In a way listening to Gary Neville makes it easy to see why he achieved so much as a player and why Fergie held him in high esteem.He is clear and concise when explaining game situations and tries to be fairminded at all times unlike Hansen who though a great player in his day takes real pleasure in pointing out as much negative **** as he can possibly muster . He reminds me of the Scottish doom merchant on Dads Army.Looking ahead from what i see Neville could go on to great things in coaching or managing in years to come.
In short if I was in charge of procurement at my company and I had these results with these purchases I would at best be answering an awful lots of questions and at worst sacked for negligence .
Top post. I know exactly what you mean, I do feel an affinity for Adkins that I wouldn't for any other manager I could think of bringing in. Probably down to the fact, he isn't really anything like your average football manager. You could see he was hurting again tonight, and that has to hurt any genuine fans of our club.
Agree wholly. I am a season ticket holder, payin some decent money to take my family with me and go to away games regularly too. I'm a critic where deserved, however I'm laying none at the door of the manager. Would I play Rickie week in week out for the whole game?....yes I would. But show me a manager who is not going to make a decision that at some point upsets some or the majority of fans - I've never known one. This guy gets it right more than any other manager I've ever known us to have. AND he genuinely cares about the club and the fans. The day we get rid of him will be a sad day, because mark my words. He will be England Manager if he wants it one day.
Not if you owned the company. Before anyone says it, yes, technically the Liebherr family owns the club not Cortese but he may as well be the owner because they don't appear to be involved or take much of an active interest.
Just got back from the game and knackered so short post as don't know what Neville said, however top support for Adkins tonight and he needs to stay, it isn't his fault. It's a long way off and hopefully won't happen but if we do go down then we will be stronger and better for it with Nigel still at the helm to bounce straight back! There's only one Nigel Adkins!!
What? It's Adkins' fault that we didn't sign better defenders. He had enough money to buy defensive players. He's also playing too many attack minded players and not getting them to reel themselves, be more organised and contribute more to the defence.
We don't know if it is his fault (with how much Les Reed shows off about being head of recruitment) and even if it is, would sacking him right now fix that? And I'm not sure what the "contribution to defence is lacking" vitriol is about, considering Schneiderlin and Lallana are among the highest interceptions for midfielders in the league. It's all a matter of terrible defensive personnel. And too many attacking players? 4 "defenders", and Schneiderlin + Davis who are sit-back midfielders..?
Schneiderlin offers a big defensive contribution but he's often the only man in midfield when the opposition counter. He can't do it alone. Davis needs to sit back way more, he doesn't understand we simply didn't need him near the attack today considering we played Lallana, Rodrigeuz, Ramirez , Lambert all together. Even with him sat back it's too many attack minded players. Lallana gets a lot of tackles/interceptions due to pressing, I see him overcommit constantly with Fox already up. It wouldn't hurt for the LM/RM to keep an eye on the defence more and start covering their positions when Fox/Clyne are already forward. But like I said they naturally want to just attack so they don't fill in at LB/RB enough Schenierlin can't fill in at LB/RB as then we'd have no players in midfield at all when we lose the ball. The amount of times I see the opponent counter with only our centre backs, Fox or Clyne and Schneiderlin near the ball is ridiculous. The Lambert header from Ramirez cross in today's game epitomised our play. We had about 7 men in and around the box. We overcommitted and were very lucky not to concede on the counter
Just a reminder we lost 2-0. We had the same number of shots on target, hit the bar, had a few other half chances. our defending was greatly improved aside from poor midfield coverage like you say. We were worse going forwards than defending. At times in the second half when we were knocking it around in the back we looked impotent.
You sound like the type of Manager that I used to work for, if anything went wrong, they always concentrated on finding a PTB, never looking for ways of avoiding the problem re-occuring and never shouldering the responsibility. Fortunately my colleagues were thick skinned and worked through despite the Management and always sorted the problems out using common sense and experience.
I think JWP may start ahead of Davis next game, I think both of them are limited footballers and would rather see a midfield three of Schneiderlin, Cork, Lallana, with question marks over Cork. Davis has played reasonably well but is not dynamic enough defensively or offensively apart from his good counterattacking work earlier in the season, JWP is the same neat and tidy but quite often ineffective. I think Davis is the better player but has to be replaced with his bad patch of form. BTW, ward-prowse seems to have deleted his twitter account, not sure why.
Cork has been seriously missed so far this season. Defensively we are weak of course and I'm sure come January we will see at least one cb and a lb come in, but cork offers coverage in front of the defence that cannot be said for the likes of Davis. Morgan is swamped with that role and he needs corks support to stop these chances being created. Neville was spot on about our defence. Tactically we are sound, it's simply down to the quality of the players now. We have a top 8 attack with a championship level defence. Needs sorting in Jan!
Was very interested in what Neville said about our defensive errors. After 2 good years, people were questioning why Adkins didn't work on his defence as if he had suddenly become a bad manager. Gary pointed out that the defence is set up right, but individual errors are costing us. And don't forget misfortune...when you are down, life tends to kick you probably by altering perception. Once a defence stop believing in themselves and each other mistakes creep in. I think that Cortese has an obsession with a certain style of play and spent money on another striker and midfielder when it would have been better spent on defence. I doubt that was Adkins fault...remember he's been getting promotions with all his past teams...he didn't do that by ignoring the defence. Cortese has been great for our club....we got 2 promotions because of the finances he set up...but let's hope he realises what is going on and supports NA.
I've decided to blame you. Not from any rational analysis, more because I'm angry and looking for a random scapegoat. Alternatively, I might try and get some control over my emotions. Don't count on it though.
If anyone is to blaime its Adkins for getting us promoted too soon! I think we tried to get defenders in, Cortese has a business model that should ensure that we dont overreach finacially. I would imagine that limits are set by player types ect. Our problem now is that it will be no easier to aquire players in Jan. We will be in a particularly week barganing possition
January is not a good time for getting purchases but we may be able to get loans in. Top teams will have a good idea of who they need and may put decent players out on loan...they will hardly see us as a threat.
