Honest answers please. You are the Chairman of SFC and have just sacked Pardew. Would you have hired Adkins?
probably not, no! But then he wasnt a household name back then. If I had looked at his CV it might have been different when I saw his achievements with scunny!
Believe it or not (I was vocal about it on 606) I wanted Nige to be hired from the start, so yes I would have.
He would not have been my first choice, but may have been someway down on the reserve list. I will also point out that he still needs to prove that he can do something that he hasnt done before, get us to the Prem and keep us there. So far he has done well but theres a long way to go!
Must admit I said, 'Who?'. As 53 (may I call you 53?) said, the answer was all in his CV. I think Cortese has the advantage of an open mind..he doesn't go for the usual suspects. Alan Pardew was a 'name' and it didn't work out. We've got a good manager who considers himself fortunate to be at 'this wonderful football club' and not someone treating us as a stepping stone.
When I heard he was linked with the job and saw he was on Football League Weekend as a special guest, I decided to watch. I liked the guy, and he spoke well. They discussed his CV and it impressed me, and he publicly declared that he was flattered and would obviously consider a big club like Southampton. From that point I wanted him, and we got him. So... Yes.
I think a lot of credit for NA's appointment should go to Cortese's advisors (possibly Les Read, Dean Wilkins). Whoever he turned to would have better knowledge of suitable candidates than the Don himself but obviously the final decision would have been his.
Adkins said he knew Reed very well, as he did Adkins' courses at the FA for him, he was a Course Leader. I imagine Les had a big say in this, and put Nigel's name to Cortese.
So far, one (-Dan) would have hired Adkins and one (DTLW) might have been swayed to once he was mentioned. We're rubbish at this Chairman lark aren't we?
Yes, I put his name forward immediately as a good option. When we played Scunthorpe I was impressed with their style of football and it was quite well known that Adkins was very much into sports science, motivation etc, so that appeared to sit well with Cortese's vision.
Yeah, it was a case of when he was mentioned, he sounded realistic and I liked him. Before then I had not considered him.
Probably. I think everyone wanted O'Neill in a dream world but realistically - Adkins was the man. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but he's tactically spot on.
To be honest - no Just remembered, last night I had a terrible nightmare: 'breaking news - Adkins quits Saints over Chamberlain transfer' - it was awful!
To be honest, I probably wouldn't have. Mostly because I didn't take the time to look at his CV and really see what he was about. I think the only reason we had Pardew in the first place was that we had just been taken over and we didn't have time for a full and proper recruitment process, and we needed a "name" to get in the big players like Lambo and Fonte.
Pardew did pretty well. he built the core of the team and had a pretty good season..wasn't his fault we'd lost 10 points. He might have even got us promoted last season (we will never know), but I doubt the team would be playing as well as they are now. And he was definately not as good as Nigel in reacting to a situation and making timely substitutions.
