Good point but to be fair Nigel has said the same thing. Personally I think if Nigel felt he couldn't keep us up he would walk.
Our next eight may be quite tricky, but look at our final eight: Southampton V Chelsea Reading V Southampton Southampton V West Ham Swansea V Southampton Southampton V West Brom Tottenham V Southampton Sunderland V Southampton Southampton V Stoke 12-15 points look realistic.
The three missiing fixtures are QPR and Liverpool at home and Norwich away. Should be at least 4 points there.
One game at a time. A point tomorrow would be a good end to the year. 3 points would be absolute magic, and set us up nicely for arsenal on the 1st.
And that is my point. West Ham, West Brom and Stoke may have little or nothing to play for. They may even try out a few kids. They will almost certainly come down here with us wanting the three points more. Reading may well be relegated by then, and even if they aren't then it's still not exactly the hardest away game imaginable. Swansea and Sunderland likewise could have nothing to play for, whilst neither are exactly Man Utd. Yes they'll be tricky away games, but if we really want the three points more than them, they are there to be had. We have the fixtures at the end to keep us up. We just to need to make sure that we're not down before they come along. Even with those fixtures, I couldn't see us clawing back a seven or eight deficit.
If in a few weeks we were 4 points adrift of 17th and a genie popped out of a magic vase and said, 'I can make this person manager of Saints and he will guarantee safety' then I would obviously be incredibly tempted and probably accept. But clearly this will not be the case. If we are struggling hugely with it starting to become clear that it is very unlikely Nigel will be able to take us to safety, if there was an outstanding and willing candidate for the job then my loyalty would probably waiver. But the problem is that for it to be worth it we need to know to a reasonable degree of certainty Nigel can't save us and as you say, know there's an exceptional manager who will stand us in better stead, and know they want to take over. And at the moment we don't know any of these things, add in my loyalty to Adkins and I'm not even close to considering him getting the sack as a viable option to take the club forwards, I think that's mostly the same for a lot of others who are loyal to Nigel. Some are blindly loyal due to big doses of Adkins-love, some others are looking from a purely logical stand point, I'd like to think I'm a bit of both.
I agree . NA is learning as well as the players . Will he learn enough in time to keep us up , I honestly think he can , and I am usually a pessimist !!! Stick with him and commit to him for the rest of the season IMHO .
I am all depressed again now! You have to support what you have got, nothing we can do about Management changes, I am happy with Nigel but if things go wrong and he gets the boot I will support whoever is chosen to replace him.
Cortese wants stability as he believes that it can be good for success. It may be strange, but I think that doing well or going down may secure Adkins job...the former because Nicola will be happy and the latter because Adkins is a successful Championship manager. However, he may have to convince Nicola of his future plans if we only scrape to safety. Just a thought.
Your point would be a valid one if the three teams at the bottom showed any signs of life.Out of the four however I fancy Saints for the best results over the next few games.I think with the sale of Moses and Rodellaga Bobby Brown Shoes has finally run out of luck.
I think it's something to do with managers losing jobs in the Premier League and he knows that there will be a lot of added pressure. So he needs to portray a serious attitude. Having said that, all is Saints fans no he isn't under threat
I had a look at the latest managerial sack race odds yesterday, and I saw that Adkins is now down at about 9th-10th favourite to be the next to leave their job.
If Cortese was going to fire Adkins he would have done it earlier (after the Leeds game) when we were really poor, shipping goals and not collecting points. We are on the up now and the second time round, against the top sides we will pick up some points against them I'm sure. Who's favourite for the sack now?
The top three favourites are McDermott, Mancini and Lambert, with Pardew and 'no manger' slightly further behind. Adkins, Wenger, Rafa, Jol, and Rodgers all now roughly on par with each other.
