shurlock

Coz that's Adkinspeak -he likes talking in impersonal, david brent corporate babble, especially when it comes to defending the club. Asked about transfer developments, he'll talk about a 'policy of doing our business in private'. He very rarely talks in the singular - that's what makes him so evasive and frustrating and why Blackmore lost his rag with him. It's no different here - you're sharp, you can appreciate that.

Put the quote in context: Adkins was asked in preseason why we were playing 4-3-3 and he said that he wanted us to have several different options. But it was obvious then that 4-3-3 was the future, the direction of travel -hence why he was asked the question. In theory, we still have multiple ways of playing -and NA would be the first to emphasise that- but we are sticking with 4-3-3 because he believes it's best option out of the various ones we have. It's really very simple ffs. And NA was a believer in 4-3-3 long before Cortese came along, so maybe you want to change your profile. Scunny and 4-3-3 rhyme perfectly woah woah.

4-3-3 was Adkins default/preferred formation when he kept Scunny in the championship - he's been a long-time believer in it. Presumably he thinks it can do a similar job for us in the prem. Boring but true yet people still need to go clutching and looking for hidden agendas.

Just to put the myth to bed that 4-3-3 is some alien formation forced upon Adkins by Cortese and Reed, it is worth pointing out that 4-3-3 was the default formation employed by Adkins when he successfully kept Scunny in the championship. No doubt his concerns -being overrun in midfield etc- have motivated his thinking on life in the prem. Yes he tinkered with the formation at Scunny but he's done the same here. But a default 4-3-3 seemed to have worked. http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Brist...ail/story.html In other words, he's been a long-time believer in 4-3-3 - long before Cortese had visions of being a football chairman and living out any repressed fantasies.

Just to put the myth to bed that 4-3-3 is some alien formation forced upon Adkins by Cortese and Reed, it is worth pointing out that 4-3-3 was the default formation employed by Adkins when he successfully kept Scunny in the championship. Yes he tinkered with it but he's done the same here. http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Brist...ail/story.html In other words, he's been a long-time believer in 4-3-3 - long before Cortese had visions of being a football chairman and living out any repressed fantasies.

Why? New league, new challenge. He's known for tinkering. 4-3-3 helped Scunny stay up in the championship when he failed first time around - shock, horror, perhaps he's applying those lessons to us in the premiership. It's not like other formations have been any more successful. What's odd about that?

He has switched it and I'm sure he's switched it without any of us realising. Put the quote in context: it was a frustrated, defiant response to Blackmore who's been pursuing what is ultimately a red herring and not responsible for our problems. Blackmore and Adkins' relationship has hardly been a bed of roses - indeed, I get the sense that they can't stand each other. As I say, 4-3-3 was the default formation when Scunny attempted to establish itself in championship for the second time and not get relegated (which they did) -analogous to the situation in which we find ourselves today. Which is to say, Adkins believed in 4-3-3 long before he joined us and Cortese decided to stop noncing around in banking and takeover a football club.

I think NA loses far less sleep on formations than some on here do. He switched to 4-4-2 against Wigan and Fulham - arguably with not much success (Villa our greatest success was with a 4-3-3). Last year he was berated for playing a diamond. All I know is that the football he played at Scunny isn't a million miles from what he's doing here i.e. an emphasis on passing, possession and width, so even if he's being encouraged to play 4-3-3, he shares it's basic principles. But I would go further and say he believes in 4-3-3 and dominating midfield especially against higher quality opposition. When Scunny were promoted to the NPC, 4-3-3 was frequently employed. Indeed, it was the default formation. http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Bristol-City-v-S****horpe-United-S****horpe-spotlight/story-11247777-detail/story.html Perhaps that's not very convenient for some on here...

So coz he doesn't say that, it means he's got a gun to his head and is forced to play 4-3-3? That's equally illogical.

It's a results business. Nothing is set in stone to qualify as tenable or untenable.

I also hear a bulb, a helmet and a plank went missing....maybe you could fill in

I had Harry down for "you only live twice".

A battling but fortunate point against spurs followed by humiliation at elland road will seal the deal.

Redknapp. Not a chance. If you believed betting markets for new managers, the deadly duo of phil brown and paul hart would be at the helm.

True but have we had a genuine chance of attracting that kind of quality? Jack Cork ffs was reluctant to put pen to paper because of our uncertain prospects. Until we successfully establish ourself in the prem, we'll struggle to be a talent magnet instead of a backwater flirting with relegation. That's where are right now -and our summer window reflects in part these constraints.

We can go through the specifics all we like -did Cortese bottle the Gorkks transfer or sheer bad luck Fontaine failed a medical? Was Jos a hurried, last minute decision or as NA claims a top target, somebody we had gone in for early but weren't willing to pay Celtic's asking price of £2.5m (or whatever they paid for him), resulting in a loan deal. Either way we don't know. We still brought in two more defenders than strikers last summer. That might suggest that Cortese has problems closing deals across the board, that is, it has nothing to do with favouring attackers over defenders -and the fact we signed Ramirez, an attacker, is a coincidence. Or maybe it's hard as a newly promoted team with a low profile manager to attract talent -Reading have had a balanced window by all accounts -just a shame the quality isn't there.

"we are Southampton, we'll sign who we want"

We didn't get Sharp or Jrod at the first crack. We were turned down by Mackail-Smith. Hooper said no. Like Yoshida, we only managed to get an unproven jap in the winter window. We added no strikers in the 2011 summer window- in fact, we signed more defenders. Cork's interview after signing was very revealing. We went in very early for him and had a bid accepted but he stalled, conceding that he wanted to maximise his chances of prem football -and didn't know if we offered the best prospects. He saw the light in the end but it was no guarantee -and he's hardly a world beater even by championship standards. For all your ****-taking of people who think we're a big club, you implicitly assume that we can snap our fingers and get who we want. I don't see much difference between your position and those you mock. At this moment in time, we're a pretty sh*tty proposition unless you're in the championship or good but unproven which, coincidentally, has become our niche. If you believe the rumours, we were incredibly close to getting a quality defender on deadline day. It fell through on the other side. Perhaps we could have done more; perhaps Cortese's a c*ck and scuppered the deal, blithely thinking we could hold our own as things stood and outscore the opposition. Or perhaps we were unlucky -and even our best efforts weren't enough. The jury's out.

Lots of people thought we were short -I did, I still do. Rather the majority opinion was wait and see. What you fail to see is that perhaps there were good reasons why we didn't secure our targets. Until you show me evidence that we had opportunities to strengthen but failed to as a conscious policy, the jury's out. Guess you do multi-million pound transactions and convince people to join a project with uncertain success on a daily basis?

The other thing which the article fails to point out is that they kept together large parts of the squad that went down and so didn't need to spend or rebuild as much as us, a recent L1 team.

He's no Nagatomo that's for sure. Thought he started very brightly and had a decent first half apart from his attacking play. Second half was a totally different story. 3 high-intensity games in a week couldn't have helped either.

Kind of the point -wasn't expecting DH to start or feature much but do think he's disciplined and consistent and would help us close out games. A much better option to have on the bench than Chaplow who's streaky and needs match time to perform.

I think Hammond brings more to the table than Chaplow.

Agree he's been better than Lallana in this regard.

Nothing like the Dutch Duo except the fact that we've lost a few and scored a few. Knee-jerk saint doing what he does best. The Dutch Duo were an exercise in cost-cutting - we were getting rid of and moving players around -Rasiak, Dyer- even after the season had started. There's no sense of that with the current regime which has been utterly serious about investment even if our choice of targets and acquisitions is questionable. Which is more tragic in one sense but still totally different.