CB Fry

The good news is that Leeds did lose ten last season, and Norwich lost nine.

We've put our season back months. We're now unlikely to be challenging the top four before christmas. If the top two teams in the division carry on picking up points at a rate of two per game - they usually do - then we'd need to win nine games in a row to reach parity with them at game 15 (we'd hit 30pts, top couple of teams would hit 30 points). That would be late November ish. We're obviously not going to win nine games in a row so even in a real but optimistic world, we are 15-18 games or so from really being up there - ie February. So we now have a real mountain to climb just to take the pressure off. Good luck Nigel.

Good interview. Very likeable so far. "It's as simple as that" tally in this interview: two.

Adkins has said "it's as simple as that" in an interview again. Definitely cementing his catchphrase.

To be fair, there is something of the wow factor from the most expensively assembled squad in this division losing four games in a row without scoring. Wow.

Well I have no recollection of anything you've ever posted on this forum sweetheart.

And I get accused of posting rubbish. This is utter garbage. Anything other than automatic promotion would be total failure this season. Having a rubbish start to the season doesn't suddenly make having a rubbish rest of the season acceptable. I think the fans would be quite happy with top of the table after a month of the season, and there would be far less pressure than there is now we have wasted games and indeed wasted a perfectly good manager. We have fewer "lives left" than we did on August 1st. Saints have c o cked up royally and the pressure is on. Mr Adkins will be feeling it.

Your reaction says more about your subliminal view of Adkins than my original post ever did. It's a sweepstake on how Adkins will do, not when he will be sacked. Lawrie Mac, Strachan, Hoddle and Alan Ball were all successful but you may have notice they are no longer managing us. They've left, they're gone. The average life span of a manager is 18 months. Your idea that we WILL have someone manage us for, say, a decade I think is pie in the sky, but I accept September 2020 as your entry into the sweepstake. The fact that I am offering to hand deliver a prize suggests I am not expecting people to "get the right day". Thanks for the feedback but the most depressing thing I've read on this forum came from you the other day, with your view that, under Adkins we will STILL be in League one come 2012-13 so not in the NPC until 2013-4 at the earliest. Suicidally depressing stuff. At least in my prediction I have us promoted this season. Again, who says my thread is negative. Your knee jerk that YOU THINK this thread is about failure and sackings says more about your real opinion of Adkins than anything I've said. If you think he's going to be a success and only leave once we're in the Prem and he is poached by Everton, fine. Say it. One day Adkins will no longer be our manager. That is not a judgement of success or failure. One day Ted Bates was no longer our manager. I'm not sure he failed. Glad to see everyone has really got into the fun side of this sweepstake. Many thanks to those that have "got it", though. Cheers the heart the forum is not entirely stocked with humourless bores.

Come on then. It's the game you're all going to love. The day will come. Not tomorrow, and probably even not next week, but someday Nigel Adkins will leave his post at St Mary's. But when? And how? Call it a long-game sweepstake. All entries posted below, winner will win a top notch prize hand delivered by me. Start your entry with Nigel Adkins will leave Southampton on.... and you must be as specific as possible with date and reasoning. My entry: Nigel Adkins will leave Southampton on 17th January 2012. After steering Saints into the Championship through the playoffs, Saints start life in the league above brightly and are solid mid table until early December. A nightmare goal-less Christmas and New Year period including being bundled out of the FA Cup by Bury sees our confidence shattered and a plummet down the table. Cortese panics and sacks Adkins giving his replacement the last weekend of the transfer window to bring in reinforcements. Roll up, it's just for fun. Remember - he can leave at any time for any reason, including retiring in 2024, becoming a freeman of the city after that historic eighth global Champions League win.

He's got to get promoted this season, without fail. That is what the management want, and it is still what most sane fans expect. So spare the arse-aching bore-a-thon about Lawrie Mac and Alex Ferguson and all that guff balls. We know, we've all heard that patronising garbage for eons. Adkins will not and should not get the mythical "three years" for him to "build a team" and before anyone can dare judge him and kids these days are so impatient blah blah etc etc. Yawwwwn. He's got this season to get promoted. If he fails he will probably be sacked. It's a shorter timescale than I would normally call acceptable (I would give him this and then a full season) but that is what I think would happen.

No, me too. I you had to write the dream CV of a Saints manager for now it would be - experience of promotion from third tier, experience of success higher up including premier league, experience of some knock backs and responding well to them, experience of taking over new clubs, imposing a vision and delivering success. Pardew had that CV, Adkins has a good CV but a limited one. His lack of experience of actually taking over a club eats at me a bit. Yes Adkins has had some success, but at a club and a scenario nothing like what he is going to experience at Southampton. I come back to Ian Holloway - brilliant at low-expectation two-bob clubs like Plymouth and QPR (as was), total failure at high expectation, high wage-bill, high-pressure Leicester. Back to two-bob clubland and bingo, success again. Some managers suit the two-bob club. Let's hope Adkins can step up.

Agree with every word you say. 14 years at one club with minimal expectation, with reputation and stature earnt over years of being part of the furniture. He's never, ever had the experience of driving into a new car park, walking into a new dressing room and saying "I'm in charge now". And he's never dealt with immense pressure on his shoulders at a club with expectation of success that he's going to face with us. Good luck to him, but he isn't the natural choice for me. But then I wasn't convinced by Strachan at point of appointment either, so what do I know. Good luck to him.

15,000 of the worlds greatest and most loyal football fans squeezed into Farton yesterday I see. It's when you're down and up against it that true loyalty is really shown and it is inspirational to see so many ultra loyal Pompey megafans taking the time to wash the car yesterday afternoon.

It's a shame he doesn't have a track record of getting out of this (or any) division with tons of resources, a squad packed with stars and a massive weight of expectation from one of the biggest fan bases in the football league. He doesn't even have a track record of walking into a club, shaking it up and reviving it. He's only ever worked at one league football club and that's been for 14 years where he's been part of the furniture and in an unquestioned position of respect/authority built on years of service. He simply won't have that at St Mary's. We'll see how he goes, but I don't think he is the perfect fit some are making out. Massive, massive gamble IMO.

Garbage. Anything other than promotion would still be a monumental failure. Let's not have any of this "rebuilding" nonsense whenever the new man takes over and let's not start the spinning that "won't it be amazing if we finish mid table, oh haven't we done well". Top four without fail this season is the requirement. Promotion either auto or through the play offs is the absolute must. If you need any clarity on that, ask Nicola Cortese.

LOLtastic. The OS is as full of as much spin and bullshi t as any other outlet.

I've been out of the country all day, so I have only sketchy knowledge of what's happened today and in what order. But from what I can see now, it does look like a shambles with no one from any side looking good - Katkins crying off back home, the Scunny chairman giving it large, Cortese quibbling over compensation. I have a fear that Mr Cortese will get bored with dealing with "outside forces" and just appoint Wilkins, as he is "popular with the players" or somesuch. Much like Lowe when he couldn't meet the staffing demands of Moyes or the financial demands of McClaren and lumped it all on Stuart Gray.

I can almost hear your premise creaking under the weight of those assumptions. Sturrock was highly regarded, but was never described as above. Steve Wigley's mum wouldn't have described him as you have, and no one except the occasional Lowe-luvvie windup merchant decribed him as such. Stuart Gray, at the time, was a reasonable punt, but the appointment was regarded as such by all concerned at the time. L1 is lower risk in terms of "potential" as the stakes are lower, but the job we need doing - promotion this season without fail - is not best suited as a "breeding ground". The debate is whether we think someone like Adkins is "potential" or "proven". He's delivered promotions, but he's been at the same club for 14 years. He's never had to walk into a new club, take it over, shake it up and deliver results. Whereas, for his faults, Phil Brown has. Any manager is going to be a risk because the demands here, this season, are immense. It's not about potential, it's about bottle!

Nice that you left out the line from my post about me not being a Keegan lover to "prove" that I am. Outstanding arguing skills. Sheesh. And I didn't actually say I think Keegan is better than Martin O'Neil, just that I have doubts about MO'N taking over at Saints tomorrow - these are more about why he would come and whether he would stick it out. All a bit Clough-at-Brighton. He could get to January and think "why am I here, the West Ham job just came up". Of course you can say the same thing about Keegan but I personally think if he decided to come to Saints, he'd stick around long enough to get us promoted. My point is more about "fit". Keegan coming to Saints tomorrow is, in my opinion, a brilliant fit and he is all we need to guarantee guaranteed promotion, and that's a cast iron guarantee. I guarantee it.

That's funny, in my original post, I made it clear I was no Keegan worshipper and expected him to fail at Newcastle second time round when he was appointed. Not quite deluded and mental. My eyes are wide open. Delusionals look at people who have acheived nothing whatsoever and decide that they would be brilliant two divisions down purely because they were rubbish two divisions higher. That is mental. And yes. If Keegan took over tomorrow we're promoted in May. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Get on board.

Get over it. It's a football discussion forum. Funny how everyone else reading my post on Keegan got precisely the spirit of what I was saying. Well done you for coming back with "there's no such thing as a guarantee". No. S h it. Sherlock. Have a good night.

Not really. Your argument was that average managers at Prem level would be brilliant managers lower down. You used Pearce and Zola and claimed that mediocrity higher up equates to brilliance lower down. Being that Pearce and Zola weren't average, they were dreadful, the point barely stands up. Comparing the pitiful achievements of Pearce and Zola who got jobs on their "name" rather than ability and failed with the achievements of Kevin Keegan - hello second place in the Premier League - is a total joke. Keegan would do well at Saints because he is precisely the kind of manager we need. What we don't need is an overhyped name like Pearce who are proven failures. No hypocrisy whatsoever.

Is Brown's "short run of form" that got Hull into the Prem and then kept them there better or worse than Adkin's failure to keep S****horpe in the CCC in his first season there? Is keeping a team in the Prem a better or worse achievement in your first season at that level than being relegated from the Championship in your first season at that level?

Based on my opinion. Problem with that?

The "sports editor" of The Sun has not, and never will have, three hours spare to have a meeting with the chief exec of League One Southampton. That rumour is spectacular in it's wrong-ness.