I have never particularly rated Nigel Adkins and think this constant appeasing of poor tactics and team selections is nauseating, he recites a poem or a book and we wonder at his vast World knowledge of the game, we hear his quotes of getting on the bus and we all want to jump on, not me not at all. We bought ourselves out of League 1 and in the Championship season momentum carried us on from the previous season and thank the Lord the season did not go 3/4 further as we were deteriorating faster than others around us. Now for this season, where do I start? Poor buys, panic buys, buys made of glass, poor tactics yet we still say he is learning, negative tactics, poor selections, when are we going to wake up and see that we are heading down as it stands and yet we applaud him? For what exactly? Just because he is a nice man does not mean he us any good at this level, no expected we would be this bad so far this season but we are where we are, why though?
One of the biggest loads of tosh I have read, and I've read some right old tosh on here believe me But, I do respect your opinion and you are entitled to it - doesnt mean I have to agree Oh, and welcome to the forum
So Nigel Adkins is nothing to do with our excellent push trough the divisions? He bought the players that got us there etc....
I know someone you are going to get on with just great!!! GMI to the forum, that's GMI to the forum please. Your play-date has arrived!
Bad start, Jimmy. I'd like to hear more about this mysterious force you call "momentum" that carried us last season. Where did it come from exactly? And how did it take us to 26 league wins?
I can understand why you've never rated Nigel. You've obviously only started paying attention this year, and then only to results. Welcome aboard the bus ;-)
Sometimes you need a reality check, he has posted as he sees it, fair enough, there some parts I don't agree with but I have said how I feel so many times I don't feel moved to go over it all again. It would be a boring Forum if we all agreed every time.
I did not say it would be popular, I for one have had enough, excuse after excuse, that not Adkins I shall add it's the supporters, today it was a joke with peoples argument and reasoning that there is no one else better and we will turn it around, we won't as this is easily the weakest side even with the money we have spent I can ever remember in the top flight.
Jimmy...just to pick up on your point about buying our way out of the lower leagues. I'd agree we spent in League 1, but we needed to kick on and fast. The championship however was a different story, I remember people moaning in the summer that year that we hadn't strengthened enough. When you compare us against the other contenders last year, and their squads, NO-ONE was saying at the start of last year that we had to go on and finish top 2 to justify that squad. If anything the pundits were calling us overachievers.
How much money have others spent? That loan we took out for £30 million a few months ago to pay for our signings? That will be paid back with the first Sky payment in December, as long as fans know exactly where the money is coming from for signings as crap as they may be, they are not coming from the club that I can tell you, your sky subscriptions are paying for Yoshida.
The only explanation that makes sense! Not rating a manager who has led his team to consecutive promotions, my word the silly brigade keeps getting sillier.
Nigel Adkins is not accountable for the many costly individual lapses this season, we could easily be 10-15 points better off without them and we have only really been outplayed twice this season in the away games at Arsenal and Everton.
The other point...I just don't understand how you can lay the blame for what happened today with Adkins. Pretty sure he's never worked on the exchange of play that led to the goal on the training ground. I'm not a professional footballer, but I know that given a choice between clearing your lines or putting your last man under pressure from a player as dangerous as Dyer, you choose the former. I would bet my last pound that Gazza knows this too, but he made a mis-calculation.
First post and last. We had Championship players in League One so all he had to do was guide the team in the right direction, which we did. You could argue that we still have Championship players two years later. Anyway, 15/16 teams could have been promoted from the Championship and for us to be in the top two is some achievement, maybe we overperformed based on our side on paper but we had a high team spirit and unity and that was created by Adkins. Adkins is a new manager to the Premier League and will improve over time, he has made some bad decisions but he has also made some good ones. We may have gotten promoted too soon, maybe our players aren't good enough to help us stay up but only time will tell. 3 of the back five today were not here last season and will take time to gel, meaning that our defence should improve over time. We spent the sixth most amount of money I think it was and around 30 million pounds, the only players who have not quite lived up to their expectations are Rodriguez and Yoshida. Boruc's too early to say. Worst comes to worst and we do get relegated, I'd be happy having Nigel trying to get us promotion back to the Premier League.
We as in Southampton football club not buying adequately in the summer in my book makes us underachievers, that is somewhere where I do not blame our manager wholly.
