Professor

Can't be too complacent with Newcastle and QPR both strengthening. Confident that Forren will be a valuable addition to play ahead of Fonte/Hooiveld and that MP will have decided if a midfield addition is needed, but personally I'd like to see some more quality ahead of JWP / Davis.

With the stated aim of bringing players into the first team from the Academy I wonder if anyone else does come in it's more likely to be a loan player, rather than another new signing. With JWP, Calum Chambers, Ben Reeves and Jack Stephens all on the fringe of the first team, they must be expected to play more of a part next season. That does still leave gaps for a LB to compete with Shaw and a RMF to compete, or improve, on Puncheon but that could be left for the close season along with a creative MF. If someone does come in it may well be a player Pochettino already knows who most of us will probably have never heard of but it is just as likely that there will be no more signings now that the CB problem is covered.

OR, I'll never get over Nigel.......sob, sob... please pass the white hankie...

Adrian - 22 points from 22 games does not mean 'likely to avoid relegation'. Recent games against mid-table and bottom of the table sides is not representative of the season over which Adkins had a 1 point per game avarage. That form equals 38 points at the end of the season, which some years is relegation and some years is staying up by the skin of your teeth. There could have been a case for waiting until the end of the season before replacing the manager and coaching staff, but the risk of that is that we could have been relegated and starting all over again in the Championship. Try looking at the positive: That a point per game is not good enough for the Chairman, which suggests that his ambitions for the club are greater than that. Whether Pochettino will achieve better, only time will tell but he does look the part, seems to be getting on well with the players, and is well regarded in Spain. Cortese will not have chosen him on a whim but will have considered other potential candidates and if you liked Pardew, and liked Adkins, then Cortese's record of manager selection is OK. Adkins was appointed to do a job in L1 and the Championship, which he did, but that does not automatically make him a good Prem manager and unfortunately for him, the record for him and his coaching staff at this level has been mediocre.

Have to come clean, as indicated by my other posts over the last few days, that I was never an Adkins fan. I felt he benefitted mainly from Pardew's legacy and didn't add a lot himself, but neither did I blame him for the failure to do more team building in the close season, which I put down more to the Chairman or Les Reed. I suppose what let Adkins down in my eyes was his inconsistency in selections and tactics as well as his inability to provide effective post-match analysis. I wasn’t impressed when he would trot out the same repetitive lines about everyone working very hard. If that was how he spoke to the players, I wondered if it would instil much confidence in him. If the pro-Adkins fans, of whom there seem to be fewer than was initially indicated, need some encouragement for the future, surely it is that if you thought Adkins was doing well, by possibly but not definitely, keeping us up, clearly the Chairman did not share that view. The sacking shows we have a chairman who wants to see Saints doing better than just surviving. His statements about being in the in the top half of the League and becoming a force in English football appear to be what he really intends. Whether his appointment of Pochettino will achieve that, only time will tell and his commitment to bringing through Academy players may limit the number of players he will bring in by transfer but surely it’s better for Saints’ fans to have a chairman who wants the club to go places rather than one who would accept mediocrity.

Not at all predictable. Just disapointing for anyone who wants to support the former manager over and above the football club. If Seaborne did not want to say what he did, he needn't have done so, or even agreed to an interview at all.

On a different point, David Moyes did himself no favours by making a fuss when the ref stopped the game because we had two players on the ground, one with a head injury. Just shows how little sportsmanship some managers are promoting these days. Moyes seemed to be having a proper little paddy because his team weren't able to take advantage of the opponents only having nine fit players.

Watched on TV and very impressed. Thought Pochettino did the right thing by not changing too much in his first game and was unlucky not to get the win as on another day, Ricky would have put one or two of his chances away. We were in control for the bulk of the game against a side that are 5th in the table so all looking very promising. As others have said, the match did show that the squad is a bit thin in some positions and its good to know we have Forren waiting to get match fit. Two or three other signings in the next 10 days would be very welcome.

The fans who had fallen in love with Nigel will get over the break-up in time but if a negative attitude in the stadium tonight, even by a small minority, helps us lose three points, those points are lost for good. No manager is bigger than the club and ours, despite the two promotions, hadn't proved to be much good in The Prem. Our Chairman may not be much good either, but unless the Leibherr family replace him, he is what we have and how about our Head of Football? Is he any good? As fans all of this is outside our pay grade. We are entitled to support a football club and if we pay the price we can come into the ground to watch matches, but that's as far as it goes and if the people who run the club have done something that any individual fan dislikes, well, supporting the Saints isn't compulsory, but please don't come into the ground and help the opposition. That really would be very silly.

Dear Moderator Mike, thats a very negative remark which needs to be validated in case its just hearsay by a pro-Adkins source who simply wants to undermine our new manager. Other reports say that Pochittino got on well with the players at the first training session and in the long run that is the interests of Southampton FC and the future of the club. Today and tomorrow matter whereas NA, having been thanked for the achievements whilst he was here, is now history. There may well have been a trip away arranged for this week after we lost in the cup and maybe if the club had already taken the decision to replace NA with MP, they may have fixed it for Spain but it would have made sense not to announce it until after the managerial change had taken place. If it is true that our next league opponents, Man U, are doing the same by going to Qatar we will have shown our players that we value them as much as Man U value theirs and that we are behaving like a Premier Club. I'm just not sure its right to credit Pochettino with the decision to take the squad away but he may have played a part in deciding the destination.

Source may be doubtful as last Feb we didn't even know which league we would be in this year, let alone what gap there might be in the fixture list. This gap only opened up when we were knocked out of the cup by Chelsea. As others have said, a week of slightly warmer weather training must be a help at this time of the year and it does make sense to go somewhere where the manager will be able to facilitate any local help needed.

How these selective quotes are phrased usually depends on what case a person is trying to promote. For example, if the above is true it could be written as:- "the odds on Southampton being relegated are virtually unchanged with only one bookmaker shortening the odds." This is similar to the way the Adkins' performance figures are adapted by the Media, who would love the drama of a fans revolt, and so present Adkins' record as "..only 2 defeats in the last 12 games..". Whilst that is true, it avoids mentioning that most of those games have been against teams in the bottom half of the League Table including 4 of the 5 teams beneath us, and excludes the Cup thrashing by Chelsea. Adkins' league record is actually 22 points out of 22 games which if continued to the end of the season would be 38 points from 38 games with the club on the brink of relegation. The recent record can also be accurately reported as:- " ..just two wins in the last 10 games..." which puts a different spin on recent results, of which the last 6 have been: LDDDWD. To those who think that 3 points above the drop zone is good enough, we obviously have a Chairman who does not agree. That seems a positive for the future of our club as he clearly wants to see Southampton in the top half of The Prem, which must be what most fans would want.

Under Nigel Adkins the team had an awful start to the season but the fault could easily be with the Chairman for the questionable use of the transfer budget and the timing of signings. But the resurgence under Adkins over the last two months is also questionable as it has mainly been drawing games, not winning many. 22points out of 22 games is 3 above the drop zone but surely the positive thing is that this 'resurgence' is not good enough for the Chairman, who clearly wants better. So like him or not, and most of us don't like him, Cortese has shown a determination to take the club to a higher level. If Pochettino achieves that, the complaints will soon subside, just as the regret at Nigel Pearson leaving didn't last too long. Of coures, if it doesn't work....well thats another matter altogether!

Is this what happened then, Pochettino decided he wanted to manage Saints and began secret negotiations with the Chairman or Les Reed Or did SFC approach MP to say they might be replacing their manager and that MP was not to discuss it with anyone. If it was the latter, of coures, like any other unemployed football manager he should have told SFC that he couldn't be considered unless the club went public. I can imagine a few people on here actually believe that..... Its obviously OK to be sorry, disapointed, angry, that Adkins has gone if thats how you feel, but don't blame it on his replacement, and don't do anything more likely to make Everton have an easier ride tomorrow.

You can guarantee the press will love it if fans show dissent because thats a much better story than "Struggling Prem Club sacks manager and shows ambition by appointing a widely respected coach from La Liga". If you love The Sun join in......

To those promoting the idea of Adkins going to Leeds, do you dislike him so much that you are suggesting he swops Cortese for Ken Bates?

IMHO what matters is what is good for the club. I've never felt that Adkins was the best manager we could have but he was adequate. I felt he was given too much credit for the 2 promotions and that criticism of him this season was justified but that did not make Cortese's actions right either. I do believe that Cortese had more to do with the inadequate team strengthening in the close season than Adkins and the Mirror article seems to confirm that. Whilst its possible to apportion blame in both directions, it is always the Chairman who will come out on top. Maybe a stronger manager could have done more to get his targets recruited but it rather looks like Adkins may have responded by not selecting some players depite price tags. If what The Mirror says is true, its probably good for the club that NA and NC are no longer working together. Fans may rightly be wary of NC and he may be easy to dislike, but we have what we have and unless anyone wants to transfer their allegience to another team, then we have to take the view that not only do managers come and go, but so do chairman. Where is Rupert Lowe, now? The fact is we have a new manager, he can't speak much English asnd has no experience of English football but he does have a good reputation in Europe. He may be better than Adkins or he may not, although he only has to improve on an average of 1 point per game to do better. If he does succeed, our team will be higher up the table than it would have been and if fans want to help him do that, they need to cut out the protest stuff and get behind the team, otherwise words such as cut off nose and spite face, come to mind.

He could have said a whole range of things without being accused of disloyalty to the players' employers. For example:- "The players will always do their best"; The new manager can rely on the players working very hard, just as previous managers have been able to"; "Mr Adkins quickly made a good impression when he took over from Mr Pardew, and Mr Pochettino has done just the same"; "Saintsfc players are always 100% behind the manager". Unfortunately for those who would love to see a players' revolt (although God knows why) it sems Davis made a point of expressing positive support for Pochettino when he could have avoided doing so with any sort of neutral statement.

I have never been a fan of Adkins and felt that any manager coming in when we were in L1 with the squad Pardew had built, and the Leibherr funding, would get us up. But neither did I blame Adkins for the transfer fiasco in last summer's close season and the Mirrort article seems to confirm what several of us felt at the time, that the manager was not getting what he wanted and was given a couple of players he didn't think he needed. Adkins had gone public saying he wanted 2 CBs and in expectation of that, the two understudy CBs were loaned out. Eventually Cortese signed Yoshiba but not until after the season had started and the club had to cancel Seaborne's loan to provide cover. We all know what the result was of the hopeless GK situation and the weak back four through the early weeks of the season. I still think we can do better than Adkins in the manager's chair for all the reasons that have been rehearsed before and I hope that Pochettino will be a success but I do have reservations about appointing a manager who needs to learn English before he can perform at his best with the team. Cortese has gambled and only time will tell if the gamble comes off.

This is from the BBC report on Pochettino: An interesting sub-plot for Southampton fans is the potential summer arrival of talented Espanyol midfielder Joan Verdu, a creative playmaker widely regarded as the Catalan club's best player. Verdu, 29, is out of contract at the end of the season and has not agreed a new deal, with the club struggling to find funds to pay him as they seek to reduce their debts. A host of clubs across Europe are known to be keen on securing his services for nothing in June. Considering his history with Pochettino, it's fairly safe to add Southampton to that list of suitors.

Appreciate your loyalty to NA but there are two ways of looking at the recent performances. One way is the positive:- "just 2 defeats in 12 games" or "no defeat in the last 5"; but the other is the negative:- Only 1 win in the last 6 games (or 7 games if you include the 5-1 thrashing by Chelsea in the Cup). The fact is that avoiding defeats isn't a lot of good unless you get a fair proportion of wins. NA's record is 22 points from 22 games which would have him on course for 38 points over the season. Thats not enough to guarantee survival. To say that Nigel and his backroom team would have kept us up and Pochettino with his team might not is without any base of evidence. It looks like the Chairman wants more certainty than blind belief. We shall have to wait and see how things go but if we start to win a higher proportion of points per game, so that we finish safely out of the relegation fight, people who are complaining now might have to change their tune.

To judge Adkins' performance it's important not to be decieved by the two promotions while he was here and this so called, turn around in results since November. The promotion from L1 was made with what was effectively, Pardew's team, whilst last season, the automatic promotion from the Championship was almost thrown away with a run of weak results from the end of Nov 2011 through to the end of Feb 2012. This season the improvement of only losing 2 league games out of the last 12 has to balanced against only winning 2 games out of the last 10. To stay up a club needs a good proportion of wins, not just avoiding defeat with draws. I wonder if it was the home defeat by Sunderland just before Xmas that may have sealed Adkins' fate as far as Cortese was concerned.

Very glad to hear Huffton may not renew his season ticket next year as he appears to be a manager supporter not a club supporter. No true Saints' fan would welocome relegation and personally, the fewer such people there are in the Stadium, the more room there is for real supporters.

Presumably this Liverpool fan also hoped to God that Liverpool would be relegated after they sacked Kenny Dalgleish last year for the crime of finishing 8th in the Prem. Of course a Liverpool supporter doesn't want to see Saints employing an exciting new manager who might have them breaking into the top half of the table because its more competition for his fading club.Why a Saints' fan should agree with him is the peculiar thing.

This isn't an issue. Adkins has always shown himself to be a man with clear principles but that doesn't make him the best person to manage Southampton. A manager who can achieve a point per game and can only win 3 out of 11 home games, isn't good enough to survive in the Prem. Surely it would be better to be in The Prem with a new manager than in the Championship because the Chairman had put loyalty to Adkins above success for SFC. Whether Pochettino will keep us up, we have to wait and see but he doesn't have a great act to follow as far as the first half of this season is concerned. How things pan out will give us the answer but stubbornly refusing to accept that when performances are weak a change might be for the best doesn't seem the best way forward.