Southampton make their return to the Premier League this week, and fans of the club are full of optimism after two years of almost constant success under the guidance of Nigel Adkins.
Whilst as a journalist I have found myself wishing sometimes he would stray from his script and give me the occasional golden nugget, he's constant positivity has been re-assuring for players and fans alike. He is a genuinely good bloke ( as all our local league managers are currently), and Harry Redknapp has called him a future England manager. He has secured four promotions in six seasons in the Football League, and his back to back promotions have catapulted Saints back to the big time fully two years ahead of the club's schedule.
You cannot bluff your way to his success, and the constant smiley face and quips would not be enough alone to convince players to play for you, or to play with the attacking and entertaining brief of his they have succeeded in delivering.
Great strides have been made off the pitch as well, and Adkins has delivered with considerable financial backing from Nicola Cortese and Markus Liebherr's estate. The club have put together one of the finest academy set-ups in Europe, have great facilties, and look perfectly poised to re-enter the Premier League with all this momentum they can build on, and turn it into a good first season back in the top flight.
So, why have I felt compelled to share my worry for Nigel and the team? Let me caveat what I'm sharing with you by saying I hope my worries are unfounded and all is hunky dory for Saints(all our clubs in fact) all season.
But there is something niggling away the more I speak to people on and off the record, and it also comes from things the manager has said in interviews I've done with him which I've read between the lines of (rightly or wrongly). As I said, he never says anything beyond the party line, but he is shrewd and has made sure recently we know which bits he's in control of at the club and which bits he's not !
Which brings me to "The Southampton Way" . An ambition by the club and of the chairman to emulate what Barcelona have done over the last decade with developing talent and the style with which they've done it. That ambition is an excellent one to have but I can't help thinking that Saints are in danger of rushing to make that happen , and that it could impact on this season.
Nigel Adkins quotes recently:
"We've played 4-3-3 all pre-season".
"This pre-season we've implemented a different formation yet again, the youth teams from the under-21's down through the football club, that's the way they're used to playing. We want to get our youngsters through the system comfortable playing that way".
"To have improved the way we have in the last two years with this group of players is testament to how well they've done".
"We are still working to bring players in. I know the chairman is working very hard, and having spoken to him yesterday I'm very excited about what's on the horizon because I know how hard he's working to make things happen".
"I imagine we'll be making more signings".
Ok, so here's the nub of the above quotes. The chairman is well and truly responsible for making transfers happen, not the manager - which is fine in principle, as long as the manager is identifying the players - but if they don't fill the squad this window, it won't be Nigel's fault. There is a desire from above for the first team to play 4-3-3, because that is the ambition of The Southampton Way.
It is a laudable ambition, and good to get players at lower levels of the club to play a certain way to fit into the first team's system. But this first team's system is 4-4-2, and the players brought in so far are comfortable like that as well. Did Saints really spend 7 million pounds on Jay Rodriguez so he could hug the left wing?
If Barcelona started hoofing the ball up the pitch like Stoke and keep winning, what happens at Saints? The Southampton Way should be all it is trying to be without the formation - it should be an ethos and an ambition to find, nurture, develop talent and play attractive football.
Now if Nigel is playing the system to give themselves more options, and at home they still start games playing two up front and change and adapt as matches go on, great.
But what if his default position has to be 4-3-3, because it is deemed from above to be the way forward because that's what Barcelona do? He has a squad of players who've been successful, as he says, playing a certain way, and he has brought them in to be successful in his systems, not someone elses.
To play like Barcelona, in that 4-3-3, you need to play at pace through the middle and be playing quick one-twos and triangles all over the attacking half of the pitch to shift defenders and create space.
It will be a long season if Saints current first-team squad are suddenly expected to attempt that, against all their recent instincts, against Premier League opposition.
Yes to evolution, bringing it through because the younger players are used to it, but imposing it from the top would be a grave error, unless the transfer targets between now and the end of August are top-class stars used to playing that way.
My concerns may be unfounded - but would Nigel really choose to not change the formation having gone 3-0 down to Udinese in 35 minutes? How many time have you seen Rickie Lambert rise at the far post in pre-season to head the ball towards goal like we have become accustomed to?
So far Nigel has "managed up" very well in his near two years at the club, but what if the team start the season badly - would any manager worth his salt let his reputation be tarnished by looking tactically naive when it's not his doing? I believe he has been questioned when he's gone off script in the past.
I also have a genuine concern that all this brilliant momentum the squad have, may be being eaten into by having to play an "alien" brand of football.
Hopefully I am over-worrying about a good bunch of players & a management team who are grounded and genuine. In the Saints changing room , there's a poster as you walk from the changing rooms that says, THE SAINTS, TOGETHER WE STAND.
My over-riding concern is that if results aren't going well while the team & manager play a system that they've been asked to play, then that motto won't stand up to scrutiny, and it will be Nigel Adkins who pays the price for playing The Southampton Way.
