The Kraken

Pardew certainly should take the lions share of the blame. However, in this age of football it's typically no longer solely the job of the manager to devise the fitness routines. In fact, listed on the OS alone we have 11 members of staff in our Sports Medicine and Science department alone. There has obviously been a massive breakdown in how all of these departments work with the (ex) management team, leaving us once again playing catch up with fitness levels and transfers.

According to this report from 606, supposedly passed on from a first team player, the first thing he needs to sort out are the fitness levels which are supposedly nowhere near good enough. Which is utterly shameful. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A74207108

Getting this back on topic and away from something that happened 6 years ago...... It is utterly shameful that our players are so unfit. How on earth has this happened? It's all too easy to just blame the ex-manager, though the majority of responsibility must fall on his shoulders. But we have a supposed network of fitness experts, in fact 11 staff members as listed on the OS dedicated to Sports Medicine and Science. Yet we can't even get our players near an accepted level of fitness even a whole month after the season has started? It's just unacceptable. Thankfully it looks like NA's first impact on the club will be getting the fitness levels where they should be. Something we have heard far, far too often as a club in the past. Once again we're playing catch up from losing the full benefits of a pre-season, though this one is entirely self-inflicted.

You seem to miss the point. All the other managers you mention had zero prior experience of managing at the level they were employed for at SFC. Only Sturrock had any significant previous record of managerial success in the English leagues. Nigel Adkins has a track record in this particular division of having achieved promotion twice, both in the last 5 years. In terms of what we need right now, he is it. Whether he will be the manager for the NPC and/or Premier League, I guess we'll jump off that bridge if/when we get there.

I stand corrected. Antonio in.

I think the one thing we can say is that he surely can't be any worse than Pardew in this department. Credit to AP, when we got the first goal we often went on to dominate games and won a lot of games very comfortably. However, when we struggled to get the first goal there was rarely a sense that we had a few tricks up our sleeves to change the way we played. Often when we went with, for example, 3 at the back for spells it actually made us look much worse and disjointed. Time will tell I suppose; and you can only do a certain amount with the tools at your disposal. But we certainly need a spark of creativity into the side, and Adkins needs to be the man to bring it.

In reading's 7 league and cup games so far, Antonio has started in 2, come on as sub in 3, and been an un-used sub in the other 2. And given that Adkins has probably never seen him play, and has certainly never worked with him, it's extremely unlikely he'll be coming back. It's certainly a position that I hope Adkins brings someone in for, but it's massively unlikely to be Antonio.

Which is exactly what we need to do. The squad as it is should be good enough to be competing for the top 2 places; add in 2 or 3 loans and there should be no doubt at all. they just need to take collective responsibility for the mess we're in and step up to the plate. Hopefully he can inspire some instant confidence and we'll see more of the 4-0 bristol Rovers performances rather than the insipid collection of misery we've been recently inflicted with.

Because he is a media whore who thinks it is his duty as "Chairman of the Saints Trust" to be seen as having an opinion on everything.

I'm just the opposite, now he is in place with 2 or 3 days to meet the squad I expect to see an instant impact. Footballers are a notoriously sensitive bunch, seemingly incapable of individual thought, and need a strong leader in place to get them to perform. Our current team, despite being out of sorts, is still a force which should be too strong for this league. And MK haven't exactly got off to a heady start themselves. I can see us putting in a very strong performance as the players will need to impress the new boss. And if we do that and Adkins can make 2 or 3 decent loan signings to bolster the squad in the areas we all know about (another CM, RM, CF backup for Lambert) then he will have gone a massive way to getting our pormotion hunt back on track.

Being as we are 8 points off the top now, and many will still expect a top two finish at the end of the season, I'd suggest being a further 2 points adrift come Xmas would suggest he would have done an average job. The current squad is massively underperforming in terms of potential, and short of a couple ofloans to bolster the squad it needs few additions. His main role will be to quickly address fitness levels and get a de-motivated bunch of players playing to their potential. If we're not within a few points of th leaders come Xmas I'll be disappointed, there are no stand out teams in the division this year, for Bournemouth to be in third place currently tells you all you need to know about the level of competition we face and how abject our start has been.

Egg on his face rofl!!!!111!1

I think you might have underestimated the hysterical nature of a number of posters on this very forum. Some will have the knives out very, very soon, have no doubt.

People will always have opinions about who would have been more of a success. But whatever the merits of the other candidates, Adkins is clearly a talented guy and is young and motivated to succeed. The most important team is for him to make his mark on an underperforming team, and for the fans to rally round and support him.

If you read S-Clarke's post about meeting with Cortese, this quote jumps out. He warned us to be ready for lots of stories from those who had never been offered the post claiming they had turned it down etc. and lots of other speculation and untrue stories in the press.

He's perhaps just the right man for the situation we're in now. I just hope he can have an immediate impact, otherwise our promotion campaign is going to be over before it even began. A couple of loan signings and a win or two is what we need in the next couple of weeks to get back on track.

Rubbish. Alpine was vocal about the fact that we hadn't signed these players by the end of June. Pretty much everyone agreed that the squad was short of two or three players; CM, RM and CF. These players were, quite rightly, expected to be in place by the start of the season at best, or the end of the transfer window at worst. Dean Wilkins has already stated that under AP they wanted to bring players in but "it just didn't happen". Why that is, whether it is a failing by Cortese or Pardew, no-one will know. But don't go trying to re-paint history, have another read of Alpine's transfer threads from the summer and you'll see that the bone of contention was when the signings were made by, not that they were necessary in the first place.

Just confirmed on South Today that photographers will now be allowed in St mary's as long as they follow normal procedures. Whatever that means.

I thought it was only one? And personally I can't see what either of them would have to gain from jumping ship and coming to manage us.

I've never had a ST but this year was wavering between getting my very first one; the lack of installment plan was the clincher for me to not get one. Yes, I could have got a credit card etc etc, and maybe I cut my nose off to spite my face, but I took the decision that if the club weren't going out of their way to entice customers then why should I. As it is I made the right decision as I've since got a new job that will mean I'll be out of the country for half the season anyway....

Started off lower East, progressed to the Milton, ended up sat in the Archers.

It's hard to say either way without being in posession of the facts; however, I tend to lean towards the suggestion of your last paragraph that Scunny are being unreasonable in their demands. As I previously said, Adkins would have a set compensation figure if he walked out on the club. It is up to SFC to match that figure in an agreement with Scunny. That we haven't done that would suggest that they are asking for a higher figure, which is unreasonable. In light of that, a manager who really wanted to leave would then talk to the club and explain it's that figure, whether SFC pay it or he does by buying out his contract. Whether that happens or not, I guess we'll see. I understand your point about him not wanting to be seen as walking out. But if the club insist on asking for significantly more money than it would receive if hee simply resigned, then I would expect him to bypass his principles and hand in his notice. But its all conjecture at this point, of course.

I don't disagree with his motives for not resigning; I just question his true desire. He will have a contracted "buy out" figure in his contract, whether it be a pre-determined figure or simply the amount of salary and term left on contract. So the method is there for him to leave and for his club to receive a set figure they previously agreed with him. Which leaves only two scenarios; he either doesn't think that figure is high enough and wants Sunny to get more; or SFC have told him he is personally liable for the severance figure if he quits. I personally don't believe the second one, which only really leaves the first one to base my opinion on, which is why I come back to the issue of Adkins' true desire to leave. If he really wanted the job here he has no need to depart from his principles; if the serverance figure was good enough when he signed his contract it should still be good enough now.

No worries! As much as I think Cortese has made a few poor decisions in the past, I think that (especially in light of the comments on the OS) that Scunny were trying to take us for a bit of a ride in asking for a bit too much compensation. Adkins is stuck between a rock and a hard place, as he obviously wants to leave but understands they will incur costs to replace him. And perhaps it's highlighted a slight lack of desire on his behalf if he won't resign and therefore let the club have whatever contracted severance pay they would then be due. Who knows? certainly not me.

A rolling contract only means that he always has a set term (usually 1 year) remaining on his contract at all times. So the compensation figure to buy himself out of the contract would be that one year.