Bristol City sent fresh Russell Martin warnings - "He wouldn't be my first choice" | OneFootball

Bristol City have been linked with the former Southampton manager, but FLW's City correspondent has doubts over whether he'd be the right choice.

Bristol City are being linked with a potential move for the former Southampton & Rangers manager Russell Martin at the end of the season, but FLW's Bristol City pundit has doubts over whether this would be the right decision for his club.

The 2025-26 season has been very much one of two halves for Bristol City. The club were forced into a managerial change last summer by the departure of Liam Manning for Norwich City, and they had a strong start to the season under his replacement, Gerhard Struber.

After that solid start, however, the team's performances started to fall away and, despite having signed a three-year contract last summer, Struber was given his marching orders and replaced by Roy Hodgson for the latter stages of the season.

But at 78 years of age, Hodgson could never have been considered a candidate for the role, and the veteran manager himself admitted very quickly that he is not interested in the position beyond the end of this season. This leaves Bristol City in the market for a new manager, and as per a Football League World exclusive this week, it's been revealed that they are considering the former Southampton and Rangers boss Russell Martin for the position.

Doubts cast over whether Russell Martin would be a good managerial fit for Bristol City

To gauge the mood of the Ashton Gate faithful over this, FLW have spoken to our Bristol City fan pundit, Tom Sandy, and while Tom can see Martin's merits, he's unsure that he would be a good fit for the role at Ashton Gate, not least because the final decision over the identity of their new head coach will ultimately be determined by someone who hasn't been appointed yet either: "It's pretty surprising news. Our new manager is going to be decided by a sporting director that we haven't hired yet, so it's quite difficult to tell what direction we're going to go in terms of a managerial appointment."

Tom is certain that Bristol City will have a plan in place for the profile of manager that they want, but that until the new sporting director has been unveiled, talking about the future direction on the pitch is difficult: "Obviously, we'll probably have a pre-determined checklist of what we're thinking of in terms of a signing, but right now the direction could go any way. We don't know who we'll be appointing, and they're going to be appointing the manager, so I think it's difficult to say who'll be on the shortlist for that role."

And he has reservations over whether Martin would be the right man for the job at Ashton Gate, although he's had some success elsewhere: "However, in terms of Russell Martin himself, he's had some success in his career and he's had some bad times. I think he's a good motivator. I think he speaks really well. But in terms of his managerial style, I don't know how well he'd do at Bristol City."

Tom has been able to see the potential shortcomings in his own team's previous encounters with teams that Martin has managed: "When I've personally watched his teams, as a Bristol City fan, they've always been really easy to play against, not in regard to on the pitch. They're good in possession, and they're really good at building play up, but they tend to carry very little threat, and they're also susceptible to being hit on the break. They don't tend to be particularly physical. Whenever we played Swansea during his time there, I felt confident that we'd beat them. When he was at Southampton, I was confident we'd do well against them."

And Tom can see how Martin's managerial style could work well at other clubs.

"Obviously the squad at Southampton was very good. They got promoted through the play-offs. But I don't know whether that was down to his management particularly, because I don't think his managerial style for the level he'd be managing at," he told us, "I can see how it would work at a higher up team. If he was at Arsenal, where the team is fantastic, and they're brilliant ball players who can carry out his plans to play exactly how he wants them to, I can see how his vision is good in that regard."

He has doubts over whether Martin's style would work at a club with more modest resources: "However, we're talking about Sinclair Armstrong here, not Kai Havertz. We're talking about players who are good at specific things rather than being the well-rounded players that Russell Martin would need in his system. So for me, it would be one of those appointments where you would think, 'Well, I'm not really sure,' because I've never rated him personally as a manager."

Recent media appearances by Martin, Tom explains, have been impressive: "On looking, I heard him do a really good podcast with Gary Lineker. He was so well-spoken that I did think, 'Oh, okay, I didn't really rate this guy as a manager, but I can see how he's really well-spoken, and he can probably get his ideas across really well'."

But Tom also feels that Martin's spell at Ibrox casts doubt over whether it would be a good idea for Bristol City to make a move for him, come the end of this season: "And then obviously there was also his time at Rangers, which was pretty catastrophic, so whether you'd want him to bounce back from that into your club I'm not really sure. He wouldn't be my first choice, and I don't know if he's Bristol City's first choice, given the fact that the guy who's going to be appointing the manager hasn't been appointed."

Russell Martin's managerial career has floundered over the last two years

After a strong start at MK Dons and Swansea City, Russell Martin's career has run a little dry over the last couple of years. Tempted to Southampton in the summer of 2023, his first season at St Mary's ended successfully after his team was promoted back to the Premier League following a 1-0 win against Leeds United in the 2023-24 Championship play-off final.

But Southampton turned out to be hopelessly ill-equipped for their return to the top flight, and Martin was sacked in the middle of December 2024, with his team rock bottom of the Premier League after having just picked up one win from their first 16 games of the season. By the time he left the club, there were open protests against him staying in charge.

His time in Scotland was even less successful. Appointed by Rangers in June 2025, he got off on the wrong note by saying that he'd be breaking with their club tradition of managers always wearing suits to matches, and things didn't get much better from there on.

His spell at Ibrox turned out to be generational bad. Rangers drew their first four league matches of the season, and by the time he was sacked on the 5th October they were in 8th place in the SPFL table as a result of the worst start to a league season in their 153-year history. Martin left the club as their shortest-serving manager of all-time, spending just 123 days at the club.

Having been out of work since last October, Martin will be keen to get back into the game at the end of this season. But Bristol City's new CEO, Charlie Boss, only confirmed at the end of March that the club would be hiring a new sporting director, and with no decision having been made over that appointment, it does remain for now difficult to see what direction the club will be taking once 2025-26 is over and done with.

The appointment of Roy Hodgson to the position until the end of the season makes perfect sense. Hodgson has the experience to be able to steady their ship and keep the team ticking over until the end of the season, but it was always vanishingly unlikely that he would stay beyond that point. At the end of a season that started promisingly before tailing off dramatically, Bristol City