The title made it look like it would be another of the smiley smiley recycled 'no news' but it actually has a little detail in it and opinion from Le Tiss and Shearer. Not Gary Neville analysis but one to add to the growing collection of positive reports: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25040893
Saw this on another thread, but worthy of one of its own. Mauricio's appointment was justified if you go by league results. Doesn't mean of course that Nigel's sacking was justified...he had earnt his chance and was beginning to get used to the Premier League. However, life ain't fair. The Chairman who is responsible for the future of the club didn't think he was the right man to achieve the required target. Nicola said recently that he sacks people before others notice they need to be sacked.
Wrote about this article on that other thread, so I'm including it here... Here's Matty's updated view: Even if we go on and win the Premier League this season, I still think he was treated disgustingly and I don't think the club came out of it particularly well. But we are now sat third in the league and you won't find a happier Southampton fan than me. At that point in time that was my opinion and I will stick by it, at this point in time Pochettino has done very, very well. We will never know if Adkins could have performed the same miracles at St Mary's Stadium, but there is no doubting that Pochettino, 41, has given Saints a new system against which Premier League teams are struggling to compete this season. From the perspective of the football fan and pundit there is no justification of sacking a manager unless he is doing particularly badly, perhaps taking the club towards relegation. In business, and/or achievement, it doesn't necessarily work that way. Sports individuals and teams change their personnel all the time, whether they are successful or not, witness Andy Murray changing to coach Ivan Lendl when he as doing ok, or England's cricket team when they were doing likewise. Pundits need to get a grip here, and certainly Matty does. This isn't a cosy village youth club he's an ex-member of. Adkins was doing ok in the PL, but Cortese could see that the trajectory of improvement was starting to level out. He knew he could do better, so by his standards, Adkins was starting to run out of steam, even though he was doing as best as he could. Under those circumstances you don't wait until failure takes place, you act. Don't expect Poch to get it any easier in the future. There's nobody who loves Matty more than than I, but I really think he needs to take a good long look at the club he once knew and himself. The club has changed its ambitions, perspective and has moved on. He hasn't.
Since we don't really know what went on inside the club when Adkins was replaced, I think it's a little uncalled for to be throwing out grandiose judgements. It was a shock, certainly, but Cortese's decision has been vindicated. I think the root of the problem is that a lot of people in the game, fans, pundits and managers alike, are a bit stuck in the past.* Football, for better or worse, is big business these days, and chairmen/owners should treat it that way. Cortese made the decision he did for the good of the club and to increase its standing. *I don't mean this negatively, really. It's just the case that the game has moved on, and some are a little slow to catch up.
I think LeTiss holds a sincere and valid opinion, to which he is fully entitled. You don't have to agree with him to respect his point of view. The sacking of Adkins was harsh. It may have been for the good of the club, but that doesn't make it any less brutal for the individual involved. There are other values in life besides the hunt for success at all costs.
Whilst I agree it must have been awful for Nigel and unjustified on some levels, Saints is a business which the owners have invested millions in. The Chairman has to do what he thinks is best for the club and the owners...that is what he is paid for. I know it is not everything, but Nigel came out of it very well financially. From Scunthorpe manager, he rose to be a well paid manager who received no doubt huge bonuses and then a big pay off. he's moved on...suggest we (and Tiss) should as well.
Just trying to remember whether there was major uproar when Chris Hughton was sacked by Newcastle. I think there was a bit of commotion. He'd got them promoted as Champions and I think they were lying above mid-table when they changed him for the want of a more experienced manager. Pardew [really..?] was that man. Remainder of that season, 12th, then the next, 5th. He requested funds to revamp his squad [he'd got £35M for Carroll] and was told to sell to acquire it. Does it seem familiar..? Perhaps, although I would hate Cortese to be compared with Mike Ashley.
Yeah, that was another high profile sacking that shocked a lot of onlookers. not sure what the reaction was in Newcastle, but nationally it left a lot of observers scratching their heads. Thing is, other managers in the game must have looked at something like Adkins' dismissal and thought, "blimey, if he's been sacked after what he's acheived, then no one's safe". Edit: though I suppose they knew that anyway.
I saw Nigel in the village where I live a couple of weeks ago, I thanked him for what he achieved for the club and said that he'd given me some of my most enjoyable years as a Southampton fan. I told him that I still felt bad, as he is a decent man, who (in my opinion) wasn't treated decently by the club. He was (as I'm sure you'd expect) very philosophical about it, saying he also had great times at Southampton, but both he and the club have moved on and that he doesn't hold any grudges. Nigel Adkins is a top, top man and a very good manager and I look forward to him bringing his promoted Reading side to St Mary's so we can show him how appreciative we are. Having said that, you only have to look at the league table or the team on the pitch to know that the club made the correct (albeit ruthless) choice.
I look back to that strange interview Nigel gave following the Coventry game, when you would have thought his spirits, like everyone else's would have been over the moon. Instead he was almost sorrowful. I personally think that the terms of his appointment were to get us to the Premier League, and not necessarily remain the manager once we were there. As I and others have said before, Nigel was a victim of his own success, in that he got us to the Prem too quickly, both for himself, and for the team, who obviously struggled badly in the first few months. If we had started off last season like we did this one, history may have turned out differently, but the fact is, we were underprepared for life in the Premier League and there is, sadly, only one person to whom that lack of form can be attributed, and he had obviously been living on borrowed time right up until he was sacked, despite our upturn in form. In Nicola Cortese's cold, businesslike mind, I bet that Nigel's fate had already been sealed when the fourth goal went in against Coventry. The fact that it took until the 2-2 draw away at Chelsea to see Mauricio appointed and Nigel given his cards was probably down to Mauricio's contract being sorted out, rather than Nicola giving Nigel plenty of time. Yes, I still miss Nigel, and I agree that the sacking, and its timing, was harsh. But I still trust Nicola to make the right strategic decisions for this football club. He hasn't made a bad one yet!
Good post. Yep, I look back at that myself, often. In fact, I've tried to find it since. I even began to think that I'd imagined it, but I can't forget the surprise I got from him admitting that he probably wouldn't be around for much longer. It was the interview a day or two after Dan Walker interviewed him in the tunnel. Weeks after, we got the ultra positive interview where he was excitedly looking forward to the toughest introduction to the PL a fixtures computer could cook up. I'll never forget the grinning teeth..! Do I miss Nigel..? I have looked back through the archive of other interviews [trying to find that illusive one] and I sometimes wonder why I was so caught up in them. Then I watch some of the matches where he is the manager and you can't help but love some of the flowing football. At League One and Championship level, Saints and Nigel were a match made in heaven. Miss him though..? I'm not going to exchange the present level of performance for my sentiment, so Yes and No. Of course the sacking was harsh, but it was right. I'm going to have another look for that interview..!
Adkins was very unfortunte, but MP is a better manager. I will probably never warm to any manager as much as I did for Adkins.
I've had a damned good look for it and it seems to have vanished. Unlike you, I thought it was on the day of the promotion itself later in the evening after the players had had their dressing room party. Not that that's helped me find it, I'm afraid. Vin
I found a reference to it on the BBC site but the video has been deleted: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17882289 This contrasts Nigel's upbeat interview on Monday 30 April with his referring to a "parting of the ways" in the interview after the Coventry game.
We're all presuming that he was badly treated, but if he *knew* back then that he'd be on his way, then perhaps he was fully aware of what was going on. Either way, there's no way I'd want anyone other than Pochettino right now at the club.
I don't know how people can call Adkins sacking brutal etc etc. With out knowing what actually happened.
