Not quite true, Joe. Pochettino's side pressed Everton much more aggressively when they had the ball and played at a higher tempo when we had it.
Could be clever and still have lost the confidence of the dressing room. Though I think his tactics did work..he hoped to be 0.0 at half-time and the second goal before half-time was a sickener. The introduction of Lambert worked as it had before. It does demonstrate the quality of the players we have here. Adkins may have lost the confidence of some players, but that's not the same as losing the dressing room. I think our players always give their best; there are no players coasting. This is why we are climbing away from the relegation zone.
If Cortese is as professional as many of you claim, then he would NEVER take any notice of footballers moaning. I'm sure everyone one of Cortese's advisors over the years would have told to treat players like a commodity & the last thing you do is seek advice or council from them. So, just a load of bollocks this "story".
Doubt any players led a delegation...Adkins was doing pretty well and was well liked...however, I would also be surprised if Cortese was unaware of what was going on (if anything). I think he just didn't like what he was seeing or what Nigel was saying. He thought that at this moment he needed to act to keep the plan on track. I remember someone ITK saying months ago that Cortese was unhappy about Nigel's lack of positivity and thought it would get to the players and I thought what the...!!! Perhaps it wasn't so much he lacked positivity but that he tried to inject realism and to suggest survival was the target and that didn't go down well.
Cortese said in his interview that the love & support should be for the club and not the individuals within it.
Don't think Cortese would have listened to players but then again he wouldn't need to. The fact that we have dropped 16 points from winning positions suggests that Nigel wasn't doing something right tactically and had probably taken as far as he could. I think sometimes they were unsure of what to do when they winning and got caught in two minds and it would have been up to Nigel to make sure they knew what to do. The players may have passed this on to Cortese but as I said, 16 points dropped from winning positions is probably what forced his hand. We would be 5th if we didn't lose those leads.
And we would be top if we hadnt lost a game ! You have to be realistic surely - an attacking side like Saints is often likely to go into the lead but for a team newly promoted from Lg1 hanging on to it is much harder. However under Adkins this was coming good and during the past couple of months we have become a hard side to beat.
I understand what your saying and I wouldn't expect us to protect every lead we have had. However we should have been able to close out a lot more games than we have and that comes down to managers tactics and his subs. I just thin that when Cortses made the decisoion to sack Adkins these 16 points would have been at the front of his mind and the manager that can take us to the next level is one that can close out a match after going ahead.
I appreciated Adkins work in turning our season round and getting us back to 15th after a terrible start. But now I'm looking at it coldly (without the presence of Nigel who I love) I can see we should have been higher and safer. Draws are great if you are outplayed and snatch it, but we should have won at least a couple more games. He was learning and I think he would have kept us up, but Cortese found the manager he wanted and sacked Nigel now rather than in the summer.
For me this is here Nigel failed the most his signings just weren't good enough and I personally don't believe he signed Ramirez I think cortese did other wise we wouldn't have bought Rodriguez and we would've kept sharp.
I am not sure that we should have been higher. We are about where i thought we would be at this stage, perhaps 1 or 2 points lower but not much more. We maybe should have won a couple more games, but we could also easily have lost games where we eventually gained points i.e. away v Villa and Chelsea. Thats football in my book, sometime you get points in games you shouldnt and at other times its vice versa. I dont think that there was too much wrong with Adkins tactics, some subs baffled me but so do they with other managers. We were improving under Adkins and climbing the table and it still baffles me as to why he was ditched. Still its done and so lets get on - i really hope the new manager does well for us, but until he does so i will still be slightly dismayed that Adkins is gone, and this guy has a heck of alot on his shoulders to improve upon Adkins.
Weird how things work out. What if bottle-gate had not happened? And the fans had not provoked Artur Boruc? Would Boruc have settled quicker, found his current form? Stopped the silly errors of PG against Norwich and Swansea to give us an extra 4 points? That could potentially have had us sat in 12th, and then who knows what may have happened. If's, but's and maybe's huh?
I think Cortese would have sacked Nigel in the summer anyway...I think it wasn't just results but the manner of the results.
Yeah, quite possibly. Always got the impression Nigel was "the manager to get us to the Premier League".
Its such a shame as its so rare to get a club as unified as we were under Nigel Adkins, he had such great support - it was fantastic at away games especially and this is not something that you can invent or get out of a can. Just hope that we can get the same thing going in time with the new fella.
Dman, it was not Nigel Adkins that gave us fantastic support at away games, well I never saw him in the crowd. It was the fans. It is your choice as a fan to decide if you wish to carry on with that atmosphere or not.
FLT, i dont understand your drift.I know full well what my choice is, and my support for Saints will never waver. What i am saying above is that Nigel Adkins had a great rapport with us and HE got great support from the fans, to a degree which is quite unusual. Silly comment about him not being in the crowd, as thats pretty obvious.
If Poch delivers we may love him as well, but it will never be quite like Nigel. He gave us laughs, success and quotes. I doubt any of us will be doing Spanish quotes any time soon Poch does of course win in the crumpet stakes
Yeah, I agree. Nigel was special because he was modest and he projected genuine warmth and a positive attitude. There's going to be a very lucky club out there very soon. BTW, it's Mauricio Pochettino [I've learned it]. I've seen some attempts at not writing our new manager's name because the writer was unsure of how it went. but new fella made me giggle.
