We had a few years swilling around the Championship...not much fun. Only loved last year because we were top dogs...we haven't much experience of that. Must be tough being close to promotion and not quite making it year after year.
I've been sorting my travel plans for the Sunderland game, as I can't make the last home game. Just reflecting on the game at Forest in 2009 when we were sliding out of the championship and going nowhere. Saints fans were brilliant that day, and I was never more proud to support the team, but also never more in despair when considering the future. Now? Dreamland. Adkins will always be a god!
Funny old game football. I remember watching a league one game live on tv. This is purely from memory and could be wrong. It was the start of the 2010/11 season and we were at home to Plymouth. It was the very first game of the season and was the year after our points deduction and so expectations for the season were high. We were at home and Peter Reid was their manager so we surely would win. We lost 0-1 and I think it was the last game we played before Markus sadly died. I remember thinking then that we could be a club in turmoil again. Ironically as it happens when we played the reverse fixture at the end of the season we gained promotion and relegated Plymouth. The 2 clubs going in completely different directions. The losers in that opening game going on to back to back promotions to the premier league and Plymouth now on the verge of being relegated from the football league. On top of all this we have been improving over the last three years whilst at the same time our dear neighbours have been in freefall. It's a hard life, this supporting football milarkie
Swansea's rise has probably been more meteoric. I went to Uni in Swansea and used to go and watch them at the Vetch, followed by a drunken session in Barons (is it true it has closed?)! I thought they were doing quite well then, so if you told me they would be where they are now in 10 years time I would have had a good chuckle!
Well let's hope we're "back for good" as "all I do each night is pray" that we'll stay up. Still when I see a Lambert free kick I think "could it be magic" …I'll get my coat Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk so please ignore my spelling!
As a neutral with no particular interest in your club apart from the travesty of 1976, you have come far in two short years from the depths of midweek games at Yeovil, Walsall and Ice Station Zebra aka Oldham (where you did win 6-0) to a decent looking PL team which has given all the top sides a tough game. Nigel Adkins achieved that and was sacked. Crazy.
Not crazy, as such. Just a bit odd. The new guy is an improvement, though. Under Nigel we didn't actually get much from the top teams, under Pochettino we're actually getting some wins against the big boys.
We all loved Adkins, and he deserved the job, but the club is much bigger than him. Cortese believed that he had the man lined up who could take us to another level, and it would have been stupid not to follow through on that just because Adkins hadn't been doing a bad job. And surprise, surprise, Cortese turned out to have made the right call yet again. I know from a neutral point of view it just seems like very harsh treatment of a very good manager, but there's more to it than that. The way we're playing right now is the best we've been all season, and that makes it a good call.
You wouldn't have dared do the same to big Lawrie. I disagree. Adkins built this team. He was never given the chance to progress.
Every Saints fan now completely understands Cortese's reasoning behind the sacking of Adkins yet other teams fans still don't get it. It took us a while becuase of the respect we had and still have for the job Adkins done here but after the initial shock we understand. Adkins isn't quite there tactically and that was costing us too many points. Pochittino made some very good timely changes against City,Liverpool and Chelsea which sealed the wins. Those are games we would, in all probability lost with Adkins at the helm.
You'll never know, because I think you're safe now, but everything he did up to his sacikng had the Midas touch. I just feel sorry for a man who has put you back among the elite in no time and is rewarded with the sack. I'm not sure why a rookie manager from Spain is better placed to take you to "the next level".
Yeah, the "Midas touch". The goalkeeping debacle which cost us so many points, the odd substitutions of our better players, giving the opposition too much time on the ball. He was no where near the god you make him out to be. Back among the elite?
Fergie thought a Rookie winger from Portugual was better than David Beckham, who had been at the centre of all of UTD's success...... Decisions that don't make sense at the time are not always the wrong ones.
Rookie manager? He has more top flight experience than Adkins. In Spain which some may deride but that is a fact. Football is strange though. Adkins didn't deserve the boot but then what has deserve got to do with football? Le Tissier deserved a chance in his position for England. Never got it. Lambert deserves a chance ahead of Zaha, Sterling, Defoe, Carroll and numerous others. He hasn't got it. Redknapp deserves a slating for the crap he's done over the past 2 decades as manager. He hasn't got it. Deserve has nothing to do with this. CEO made a decision. Adkins is considered by ALL Saints fans as a legend still but CEO's make decisions and they live and die by them.
To play Devil's Advocate, don't you think there is a subconscious urge now for Saints fans to downplay Adkins' qualities to justify the sacking? We don't want to think our chairman is wrong and/or a jerk. At the time of his sacking we looked to have turned things around somewhat and I would say if anything people were more confident of Adkins than ever as he was now showing he did have the goods to coach at the highest level. None of us said at the time he was justly fired. We were pretty mad, and a lot of us were worried we might get relegated because of it. I think-- I think we all thought-- Adkins would keep us up. And that was the major goal. Therefore he deserved the chance to keep his job and see what changes he could make next season. MP definitely seems to have accelerated our improvement and I'm not criticizing the decision, but I do think sometimes we look back at Adkins too critically. The poll question where we all gave MP a massive vote of confidence asked if we are playing better under MP. We are. But what if the question is "Could we have gotten to this same point with NA as well, only perhaps a half season later and maybe with more longer term sustainability?" That's harder to answer. Anyway, what I liked about the Championship was that we were playing with House money. Really, all I wanted was a respectable finish that first year and even a bad finish would have been okay so long as we weren't relegated. So for most of the season, every win was a bonus and it was fun to be happily surprised every time it happened. Same thing with League One. The expectations were higher given the payroll and our status as a bigger club but because we were coming back from such awful lows, it was great just to have a team at all, much less one that looked like it cared about winning. Even if we hadn't been promoted that year, I would have been okay. So I think my enjoyment of the season has less to do with promotion or being one of the best sides but rather how we do vs expectations. If Saints were to somehow become a Man U-esque side I wonder how I'd feel about it. It would be much less fun to follow the team because every win is expected and every loss a disappointment. I got pretty bored with the Chicago Bulls during the Jordan era and stopped following them very much. Now I'm a big fan again. So I guess I'm kind of a foul-weather fan.
Adkins didn't build this team. A large portion of the squad we have now were around before he was, and that includes Lambert, Schneiderlin, Lallana, Puncheon, Fonte and many other important players.
No I don't. See my signature below. That signature was earnt. It was put there before the West Brom game. It will remain possibly for a year or 2. It will take some achievements from MP to be able to earn similar as the 2 promotions for him would be to upper end of the table ( 8th or above) and then to top 4. Similar to Hoddle and Strachan BUT playing good football and not the defensive or Gritty as those 2 As for the 'what we expected, I think we can safely say we all expected much less than Cortese and were happy to accept less. TBH we don't know what Cortese had said to Adkins from the start. We don't know whether he said when he was employed that he was being employed to get us into the Prem and would have to hit the ground running. We don't know if at promotion to the Prem League Cortese said no mistakes and no time to make them. Therefore no-one except Nicola and Nigel know whether the sacking was deserved or not. If Nigel was here and we were still above the bottom 3 even by 1 point I think we would all be happy still. Fact is he isn't and therefore we accept that he isn't. So Mr Man U should go walk back to his board and talk about morals and decency regarding serial diving, feigning injury, surrounding refs and then come back after they've questioned their own house before coming here again. Ask SAF what he said about 'rookie' MPs little old Southampton!!! BEST TEAM TO PLAY AT OLD TRAFFORD THIS SEASON!!!! I could cheekily suggest that means better than Man Utd too
