RoyalinBracknellIan Royal I stand by McDermott's sacking being a reasonable decision given his performance with the (limited) resources at his disposal that season. I think there's very little to suggest he could have turned around a demoralised, disorganised and limited squad with massive financial problems to perform better than it has. Nor do I think he would have been able to provide a long-term building plan with a chance to see us step up another level.
.
I'd say he achieved above expectations in every season he was in charge of Reading in the Championship so I'm not completely convinced by the not turning it around part. In any case, even if it didn't do better, would it have done worse? Has Adkins provided a long-term building plan?
Personally I just think after all he did here McDermott deserved another chance to turn it round. He might well have done so - and even if he didn't, I don't see that we'd be in any worse position now.
Yeah, I think Adkins is working to a plan. It's had a lot of set backs and isn't going brilliantly. But he started with a shit hand. High wage bill, unbalanced squad not great at playing football and plenty of deadwood to clear. McDermott worked to a fairly short-term strategy (very effectively) but painted himself into a corner doing it.
If you look at Adkins signings you can say that Norwood and Cox are excellent and actually improve our quality of play as well as add effectiveness. He's brought through Obita and Hector excellently and Hector is certainly far more capable in possession than Gorkss or Morrison were. Murray is a very good stop gap that could be more. Mackie's solid as signings go. Ferdinand a bit dodgy.
Williams good, Drenthe terrible, Bridge good but injuries made it worse... Though there's question marks over how much influence he had with them. I'm inclined to think Williams and Bridge may have actually been his choice, but then I'll give him the benefit.