Wes Tender

No. I've already explained this on another thread. Firstly there is such a disparity between the number of matches played under each manager, ranging from 2 to 95. Then there is a time range of 22 years, covering such a fantastic change in football as to make comparisons further meaningless. For example, the glory clubs are now backed by far wealthier people than they were then and the players in the Premiership are now World stars, rather than mainly British players in the 90's. The fact that many of Adkins' players came up with us from the lower division is simply an additional factor that makes comparisons impossible. If you give any credence to that table, then my respect for your opinions is lessened somewhat.

But then it shows the performance comparison between all of the managers since Bramfoot, which is so deeply flawed as to make them look like idiots for showing it.

Both well written and thought provoking articles, which advocate the position that the fans showing their displeasure at Adkins' dismissal is not a pointless exercise.

Pochettino who? I'd never heard of him before. His main claim to fame appears to be that he made an Owen dive in a World Cup match against Argentina look valid.

You're right, it is completely barmy. Trying to extrapolate something meaningful from such a disparate set of figures and then claiming the result as statistical evidence to back up an argument is looney. Apart from the different number of matches that were played under each manager, ranging from 2 to 95, the time span of the comparison is over a 22 year period. Football has changed significantly, especially regarding the wealth of the people owning the glory teams and the ridiculous sums of money they are able to spend on World stars, instead of the mostly British players that made up the teams when Branfoot was here. Frankly I'm surprised that somebody like GM can accept these so called statistics as being the basis for an argument in support of dismissing Adkins. If I could be bothered, I would make a table comparing the stats of all of those managers when they managed lesser teams before they came here and then see how they stack up against Adkins' record in the lower divisions. It would be just as pointless and prove nothing more than this does.

Exactly. And regarding the owners not having to listen anymore, neither did the previous owners either. But as a general business principle, a company does well to listen to it's customers, or very soon it won't have any. I accept that football is a little different because of fan loyalty to their team often transcends factors that would have normal businesses decline. But still, if the team plays in a style that the fans detest, gets relegated, prices the tickets too high or otherwise p*sses off the fans, then attendance numbers will decline and so will profitability. And as Cortese stated when he came here, the club belongs to us and they are merely custodians.

The analogy of the tenant criticising the new owner's choice of decor after they had bought the house is ridiculous frankly and I would have expected better from you. The difference is that we as fans remain customers of the business, so that did not change when the ownership did, whereas your tenant or the neighbours had no further connection with the new owners. When you say that we relinquished all control when Markus Liebherr took over, we as fans had no control over the club when Lowe and his cohorts were in charge, except for those with shares and only then if they acted in unison. Singing songs for Nigel will register a protest towards Cortese, but should not disturb the players. Whether we beat Everton or not will have a lot more to do with whether Pochinetto drills the team correctly with the match tactics and team selection. The players always have something to prove for a new manager, so I very much doubt that the fans chanting Adkins' name will make any difference; it never unsettled the team when we chanted it before.

This is where I am. This Monday's match is the perfect opportunity to show our solidarity towards Nigel and get that message across to Cortese and the rest of the football World who watch it. Then we can move on to supporting the team.

An excellent tribute to the man. But apart from posting my appreciation on this forum, the only concrete way to show my respect and gratitude towards Nigel is to chant his name throughout the match on Monday, so that is what I will be doing.

There are still a few things that rankle with me having slept on it and spent some time researching this new guy Pochettino. I recall well the first time that we had the opportunity to meet Cortese when Markus Liebherr took us over. It was at one of those fans' forums at St Mary's. Cortese declared that the club belonged to the fans and that they were only custodians. It was also clear that they had considered taking us over in the first place because we had a reputation of being a family club, with all the values and attributes that go with it. It is because those values seem to have been ridden over roughshod that I feel so betrayed by Cortese. I admired his ambition and had suspected that in order to achieve it, he would have to be ruthless along the way and that many would be upset by the fallout. But in Nigel Adkins we seemed to have somebody capable of taking us to where Cortese wanted us to be, having gained us automatic promotion in two consecutive seasons and showing signs of adapting to the Premiership with no experience of managing there before. But Adkins was also a promising young manager, skilled in man-management, intelligent and articulate, honest and decent too. There was the prospect that we could grow together with a loyal manager, and replicate the success that stability brought us under Lawrie over many years to come. So I mourn the brutal ending of that dream, realising that Cortese felt that he was not prepared to build gradually, that his ambition meant that he had to have instant results in our upward development, or he would gamble on another throw of the dice and bring in somebody who he felt had the credentials to achieve this quicker transition. But it is a massive gamble. We now have a young dynamic manager, but one who has no experience of English football management, let alone Premiership experience. Added to that, he hardly speaks any English. So how will he be able to employ man-management skills (if he has them), via an interpreter? How will his tactical plans translate themselves? I worry having read about the man, that his tactics are to play hard and in the oppositions face. His team had a very high count of cards, contrasting to our good disciplinary record. How long will that take to work through the system and do we have the cover for suspended or injured players that will follow such a policy? Do we in fact have the type of players to play that way anyway? The mature position is to allow him the opportunity to prove himself, regardless of any doubts that we have about his abilities and I will wait and see how he fares. But nothing on Earth is going to prevent me from chanting Nigel Adkins' name for most of the match on Monday. Frankly I don't care whether it unsettles the team. It will be for the one match and if as I'm certain, the majority of vocal fans also take it up, then a clear message will be sent to Cortese that we are very unhappy about the way that Adkins has been treated and that our support cannot be taken for granted.

Don't cry for me Argentina...

Somehow I immediately thought of this:- It's going to be highly amusing when he begins to be able to speak some English with a Hampshire accent. If he's here that long.

That is hardly the same as being nothing to do with England as you infer. I understand that Le Tiss could have played for any of the UK national teams if he chose to.

It's not often I find myself agreeing with you, SM, but this is one such occasion. I also run my own business and BTG is correct in saying that Cortese is the man in charge and can do what he likes, what he considers to be the right course of action. But the only thing that BTG didn't take into consideration is the part that the paying customers play in the success or failure of a business like this. OK, the very nature of football fans is such that the real fans will follow the team through thick and thin regardless, but they don't like their support to be taken for granted. I'm not advocating that they be consulted on how the club is run, but when a manager is as popular with the fanbase as Adkins was, then it shouldn't come as any surprise that there will be some strong reactions when a new manager is appointed who in most peoples' minds does not have the prowess and reputation to be an obvious replacement. We expect that new players are signed because they are better than what we have, so why shouldn't the replacement of the manager be on the same basis? He might turn out to be, but as he has very little management experience, and less in the Premiership than Adkins and none in England, then if this appointment backfires, then Cortese will justifiably have to face the wrath of the paying customers of this business.

Good luck with your future, Nigel and heartfelt thanks for all you've done for us. The football I saw during your time here has been the most exciting and enjoyable in all my years of watching Saints. You've been a thouroughly decent and honest bloke and an inspiration to all who have known you. Whereas Cortese will attempt to justify this new manager as better able to take us to the next level, I firmly believe that sometime in the future you will be the manager who takes another club further than we will ever go. Our loss will be somebody else's gain.

Well, I'm flabbergasted. Mid table for me under Adkins, but now I'll revise that forecast to relegation.

Nobody called Wayne is deserving of any credence, unless Wayne is his surname and even then not much better.

I don't give this rumour any credence at all, but just a little conjecture on this scenario to pass a little boredom time and to debate a hypothetical situation. The guy speaks little English. OK, he might be understood by the Spanish speaking players like Ramirez, but others, even those with Spanish sounding names like Lallana will surely find it difficult to understand him. So how is he going to inspire the team with his stuttering English, or the services of an interpreter? Can the club get one who speaks Spanish and Japanese too? The guy has zero experience of the English Premier Division. From that point of view, Adkins is the more experienced of the two of them. This guy's track record in Spanish football isn't anything to write home about either. He's hardly a big name in European football, nobody to set the pulses racing. How will the Spaniard get on with the Italian Chairman? It was rumoured that Cortese has had meetings with Gross and Di Matteo too. Nothing happened with them. I'll believe this when it happens and in the meantime, if it did actually happen, then my reservations about how good a change it would be would be based on the above points.

We'll beat them playing at home. Provided that Adkins is still manager, of course.

Oh, re-reading it again, their source was the Express.

http://www.caughtoffside.com/2013/01/18/southampton-sign-norwegian-defender-vegard-forren-centre-back-to-be-unveiled-today/# This is the first one to have said that he has signed, and will be unveiled later today. OK, it's not a well known source, but nevertheless it's claiming a done deal.

Having Googled this Crook bloke, he had connections with a Portsmouth Radio station, so is probably a Skate on a wind-up. Anyway, as with all of these rumours about the club, I'll only believe them when they happen. It is pointless giving them any credence when so many times they have proved to be utterly groundless. Mind you, groundless is something that is far more appropriate to the Skates future prospects.

cheap gags? Must have missed them.

Initially my first thought was absolute disbelief that having built a supposed state of the art stadium that we would be the only club in the Premiership without undersoil heating. On the face of it, I could quite understand the suggestion that it had been incorporated but not connected by Lowe because we couldn't afford the expense. But that wouldn't ring true with Cortese in charge. But then it has been pointed out that since we have been at St Mary's, it has not been required, because weather conditions have not been severe enough and our proximity to the river has given us a micro-climate effect. Apparently even the example quoted of the cancelled Huddersfield match was incorrect. Anyway, it's Friday morning and the match is Monday night, so plenty of time for the conditions to change. So it seems that this is the usual crap reporting regarding us, where the journo gets the wrong end of the stick because they are not in possession of the up to date facts and therefore they rely on rumour and conjecture instead to fill up column inches with fiction.