Martin on tough upbringing, climbing the pyramid and why people matter

It was a quote recycled by Simone Inzaghi, the Italian manager who guided Inter to last season’s Champions League final, when pressed on whether he was “too nice” to lead international players.

Inzaghi, though never chasing the spotlight, saw his impressive exploits as a player with Lazio overshadowed by elder brother Filippo, a prolific and popular striker who plundered more than 300 goals in an exceptional career littered with Serie A titles, Champions League triumphs and a World Cup winner’s medal.

Many in Italy would argue Simone was the more talented player, but “Pippo” had an eye for goal and predatory instincts inside the penalty area to rival the greatest marksmen. When you hear the name Inzaghi, he’s the one you think of.

Russell Martin grew up as a determined player overshadowed by others. Whether it was his brothers, who were “much more gifted”, in his words, than he was, or teammates who took the glory, Martin was never the star and had to fight for his successes, of which there would be plenty.

With more than 500 league games, five promotions and 29 international caps to his name in a 15-year playing career, Martin didn’t do badly for a man who has always felt pressure to perform, and a need to work relentlessly at his craft.

“My whole career has been built on proving people wrong,” he reflects. Growing up in East Sussex, Martin was never deemed good enough for his county team, or for hometown club Brighton.

“That was always a sense of disappointment for me. I would’ve loved to play for them – from very early on it was a dream.

“Back then you could have two teams because one was in Division Two and one was in the Premier League, so I supported Spurs and Brighton. The ultimate aim was to play for Brighton and then play for Spurs,” he smiles. As a boy with a dream, it all felt so straightforward at the time.

Instead he took a different route. Alongside studying at College for his A Levels, Martin worked two jobs. He was up at 4am cleaning pubs, and in the evenings he worked in the local Spar just over the road from home, where he lived with his brothers. His parents had moved away.

“Those were the toughest two years of my life,” he says. But he wouldn’t change it. “I had a perspective on reality.”

Despite all those commitments in his life, and looking out for his four brothers, including foster brother Rob, Russell always found time for football. He was training with non-league Lewes and playing for the England Colleges team when he agreed a scholarship in America.

“I was going to go there, and then went on trial at Wycombe and signed for three months, non-contract professional forms, which killed the America thing, but it was a risk I wanted to take,” he explains. After being overlooked by Brighton, this felt like his last shot at making it in the Football League.

“It was a really difficult period, but I was so grateful for it that by the time I actually started playing professional football I had nothing but gratitude. I just wanted to work as hard as I possibly could. I just had excitement and curiosity, wanting to learn and wanting to be better. I think that’s probably what ended up getting me so far.”

Wycombe were in League Two, where they would stay throughout Martin’s four seasons as a player, but by the end he was an established starter, making the jump to League One to join Peterborough in 2008.

A young Russell Martin in action for Peterborough United

In his first season at the higher level, Martin was made captain at 22 and led Posh to the Championship for the first time in 15 years.

“My whole career has been based on ‘go to League Two, play, people think you’re not good enough to go again, go to League One…’ and every time I got there, I thought ‘I can actually do it’.

“I’d captained every team, as a kid, that I played in. Even teams when I played in the year above.” Where do those leadership instincts come from? “Probably the role I played in my family growing up, a little bit, I had to try and look after people.

“I grew up in a fairly tough place – definitely with a tough family.” Martin revealed in an interview last season that his dad suffered with gambling addiction, and his family had to move home when he was eight because of spiralling losses.

“I think the biggest thing I learned was understanding people, picking up certain things from people and energy, all that stuff. It came naturally to me when I played in a team. I enjoy responsibility, I still do – that’s why I’m doing the job I’m doing now, probably.”

A natural leader: Martin addresses his players in the dressing room at St Mary's

With Peterborough struggling in the Championship, Martin returned to League One to join Norwich, who had just been relegated to the third tier for the first time in half a century. It would prove a match made in heaven, but only thanks to his decision to turn down the chance to live his childhood dream.

“I was leaving Peterborough and I was going to go back to Brighton,” he picks up the story. “I was going to play for my hometown club, which was something I wanted to do, and then Paul (Lambert, then Norwich manager) rung me. He found out I might be leaving and going there.

“They had Iñigo Calderón on trial at Norwich and I was going to Brighton. Then I went to Norwich and he ended up playing for Brighton!”

Calderón would prove a roaring success on the south coast, helping the Seagulls soar from League One to Championship promotion contenders, but Martin went one better, as the Canaries flew straight through to the Premier League in two seasons.

A third promotion would follow in 2014/15, as captain under Alex Neil after a first relegation of Martin’s career, but it was Lambert, who had previously managed the Saints boss at Wycombe, who started the club’s resurrection.

“As soon as Paul rung, the lure of home was big, but the lure of playing for him again, the aura he had, I loved playing for him, so he was massive for us,” he says.

Martin celebrates leading Norwich back to the Premier League as captain

“I went there and it was massive expectation playing in front of 25,000 people all of a sudden with a manager I trusted, who I really loved, who I probably played some of my best football for.

“I had kids there, I felt like such a big part of the culture – not just on the pitch but with the staff, with the players, had some brilliant times with three promotions, two relegations, some tough times as well, but I just felt like it was a great place to live and I felt like such a part of something. I felt like I belonged there.

“I loved it. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about it. It had to come to an end, which it did, everything does, and I really struggled with that for the first few months after I left there. I didn’t want to go back – it was just too painful for me.”

It speaks volumes of Martin’s affection for Norwich that it took a full season for him to return to the scene of his fondest football memories, where he raised a family and became a cult hero dubbed “the Norfolk Cafu” for his tireless running up and down the right flank.

When he did go back, for his Testimonial in 2019, it was a night to savour alongside a host of club legends and former teammates, as Martin and Wes Hoolahan captained the sides in front of a crowd of nearly 20,000 at Carrow Road.

Martin and his staff at Staplewood. Left to right: Ben Parker, First Team Tactics & Insights Analyst; Carl Martin, First Team Coach; Dean Thornton, Goalkeeping Coach; Russell Martin, Manager; Matt Gill, Assistant Manager; Rhys Owen, First Team Sports Scientist

Martin and Lambert remain close, 11 years since they last worked together, but as a manager the 37-year-old is doing things in his own way.

After spells with Rangers and Walsall, the former Scotland international cut his cloth in management at MK Dons, the club where he had just called time on his playing days after promotion number five.

His possession-heavy approach, by his own admission at odds with how he played for the majority of his career, was evident from the start. Only Manchester City and Barcelona had a higher average possession in Europe than the Dons in his one full season in charge, which included a goal scored after 56 consecutive passes – a sequence spanning more than three minutes of play.

Two summers ago, Martin’s career took him to Swansea, who pointed to his “attractive, attacking style” as a seamless transition from Graham Potter and Steve Cooper before him, and Roberto Martínez, Brendan Rodgers and Michael Laudrup before that, who have helped redefine the club’s image since the turn of the century.

But Martin is more than a purist. He’s a people person. Relaxed and engaging company, he makes time for everyone.

It was noticeable how quickly he learned the names of staff members at Staplewood, some of whom have been given nicknames created by him. He wants a family feel, and has a gift for making you feel part of it.

“I care about people,” it’s a natural thing, he says. “Hopefully, even in the short time here, the players will see that. That’s why leaving Swansea and leaving MK before that was really painful for me, because I get connected to people. I love working with them.

“I was the same when I was growing up, trying to look after people and help as many people as I could.”

His latest job sees Martin inherit a scenario he’s lived through before. Of the quintet of promotions he achieved as a player, the one that ranks above the others was won at the first attempt after Norwich’s first relegation from the Premier League.

“Because of the pain you went through the year before,” he explains. “The first one was amazing because it was so unexpected, but to do it when there’s a pressure on you and you’ve been part of the relegation the year before, so you can make up for it a little bit…” he pauses. “Best feeling ever.”

At 37, Martin is the second-youngest manager in the Championship, born four months before Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna, but that’s not to say he lacks experience.

Nathan Tella runs to celebrate with his new boss after Saints' first goal of the season

The man charged with leading Saints’ revival has seen most of what football has to throw at you – at every level from non-league to international – and has identified a fast start as key to his new club’s promotion prospects.

“We need to get back to winning games and having a mentality that we turn into winners,” he states. “The way we’re playing takes a lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of patience, but finding a way to win during that and having the tools to win during those games early on in the season could be really important.

“Burnley did that. They were a really different animal at the end of the season than they were at the start, but they found ways to win early on whilst they were building and improving, so we have to do the same – it’s that simple.”

Whilst targeting a good start is no different to his 23 Championship contemporaries, in Saints’ case, Martin says, it’s about shaking off the Premier League hangover – just as Burnley did under new management last season, and just as his Norwich side did when he led them to play-off glory in 2015 on his favourite day in football.

“I sensed the disappointment and the feeling everyone had in the first few days,” he recalls of his first week at Staplewood. “The unknown and the lack of certainty you have after all that, people being made redundant, it affects everyone,”.

“I was the captain when we got relegated and, fortunately, I was still the captain when we got promoted, so you feel such a huge burden and weight of responsibility.

“Then you see people losing their jobs and it hits home. You’re the guys that have ended up costing people their jobs. That’s part and parcel of football, unfortunately.

Already a popular figure, Martin applauds the travelling Saints fans before the season opener at Hillsborough

“We took too long to click into gear at Norwich, or we would have got promoted automatically, so we ended up doing it via the play-offs, which was incredible, but there was too much disappointment, even in the first few weeks of training.

“The parallels are that you have a great club – Norwich was a great club with great people at that time, and there’s some brilliant people here – and everyone now is geared up to get back there as quickly as possible and make up for last season.”

His sons grew up wearing the yellow and green, but Martin insisted there would be no divided loyalties in the family ahead of Saturday’s showdown, when eight goals were shared in a thrill-a-minute heavyweight contest between two the promotion hopefuls at St Mary’s.

“They still end up getting sent the [Norwich] kits from friends, but they support wherever we are. They’re the biggest Southampton fans ever now,” he enthuses. “My boys want all the kits – they’ve got the home kit and tracksuit. I’m being pressured into buying them the away kit now!”

It’s no surprise that Martin wants everyone on this journey – kids included – but only if they’re “all in”, as he puts it. His reaction to the shock Carabao Cup defeat at Gillingham last week showed a ruthless streak, while his path through life and football paints a desire to succeed that still burns inside.

Saints may not be The Untouchables just yet, but don’t be fooled. He’s here to win.