Nigel Adkins - a personal opinion

[facaldaqui]

Does anyone find it odd that when Adkins was appointed there were many on here who railed against his supposed smugness, arrogance, and general square peg in a round holeness?

Since then, every Saints fan who has come on here has said Adkins is approachable, and affable to the point of over friendliness.

I wonder who is right, the knee jerkers or the people who have observed and listened to him for a number of years.

It's not a question of being right or wrong. It's a question of our impressions of him based on the little we know of him, as seen in interviews, etc. Now we might develop a different impression of him as we get to know him. But everyone added that what really matters is winning. If he wins for us, we will like him--whether his demeanour proves irritating or not; if he fails, then we will not warm to him, whether he is a great chap or not.

[sandman]

^
Exactamundo

[Norfolk Royal]

Does anyone find it odd that when Adkins was appointed there were many on here who railed against his supposed smugness, arrogance, and general square peg in a round holeness?

Since then, every Saints fan who has come on here has said Adkins is approachable, and affable to the point of over friendliness.

I wonder who is right, the knee jerkers or the people who have observed and listened to him for a number of years.

It's not a question of being right or wrong. It's a question of our impressions of him based on the little we know of him, as seen in interviews, etc. Now we might develop a different impression of him as we get to know him. But everyone added that what really matters is winning. If he wins for us, we will like him--whether his demeanour proves irritating or not; if he fails, then we will not warm to him, whether he is a great chap or not.

Don't know about that, BM was losing all the time but everyone still 'liked' him as a person.

[Ian Royal]

Fantastic, the positivity that this has generated is now coursing through the viens of HNA like an adrenalin rush.

All we need to do now is give him £30 million to spend on transfers and we're, errrrmmmm, sorted.... oh bollox......

Definitely, the amount of money he needed to spend to have a great deal of success with Scunthorpe is truely frightening.

Saying all the right things, just wants to watch those expectation levels don't increase too much too quickly. I think most Reading fans have written off this season in their head, but those treacherous little hearts are still hoping against hope for a miracle.

The Arsenal result is meaningless unless it's good. A total humiliating poor performance and cricket score is about the only thing that I think could put the majority on a downer against Nige. And if he can get the midfield to marginally improve their efforts (or lack thereof) to track late runners and the centre backs to watch for the cut back and strikers dropping off to the penalty spot, then we might actually keep Arsenal to 0, 1 or 2 for a change, rather than this season's traditional 5 or 7.

Saints is a bit more of a challenge, but I can't help hoping that people won't expect too much too soon and be disappointed and angry if we don't win it.

[Kingsland Red]

Another Saint in peace !

I came on here to wish you and (our) Nige good luck tomorrow and see that other Saints have already give you the PMA bit etc.

So win, lose or draw at The Emirates, rest assured NA will be interviewed on MoTD and probably state something like the following:

" We have learnt a lot about the players, and will have a debriefing tomorrow morning, draw a blue line under the match, and move on to the next Barclays Premier League game which will be equally difficult, but we have an honest group of hard working players at a club which moves forward 'Together as one" "

He will never be drawn on refereeing decisions and your players will never be booked for dissent.

We grew to love the man's idiosyncrasies and positivity and were appalled at his sacking.
I was in a business meeting that morning after the draw at Chelsea, and in the end had to look at my phone as texts and answer phone messages were piling up. It took a while to digest the sacking and as the OP stated , where ever the man goes, we will follow him, with a bit of jealousy, he was one of us, and will become one of you.

Good luck going forward, NA wouldn't be with you if you weren't " a proper football club". As stated elsewhere you will treasure having NA "on the Bus".

[RoyalBlue]

Fantastic, the positivity that this has generated is now coursing through the viens of HNA like an adrenalin rush.

All we need to do now is give him £30 million to spend on transfers and we're, errrrmmmm, sorted.... oh bollox......

Naughty Sausage - just how much was Adkin's net spend on transfer fees? I presume he brought some money in from player sales as well as spending it?

[Ian Royal]

Another Saint in peace !

I came on here to wish you and (our) Nige good luck tomorrow and see that other Saints have already give you the PMA bit etc.

So win, lose or draw at The Emirates, rest assured NA will be interviewed on MoTD and probably state something like the following:

" We have learnt a lot about the players, and will have a debriefing tomorrow morning, draw a blue line under the match, and move on to the next Barclays Premier League game which will be equally difficult, but we have an honest group of hard working players at a club which moves forward 'Together as one" "

He will never be drawn on refereeing decisions and your players will never be booked for dissent.

We grew to love the man's idiosyncrasies and positivity and were appalled at his sacking.
I was in a business meeting that morning after the draw at Chelsea, and in the end had to look at my phone as texts and answer phone messages were piling up. It took a while to digest the sacking and as the OP stated , where ever the man goes, we will follow him, with a bit of jealousy, he was one of us, and will become one of you.

Good luck going forward, NA wouldn't be with you if you weren't " a proper football club". As stated elsewhere you will treasure having NA "on the Bus".

Halleluja!

[RoyalBlue]

Another Saint in peace !

I came on here to wish you and (our) Nige good luck tomorrow and see that other Saints have already give you the PMA bit etc.

So win, lose or draw at The Emirates, rest assured NA will be interviewed on MoTD and probably state something like the following:

" We have learnt a lot about the players, and will have a debriefing tomorrow morning, draw a blue line under the match, and move on to the next Barclays Premier League game which will be equally difficult, but we have an honest group of hard working players at a club which moves forward 'Together as one" "

He will never be drawn on refereeing decisions and your players will never be booked for dissent.

We grew to love the man's idiosyncrasies and positivity and were appalled at his sacking.
I was in a business meeting that morning after the draw at Chelsea, and in the end had to look at my phone as texts and answer phone messages were piling up. It took a while to digest the sacking and as the OP stated , where ever the man goes, we will follow him, with a bit of jealousy, he was one of us, and will become one of you.

Good luck going forward, NA wouldn't be with you if you weren't " a proper football club". As stated elsewhere you will treasure having NA "on the Bus".

[Gunny Fishcake]

What a great love in between us and the decent Saints fans , their thoughts are very interesting , however , next Saturday will test this new relationship , as I do hope we well and truly stuff the Saints

[RoyallyFcuked]

The main thing is, the appointment of Adkins has been made with next season in the Championship in mind and that is what I am most happy about.

See, and there was me hoping the appointment was made with the Prem in mind, otherwise I'm not real sure why you'd make it. (Of course, Adkins is not exactly a proven commodity in the Prem anyway, but we won't go there. Yet.) But even for anyone not a fan of McD, I've not really heard anyone say he didn't at least deserve another shot in the Champ. With his record, that would be a hard case to make. Or else, the other managers in the Champo right now are having a laugh.

OK, so I'll be the first to say that I think it is a better choice to opt for Adkins to get us out of the Championship and I wouldn't have been in favour of giving McDermott another shot. It will be hard enough for Adkins, as a breath of fresh air, to lift everyone and get us straight back up at first attempt. I'm afraid that McDermott would have had very little chance of achieving that. Just look at what happened with Coppell who I believe was a better manager and had a stronger squad when we went down. And if Adkins fails at the first attempt, at least we can look forward to watching a more pleasing style of football.

Exactly this

[Green]

Another Saint in peace !

I came on here to wish you and (our) Nige good luck tomorrow and see that other Saints have already give you the PMA bit etc.

So win, lose or draw at The Emirates, rest assured NA will be interviewed on MoTD and probably state something like the following:

" We have learnt a lot about the players, and will have a debriefing tomorrow morning, draw a blue line under the match, and move on to the next Barclays Premier League game which will be equally difficult, but we have an honest group of hard working players at a club which moves forward 'Together as one" "

He will never be drawn on refereeing decisions and your players will never be booked for dissent.

We grew to love the man's idiosyncrasies and positivity and were appalled at his sacking.
I was in a business meeting that morning after the draw at Chelsea, and in the end had to look at my phone as texts and answer phone messages were piling up. It took a while to digest the sacking and as the OP stated , where ever the man goes, we will follow him, with a bit of jealousy, he was one of us, and will become one of you.

Good luck going forward, NA wouldn't be with you if you weren't " a proper football club". As stated elsewhere you will treasure having NA "on the Bus".

Hey Kingsland Red. I guess "Red" was already taken.

[RadicalRoyal]

Great posts looking forward to our next home game

[PremAddict]

The main thing is, the appointment of Adkins has been made with next season in the Championship in mind and that is what I am most happy about.

See, and there was me hoping the appointment was made with the Prem in mind, otherwise I'm not real sure why you'd make it. (Of course, Adkins is not exactly a proven commodity in the Prem anyway, but we won't go there. Yet.) But even for anyone not a fan of McD, I've not really heard anyone say he didn't at least deserve another shot in the Champ. With his record, that would be a hard case to make. Or else, the other managers in the Champo right now are having a laugh.

DR, you're a bit of an rarity on this board. In what area of Denver do you live? Feel free to PM me.

[The Naughty Sausage]

Fantastic, the positivity that this has generated is now coursing through the viens of HNA like an adrenalin rush.

All we need to do now is give him £30 million to spend on transfers and we're, errrrmmmm, sorted.... oh bollox......

Naughty Sausage - just how much was Adkin's net spend on transfer fees? I presume he brought some money in from player sales as well as spending it?

That's open to opinion as the general consensus was that it wasn't him spending the money, it was our "transfer committee".

NA had a centre-half lined up that he really wanted (Bram Nuytinck) but was overruled in the summer (all allegedly). Instead, we signed Gaston Ramirez, Jay Rodriguez, Maya Yoshida, Paulo Gazzaniga, Nathaniel Clyne, Steven Davis and Emmanuel Mayuka. I couldn't tell you which ones were his signings or not, unfortunately, but with the connection that our chairman has I would imagine that many were rubberstamped by him after being put forward by our transfer committee.

We spent nigh-on £30m; how much of it was Adkins doing, I haven't a clue though. That said, in the nPC, the transfers seemed to be influenced by him though. I'd hazard a guess that Gazzaniga, Clyne, Rodriguez and Davis were the approved by NA, but as for the rest.... I've no idea.

Best of luck for today