CB Fry

I had heard that Pardew had been sacked - it's the lead story on the front page of this very forum. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/ Glad things have all be sorted now. I look forward to seeing news of his replacement on the Saintsweb news page any day now. Any have any suggestions on who it could be?

I don't particularly like Hoddle and did not want him back but he did very well for us when here. But in terms of whose team was more "boring" between him and WGS, I'd say Hoddle.

I know you're just trolling, but anyway: Strachan won the title three times in a row, only the third Celtic manager ever to acheive that - MO'N didn't do it. And he did better in Europe than M O'N, getting through the CL group stages is all a Scottish team can ever do these days and he did it. Twice. He did brilliantly at Celtic and brilliantly at Saints. He did pretty well at Cov until the constant player sales defeated him and he ran out of steam. He's a good manager with a good record.

Most managers waffle to be fair - there is only so many ways you can say no that much in different ways. That said, Adkins does have his fair share of verbal tics. "Simple as that" and "win a game of football" are already mentioned, but he also does that "at this football club" line a lot, which always seems to bug me. Dave Jones and Tony Pulis do it as well, Jones especially. "at this football club" repeated about five times in every interview, just in case any of were under the impression that Dave Jones was managing a greengrocers.

MLT's best days were behind him before the summer of 1997, there isn't any season post Lowe's arrival that was a "MLT saved us from relegation" season. He scored the goals at Dellhurst, but it was by no means a vintage MLT season. A certain Latvian sealed the deal on the last day of the season, and scored another crucial goal in the Blackburn 3-3. Staying in the Prem for the seasons at the Dell post-MLT's prime was certainly an achievement that Lowe can take some credit for, not least in the appointment of Jones, Hoddle and Strachan.

For the self appointed forum smart arse, sometimes you're not that smart. There are plenty of things he could have said, or indeed not said, that would have the supported the "not about football" angle. Think about how Sturrock framed his departure. Pardew framed his departure as management losing faith in his ability to deliver. He could have framed it in countless other ways, and he could have said even less than he did on the matter. I know it's jolly exciting to ping about text messages about ****ging players wives and far be it from me to take that joy away from you. Lots of your posts on here are quite funny, I like them but this time you've been a teensy bit lame.

Pardew's words here don't quite play into the hands of the Cortese lapdogs on here desperate to make out that his sacking "wasn't about football". Oh well. All history now though.

No, but the ruse was still a ruse when Lowe tried it on, and it was a hamfisted attempt to swerve the rules. And the holding company thing was itself a ruse those seven years ago to get around another rule, which is was that football clubs themselves couldn't be PLCs (or something, can't quite remember the precise rule). Spurs started it, and we (and others) followed in creating shadow PLCs wholly owning clubs. SLH was SFC. SLH had no other reason to exist than SFC and SLH went into admin because of debts related to the football club. Not quite the same as West Ham's situation. Liverpool I'm not so sure about.

I'm wondering when someone running this forum is going to settle on a new lead news story on the Saints Web home page. Apparently Alan Pardew being sacked was the last notable thing to have happened at SFC. Be sure to catch the latest breaking news FIRST right here: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/

We would not have been liquidated. Every single takeover of every single club in our kind of situation is greeted with those "24 hours from going out of business" boll ock s quotes. They all say it. If the ML bid was not there, the "deadline" would have been extended and extended and we would have found a buyer, of some description, eventually. You'll notice lots of clubs have been doing that lark for some time, on smaller fan bases than us. How many times have stockport been 24 hours from going out of business? How many winding up orders for piddling amounts have today's opponents been served? There is a club down the road from us currently in administration who could be in admin for the entire season, completely within the rules. So with out ML we may not have got a billionaire, but this idea that we wouldn't have had a football team playing matches last season is just fallacy. We definitely would have. Don't bury your head in the sand.

Actually, 600 isn't a small sample really. Most national opinion polls would be happy with a snapshot of about 1,000. Granted the 600 are self-selecting, but this is hardly a forum of homogeneous opinion and agreement so it's as broad as you could expect. So it's a relatively robust result, all told.

These are both good posts. The petty, childish and pathetic actions against the Echo speak volumes about the man. His "diddums" attitude in the face of any analysis or anyone daring to question his actions show he isn't made of the right stuff to run a professional football club. He lashes out at the slightest criticism with nonsense like banning every photographer and banning nearly everyone from press conferences. Well, this is league one football. If we ever do get into the premier league the scrutiny is far greater. He can't hack it in the muppet league we are currently in. He definitely won't cope in the top division. You need the skin of a rhino to run a football club. Cortese is made of so much crepe paper I worry he might blow away. Oh, and he sacked a manager after a 4-0 win. We haven't scored since.

I'm by far the best riter on the forum so I am happy to take on the responsibility.

What exactly have we done "on the cheap"? We're the biggest spenders in the flippin' league and Adkins got Scunny up, twice, on a fraction of our budget.

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.