold any personal bitterness or resentment to Daniel.”
The Championship Play-Off final between Leeds and Southampton is exclusively live on talkSPORT on Sunday afternoon.
News Summary:
- ‘I really didn’t like it’ – Russell Martin has personal history with Daniel Farke but insists there is no bitterness before play-off final
- Check all news and articles from the latest Football updates.