{"id":641918,"date":"2026-06-16T16:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T16:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/641918\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T16:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T16:27:13","slug":"leicester-city-matt-heath-says-russell-martin-must-show-he-can-adapt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/641918\/","title":{"rendered":"Leicester City: Matt Heath says Russell Martin must show he can adapt"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Martin brings to Leicester this season – beyond the promotion success he enjoyed previously at Saints – is that League One knowhow with MK Dons.<\/p>\n

Heath says delivering early results next season will be vital if Martin is to win over Foxes supporters who doubt him now.<\/p>\n

And style will matter just as much as the substance of any result, with Heath adding that Martin can show he is “learning as a manager” by not being fixated on one way of playing.<\/p>\n

“If he doesn’t, then he’s not adapting,” Heath continued.<\/p>\n

“He’s not going to be any mug, is he? He’s going to have learned from his mistakes, and I would hope that he’d have Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.”<\/p>\n

The style that Martin has so far stuck to will be familiar to Leicester, with the former Scotland international’s approach being a reflection on what the Foxes played under Enzo Maresca as they won the 2024 Championship title.<\/p>\n

“Marescaball” is why Chelsea recruited the Italian in the weeks after that promotion and why he is now expected to succeed Pep Guardiola as Manchester City manager.<\/p>\n

But Maresca’s football philosophy was not universally liked by Foxes fans, with the former Parma boss coming out a number of times to defend his approach<\/a> in what was a solitary and hugely successful season in charge of the East Midlands side.<\/p>\n

A point of difference with Martin is that his tactics can be more attack-minded and incisive.<\/p>\n

“A lot of fans didn’t like how slow it was with Enzo,” Heath said.<\/p>\n

“As a fan, I’d prefer us to have the ball at our feet. If we do get it right, I’m pretty certain it has the potential to be entertaining.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What Martin brings to Leicester this season – beyond the promotion success he enjoyed previously at Saints –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-641918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}