How much at fault is Mr. Adkins? Here is my opinion: Originally a very strong Adkins supporter I now find myself losing faith (present me with all the facts you like) - but as an ambitious club who needs to get things done, I do not think Nigel fits. He appears to be carried by Lallana and rambles on about him and Lambert all the time, he almost seems a fan at times. He uses a lot of cliches and also tends to bat away questions like a politician, at least with Pardew you felt he would let the players know what he, and pretty much what the fans felt. Now Alan left for obvious reasons but I think we need someone in his mould. I get fed up of every interview with Nigel being practically the same and only tend to watch ones by the players now. I don't feel he has a Plan B or a will to win by playing ugly, too much learning from books and not enough from the pitch (yes quote me on how well he did with Scunthorpe but I don't think his face fits at Saints) No point sacking Nigel now, lets see how far we get and if we win the play-off lottery, but I would not be confident with him in the Championship. Your thoughts? It is now open season, shoot me down out your own will.
I was saying last night I think Nigel is out of his depth tbh, I completely agree with many of your points DTLW
I'm still very much with Adkins. The problems we faced at Walsall were out of his control and we can all count ourselves unfortunate. If we don't take our chances, there's not much Adkins can do about it from the touchline. Schneiderlin going off early was also a massive blow. On a reasonable pitch against a side that gave us time on the ball, it was an ideal opportunity for him to shine. Neither Hammond nor Chaplow have the range of passing to regularly pick out players in good positons. Its probably why we ran out of ideas late on. Changing defence into attack is the skill that separates scrappy and convincing. We have Lallana and Chamberlain, but its not their job to do that, their job is to pick the ball up in advanced positions and make stuff happen which they do when they get a good opportunity. Its Schneiderlin's role to move the ball about in the middle, the others aren't nearly as good at it - what is Adkins supposed to do? Being unfortunate with injuries isn't in his control. Even for the best managers, plan B doesn't always work as aa manager can't use more than what he's got.
Not hear to wind up and i may be wrong in some of the comments i make due to not watching your team on a regular basis. From what i hear you deserved to win the game, and on Saturday you were fortunate to win 4-1 but these things happen. For me i think Saints have the biggest not the best squad, and if i was to be critical i think the signings he has brought in or lack of signings is quite bizarre from the manager. Pardew for me, had his bad bits but could motivate a team very well
I am still undecided about Nigel, and our lack of ability in grinding out results against the teams like Tranmere, Hartlepool and Walsall is very worrying. Brighton and Bournemouth seem to be able too. Although their goalie was their MOM (and he needed to be), I still felt that we didn't play fluently at all in the game and certainly didn't grab it in our hands and batter them like Nigel said. I do wonder if I watching a different game to him. One concern I have is that I am not sure that Nigel can attract the players we need, and the transfer window was disappointing in the fact that we weren't able to sign any impact players and I still believe that we miss the likes of Papa and Antonio who could change games. When Alex came on yesterday it was too late.
Don't you think that we are still making excuses? I beg to ask a question.......the likes of Bournemouth, Brighton probably Huddersfield..........all are competing for the Auto's on a shoe string budget? We have a bigger fan base than most of them if not all. So we must be making a bit of money somewhere. Yet we do not seem to be able to do the same as the others I E get some consistency in our football. Playing nice pitter patter football providing you are getting results is wonderful, but all the possession in the world is no good if you cannot score!!!! Also are we just unlucky with injuries........Bournemouth and Brighton have had a few but they are still winning games. They do not have the so called stars that we do. Sorry, time to stop making excuses, time to get off your asses and do something about it. Nigel's tenure as a manager was on a bit of a sticky wicket at the beginning from fans but most were prepared to give him time to settle in and give it a go. Over the last month or so more and more fans are questioning his ability. If he loses the fans backing he could find that the turnover will go down and he will really struggle. Once he does lose their backing there isn't any way he will get it back, even if he was fortunate enough to get the team promoted. The truth of the matter is though we have not looked like a prospective candidate for promotion for a little while. I think a lot of saints fans are saying the same. Is it time to get rid of the stars and get good honest players that want to win at any cost. (I am not suggesting that our stars are not honest) We do seem to have more people in the team that are perhaps more interested in their own reputation possibly than winning football games for Southampton. Am I way out of line here?
promotion is still totally in your own hands and that is from a Bournemouth fan.. I think maybe you need to pick a team and stick with it? not all this changing formation and tactics depending on who you are playing, granted if you are Playing Barca or Stoke, but this is league 1, pick your best team and stick with it barring injuries and a few bad performances. Rotating in nonsense, these are fit players, but i know the likes of Chamberlain is young and you dont want to burn him out, but when Puncheon went on loan november ish time, a replacement loan player should have been brought in......
Beddy, Huddersfield have spent a lot of money and are similar to us. Both have suffered poor results inbetween good solid performances. Play offs for us or them would be a failure.What Boscombe have achieved is nothing short of remarkable, but I still think they'll come up short. There comes a time when players start to realise "we could go up here" and that brings a different sort of pressure to what most League 1 players are used to. That's why I think it'll be between us and Hudders. We have the biggest squads and have players who have experiance.The fact that Adkins has been here before will help, as will 25,000 for our home games.Hand on heart I would rather be in our position with the players, squad size, support we have than Boscombe's. The bookies seem to agree and they make their living taking hard nosed decisions with their heads. Brighton, then Saints or Hudders are my bets, and there's all to play for.
Guys - win our games in hand -2nd place! Not alot different. Nigels win ratio/percentage is brilliant, yes we are in a lower league but we have also have a weaker squad etc! Give the guy a break and assess him at the end of the season! Seems like when we win you guys all love him! Dont get me wrong, results have dropped of late and this most deffo does not please me, but i think we are too quick to get negative! Keep the faith and get behind the lads on matchdays coz atmosphere has been poo at st marys lately! We really can have an impact!! COYRs
The top six is our aim now and the bigger the gap between us and seventh place the better. Over two legs i wouldnt hear anyone (unless Colchester as we have a dreadful record against them) I would also rather be in our position than yours and would rather have our run in than yours. You say you have players with experience but if you are on about players with promotion run in experinece i dont think you have.
This enforces my point. If Hudders or Saints were in your poition they would not be saying "top 6 is our aim". Look at our back 5. Davis, Fonte, Jaidai, Butterworth are all expeirenced pros who have played regulary at a higher level. The big difference will be in the size of squad, that always tells during the run in.You've done it on a shoestring and unfortuatly shoestrings normally snap.
Desire is the other ingredient you need on a run in as well as a bit of form. I am afraid that seeing and hearing how Saints have played over the last 5 or 6 games has me wondering if we actually have enough desire.
Dont get me wrong the top two why not? but the top six is a must but fully understand what you are saying, and i am being realistic and anyhthing else is a bonus. True at the back but how many of them have experienced the run ins to promotions? you could half the number. So in terms of that not that experienced? You can have as big a squad as you wish but it is the quality to replace. Okay we have a smaller squad and not paid as much but our squad is not that small, and we have injured players very close to returning. There is a long way to go in the league and within 3 matches everything could be turned on its head, and on paper you should finish second.
I think the desire is there, but I think our passing game is too slow. On Saturday our constant passing back gave the opponents the opportunity to get back in numbers. Once we started to speed up the passing and to be more positive going forward we started to look good. Sadly, yesterday we never got that going and there was hardly any overlapping runs by Harding that I can recall. As for N'guessan, I know its early days but I can't see why he was signed.
WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS POST? We have games in hand and are close enough to get into the top 2. Teams still have to play each other and teams will fall behind making the path more clear. We dominated last night. If you heard on the radio and read the stats on BBC you would realise that. Adkins is not to blame in the slightest last night. Walsall's keeper played a blinder so well done to him for that. We pushed and pushed but this was just one of those days. GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON!!!
P.S. DTLW - you really are going to be a journalist. Comes up with cr@p, writes cr@p! Did you get this off your 'source' like every other piece of information off 606? You have no source, you are a school kid that thrives on attention!
Come on buddy ease off a bit.......Everyone is entitled to an opinion....and has the right to express it.......That includes DTLW.......and yourself. You do not need to insult no matter how much you disagree with the person. No come on Buddy chill a bit and be a bit charitable.
Soz, just extremely ridiculous how the majority of his posts are like they are trying to stir something up... And everyone seems to be jumping on the 'hate Adkins' bandwagon...
sticking with a team is what we have done, nearly everyweek we could predict the line up. what we need to do is change things around, the team works well at st marys but is poor away, give richardson a chance in my opinion and drop hammond when chaplow and morgan are fit, he's only in as he's the captain, hes a squad player not a starter. Guly is also too inconsistent and I was disappointed when we signed him permanently - he's not prolific in league one, he will be worse if fingers crossed we go up. Connolly and holmes get injured everytime they play but we didnt sign any replacements in the window. ok two wingers came in, but from what we've seen, especially nguessan, their not up to it. Pardew would have signed quality players and attracted them aswell, if adkins is still here in the summer, will he be able to? Don't get me wrong, might not sound it but I am a fan of adkins and have been in the tunnel to interview him after the shrewsbury game courtesy of university and he is a top top bloke. But it does start to look as he is slightly one dimensional and has the same excuses in all interviews.
Also if you look at DTLW's article history on 606 you can see that around the summer months and January he relates a lot of his articles to 'sources' at the club. WHY? Why would you say that? Just trying to stir things up...
