Is Adkins the right choice?

[peterroyal76]

Only one promotion matters to us; championship>premier league. Brian did that with Simon Church upfront and Jay Tabb in midfield.

To be honest, I'm not really knocking Adkins. Just believe that, if we had to sack McD, why not seek (or wait for) something better?

Who in your eyes is better and would want to come here?

Pochettino?

[melonhead]

any comparison with rogers is just wrong, you lot must have seen us lob it back stick to lambert

Exactly! Hundreds of times. Nothing wrong with that as it created buckets of chances but you'd think by reading this board that we're going to get turned from a bunch of long ball merchants (we're not) into Brazil (we're not).

Our football this season has been ugly because the players aren't good enough. Of course that's partly the fault of the manager but all this talk of Adkins' "intellectual, passing style" is bobbins.

'Greed that he's not in the Guardiola-mold..saying that, I do think he looks to keep the ball on the floor more than we have done this season. He got a Scunthorpe team low on quality playing some decent stuff so we'll see.

I like the way we play sometimes, high tempo stuff down the wings ala Man Utd is the best way to play IMO, so if he can get us playing like Saints were last season (i.e. the way we played at our best with a little less hoofing and a little more patience) then I'll be a very happy camper.

As opposed to Adkins as a bloke he often came across very smug in his interviews, but as he lives just outside Winchester I know people who have met him and they all say he's a genuinely lovely bloke. I'll go do some stalking l8r and report back

tbf i pretty much saw saints last season as the embodiment of coppells wing play style

[Millsy]

Some interesting pieces on Adkins background, style and approach.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011 ... outhampton

http://thetwounfortunates.com/the-monda ... el-adkins/

http://www.thesaintshub.com/nigeladkins.html

Very good reads.

Anyone who reads that and isn't excited by our new man is lying.

Welcome Nigel!!!!!!

[melonhead]

if we can somehow make up a song that goes along with XTCs making plans for nigel, its would pretty much seal this appointment as th ebest ever

[Millsy]

I think poor old Adkins has a very hateable sort of face. Seems smug, tanned etc Poor chap, not his fault.

I was quite surprised by his down-to-earthness though, he really does seem like a good guy. I'm glad we got him and not Gus Tiki Taka "I wanna manage Chelsea ASAP" Poyet.

[Arch]

Nige Ladkins

[Millsy]

He spends a lot of money and likes to sign on the dotted line, does our Ink Dealings.

[peterroyal76]

if we can somehow make up a song that goes along with XTCs making plans for nigel, its would pretty much seal this appointment as th ebest ever

There can be no other choice surely?

[Ian Royal]

was it a league 1 squad with saints?

we kept players who we went down with and in admin...luckily selling David McGodlrick and Drew Surman to keep us afloat in adkin until Markus Leibherr came in.

Kelvin Davis - Easily a champ player
Harding - Ditto
Fonte - was linked with bolton in the prem but we paid him more and actually dropped to league 1 for a season
Richardson - Played in the prem and Champ with Leeds
Jaidi - prem experience
Morgan Schneiderlin - French U21 captain at the time and now brilliant
Lallana - way too good for league 1
Puncheon - ditto
Lambert - easily ditto
Oxland-Chamberlain. yep
Chaplow - bought from the champ

it was clear for all to see that the squad in league 1 was the most expensive ever assembled and not fot a managerial change at the start of 2010/2011 season, we would have won the league.
so, as a saints fan, I am not going to come here and say that adkins took a bunch of league 1 standard players and worked miracles to finish 2nd in league 1.
it was the bare minimum.

the season in the NPC was a different matter. only to be bettered by a certain Mr McDermot

So are you saying you didn't have any League One players in the depths of your Championship back up squad? It's squad depth where I think you were likely to be lacking on top of the normal need to upgrade from Chump to PL.

I didn't say your entire side was League One, you wouldn't have got promoted to the PL with it if that was the case. There is a reason why I said squad and not team.

[SydenhamRoyal]

What the options do not give us is the timing questions - my response is Brian should not have been sacked WHEN HE WAS, and I am happy with Adkins.

January flattered us, but that would have been the very latest time to do it. But probably 3-0 defeat away to Sunderland was the time.

[Libertine]

Bottom line is whether each of us think it was "the right" choice or not Nigel Adkins is our manager. And I would hope that we will all support him and the team as we have always done in the past. Sing a nice song abut him, stand and applaud him and ask him for a wave. It wasn't his fault it didn't work out between the club and Brian...

[floyd__streete]

Pleased.

Four promotions under his belt - at least twice as good a track-record as any manager RFC have ever appointed - and his sides play good football, Southampton's 1-0 win against us back in November was extremely flattering.....for Reading.

Spent a lot? Well, mainly in the Prem but - newsflash - thats what you kind of have to do to stay in this league. Points-wise, Saints cushion to survival under their new bloke is no greater now then it was under Adkins.

I like his positive attitude, handles the media well and clearly has something about him. Well done to all concerned at Reading FC for securing this.

[Royal With Cheese]

Pleased.

Four promotions under his belt - at least twice as good a track-record as any manager RFC have ever appointed - and his sides play good football, Southampton's 1-0 win against us back in November was extremely flattering.....for Reading.

Spent a lot? Well, mainly in the Prem but - newsflash - thats what you kind of have to do to stay in this league. Points-wise, Saints cushion to survival under their new bloke is no greater now then it was under Adkins.

I like his positive attitude, handles the media well and clearly has something about him. Well done to all concerned at Reading FC for securing this.

Come on, who's hacked into Floyd's account?

[Colin Cheeselog]

He’s made a good first impression on me, he pronounces Reading the way all good Reading folk do; with a silent ‘g’.

[Avon Royal]

Points-wise, Saints cushion to survival under their new bloke is no greater now then it was under Adkins.

Which isn't unexpected given that more games have been played.

[winchester_royal]

Pleased.

Four promotions under his belt - at least twice as good a track-record as any manager RFC have ever appointed - and his sides play good football, Southampton's 1-0 win against us back in November was extremely flattering.....for Reading.

Spent a lot? Well, mainly in the Prem but - newsflash - thats what you kind of have to do to stay in this league. Points-wise, Saints cushion to survival under their new bloke is no greater now then it was under Adkins.

I like his positive attitude, handles the media well and clearly has something about him. Well done to all concerned at Reading FC for securing this.

Oh do shut up you negative s....

Wait...

[Eaststandman]

Bottom line is whether each of us think it was "the right" choice or not Nigel Adkins is our manager. And I would hope that we will all support him and the team as we have always done in the past. Sing a nice song abut him, stand and applaud him and ask him for a wave. It wasn't his fault it didn't work out between the club and Brian...

Quite so, he IS the choice, the question is moot, he has to be given the chance to prove the point one way or another, surely?

[Hoop Blah]

I tend to ignore any poster who refers to leagues as the NPC or EPL etc, it just hurts my eyes to read it.

As for the League 1 squad not being a League 1 squad. They got relegated to it the season before so in my book, as good as some of the players were (or are getting now after a few years of good management and the confidence of winning), they were a League 1 squad.

the players i Listed, apart from Davis, Lallana and Schneiderlin were NOT relegated from the championship

they were bought in when the rich takeover happened. hence why I said that it was probably the most expensive league 1 squad in history
we had already been in league 1 for a season before adkins came in. With Pardew and won the JPT at wembley and finished 7th due to the -10 penalty at the start of the season.

most of those players, all of those players, apart from chaplow were bought in by pardew.

Fair enough, you added 2 or 3 relative big buys and some decent free transfers, but that squad was still League One.

As it happens I reckon our League One squad from ten years previous, and Wigans of the same period, probably cost as much to put together even without taking into account ten years of fee inflation so I don't think your having a dig at our manager for just having the fortune to have the worlds most expensive lower league squad ever has much validity.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Only one promotion matters to us; championship>premier league. Brian did that with Simon Church upfront and Jay Tabb in midfield.

To be honest, I'm not really knocking Adkins. Just believe that, if we had to sack McD, why not seek (or wait for) something better?

Who in your eyes is better and would want to come here?

I get it. If I say someone good, you will say he won't want to come here. If I say someone who would want to come here, you will say he isn't better than Adkins.

Well clever shitz.

[Royal Rob]

I think Nigel Adkins is a good appointment - because he is a similar sort of manager to McDermott.

Nigel mentioned "moving on" four times in his brief interview at the press conference.

"We move on". Welcome Brian Mk II.