I voted no, just for fun and just because I like Adkins and felt he deserved a little support! It did hurt a little to see it so lopsided like that. Don't know who the other one is.
I liked Adkins, and I fully supported him, but there is no way I can hand on heart say that we are not a better team now than we were under Nigel....Sorry.
On your other post you mentioned JWP gives you a heart attack ever time he comes on. Why is that? I think he looks very good and capable.
I think I noticed a little refinement to our tactics Saturday. Against Man City we were right in their faces at 100mph. A lot of people questioned the physicality of such a performance and whether that could be sustained through a season. Against Chelsea we still pressed but it did not seem as frantic. The high press has earned us these big wins which gives Poch the vote. I do think Nigel will be a very good premier league manager and he was on a steep learning curve and showed during the course of the season an improvement and adjustment to PL life, but as we all know Cortese was not prepared to let him learn on the job.
I said on another post that NA will make a good PL manager , it's just a shame his learning curve did not coincide with Cortese's plans for the club . I voted yes .
Someone said that they met Nigel after he'd been sacked and said good luck in your next job, I'm sure you will reach the top. Adkins replied: 'Yes, but I wanted it to be with Saints'. (If it is was one of you that said it, apologies if you are misquoted.) I'm sure he's bounced back since then, but he must be making some comparisons between Reading and us. He was great for us, but we were also his best chance at the big time. Sometimes, though, you have to go backwards to go forwards.
In retrospect Adkins wasn't a great manager but he showed himself to be extremely hard working which should mean he develops into a good premier league manager in the future. Southampton were the ideal club for him unfortunately we outpaced his own progress. I feel that Pochettino will keep up with our push into europe perhaps he will attract the eye of a big team but he should see Southampton are on a pathway to success.
Adkins got all his teams promoted...this is a sign of a good manager. He gets the best out of what he's got and he hasn't been just parachuted into a top side because he was a great ex-player. His achievements are massive and he deserves respect, but only time will tell if he can make that next step up. He would not have lost his job with a less ambitious Chairman.
Well so far this season we have had two managers, and thus far this is the record: Nigel Adkins: 22/66 possible points - 33% point gain Mauricio Pochettino: 12/27 possible points - 44% point gain Also, the recent form guide is encouraging.... please log in to view this image However, there are variables of course such as players making silly mistakes, getting up to speed and adapting etc.
Just because NC decided to replace Nigel, it shouldn't diminish what he did for us....Getting automatically from the league position he started in League one was good, but his real achievement was to get automatically promoted at the first attempt in the Championship (a notoriously hard league to get out of) with essentially the same squad and proved he is a great man manager and player developer. Every first team player improved under his managership, but ultimately he wasn't afforded the time to prove himself at the highest level. This does not mean that I haven't been hugely impressed with MP and the way that the team have performed since his appointment, lets just say that we have been blessed by having 2 very good managers.
No need to start saying NA wasn't a good manager. He was. He is. The chairman just took a decision that we were t doing as he wanted or expected. Nothing wrong with that decision and we certainly seem to have a very capable manager and as previously stated, haven't we been lucky to have two promotions from NA and now this new style of exciting play under Pochettino
It would be churlish in the extreme to diminish what Nigel [see I don't call him Adkins first, he's still Nigel] did for Saints, and by voting yes, I'm not doing it, and I don't suppose anyone else is. Pochettino is standing on his shoulders, just as Nigel stood on Alan Pardew's. But there's no getting away from it. Saints look better under Mauricio and they are better than they were under Adkins. There's no disloyalty there and there's no lack of appreciation. It just is.
Yeah, I knew that. I've just looked up the thread, by the way. I don't think rabbit is saying Nigel wasn't a good manager, rather than thinking he wasn't a great one. A case could be made about that, but I wouldn't say it, because it doesn't need saying. He was great for us and that will do for me. Nigel, being the studied type, will I think go on to be a great manager. Maybe one day he'll come back to us, unless Mauricio decides to do a 25 year stint with Saints. Blimey, imagine that..?
Pochettino is still reaping the benefits of Adkins' work in that he inherited a team with a strong belief in itself and each other. Even though I sometimes cringed at the corny Adkinisms and his talks that seemed ripped out of the pages of "HR Monthly"-- they worked. I suppose there's a reason why the management books tell you to do things a certain way. That was the one knock on MP from that Spanish journalist-- that he questioned his man management skills. Not saying I believe it. But that area was NA's greatest strength, and we just don't know about MP yet. We have to see him manage a full season before any underlying personality issues or bad management will be apparent. I worry about NA as well. I think he needs enough time to get players to buy into his system. At Saints it was easier because we had some young players or at least hungry ones. While his on-field tactics and personality might not have meshed with NA's, they did seem to share a common interest in making character a primary concern. If he gets on a side with a bunch of disgruntled players or end-of-career mercenaries, they might get into NA's postivity/enthusiasm and find it patronizing.
I was one that thought the change was unnecessary and may come back to bite us, but I also always said that I would be happy to be proved wrong. Well it turns out that I have been proved wrong. I thought Poch's substitutions on Saturday won us the game, bringing on JWP and Fox on the wing were inspired, and took the sting out of Chelsea just as they were starting to stretch us. Adkins would never have done that, and we would have lost at least 2 points, in all probability all 3. Another big test is this Saturday - we have proved we can mix it with the big boys, can we beat Reading?
Quite interesting that Pochettino put Fox on at left midfield. That's really not a bad idea, and kind of takes the sting out of the weak points in Fox's game.
I've actually often wondered why we have never done it before when clinging onto a lead. Fox has all the attributes of a panicking defensive Winger and none of a left back.
You were nailed on certs to go down until you changed your manager. It wasn't just that you still looked like a Championship side, it was also that you seemed to lack belief. I dunno what the new guy has done but you're a very different proposition now. Obviously I don't have the same breadth of exposure to your club - for me it was just the game at your place, your visit to the DW and then what I've seen on MOTD - but something quite fundamental seems to have changed about how your lads approach games. And yes, high pressing - the Barca way - served us very well last season and I'd like to see us doing it more this time out. Yourselves and Liverpool completely undid us by pressing and harrying us on the edge of our own box. What I don't understand - OT I know - is a manager like Pardew, having seen us getting flustered by teams playing like that, then comes to the DW and tries to out-football us.
