revolution saint

As much supposition on your part as mine I think. How do you know they do expect success? Show me one Scunny fan who demands anything other than staying up?

Except of course they don't expect it yet. They got promoted and then relegated and stuck with him. They got promoted again and just about stayed up and now their hope not expectation is to stay up again. hardly the same as getting to the premier league with a set of demanding fans and a demanding chairman is it?

Got us relegated the first year - can't NC giving Adkins that much of a learning curve to be honest. Thing is you or I can quote precedents from both sides of the argument and ultimately those precedents are irrelevant in a debate over whether this will be a success or not. Unless you could point to Adkins having been in a similar situation before?

I think the thing is Adkins has achieved success for Scunny in a totally different environment to what he will find here. At Scunny he had no expectation and little pressure - at Saints he will have huge amounts of both. He's used to getting the best out of limited players - here he'll have to deal with ego. To get results at Scunny he would have had to stop the opposition and effectively become one of those teams that we struggle to break down - opposite problem here. He could be great but personally I don't think it's the right move for either him or us and I feel a bit sorry for him. He'll constantly be compared to Pardew and I would imagine that most people would rather have Pardew. I hope he proves me wrong but it seems a totally uninspired appointment.

Good point although we're looking to get promoted after getting to the championship so our ambition doesn't end there unlike S****horpe. I'm sure he's a good manager and if he gets the job then I wish him well but let's face it - he won't initially impress the players and he certainly won't initially impress the fans. His constant benchmark will be is he better than Pardew and my initial reaction is no. Course that's only my first impression and I hope I'm wrong but it looks as if the fella needs to get off to an absolute flyer to get the advantages that a "big" name would already have.

I actually feel sorry for Adkins if he gets the job now. Not got the stature to attract players, not got the stature to excite the fans. I hope he can give a bit of confidence to the players which apparently he's good at but it looks like he's stepping into a vipers nest at the moment. Poor fella.

Switzerland isn't that far away from Milan, probably nipped over the border to make sure Leonardo isn't having second thoughts

To be fair SOG has ****ed all over alpine in this argument. Alpine needs to do better.

Is the point of this thread to comment on your opinion? Yaaaaawn!

I'd agree with this and Mowbray has the advantage of having managed a club of similar size to us. I get the impression that we've probably got more coaches than Scunny have players so it might be a bit of a culture shock for Adkins coming here. Everything I've read about Adkins suggests he could do well here but we face a different set of challenges to the ones he faces at Scunny - everyone talks about having a plan B to break teams down but I doubt that's something he's had to worry about much before. Having a small but talented squad might work in his favour though as it looks as if that's when he's at his best. I'd be happy with either but we'll probably have a new favourite come tomorrow - if I lumped £50 on Leonardo we'll probably be talking about him instead.

The theory only breaks down if you assume that NC had a plan of what to do after he sacked AP. Doesn't look like he did.

To be honest I agree with you but playing devils advocate for a bit what can MON actually hope for? He won't get a top four club now, or at least in the near future so that leaves premier league also rans (which he's just left) and ambitious second tier clubs. You'd have to say this would be an exciting project to take on so it's not beyond the realms of possibility although I'd admit very unlikely. Him and Cortese seem like a match made in hell but would be a lot of fun.

Count the minutes till Alpine slagged him off. My guess is one.

No problem - I was just explaining why it's in all probablity untrue. WAFFLE (Win Again For Fat Liebherrs Everywhere - Is it to soon for that?)

So that would be Dean Wilkins as well? Nope, sorry still not making sense. In any case whichever way you look at it NC has dropped a b**lock - he should only have sacked AP and his staff when he had his successor lined up. The only exception to that would have been gross misconduct and in which case his staff wouldn't have gone with him.

Well that doesn't make sense! If he applied for the job then under that logic you could possibly sack him but not his staff.

Personally I think these things are often simpler than the conspiracy theories and the over analysing. It seems fairly common knowledge that the two of them didn't really get on - I'd imagine things came to a head (maybe over a transfer) and it got to the point where one of them had to go. At that point NC probably thought it wise to get rid of anyone he felt didn't share his vision as well. All pure speculation on my part of course.

Yeah, I'm just saying that the idea he was sacked because he wanted the Villa job is unlikely. Firstly if he got it then we'd get compo and secondly if he didn't then we should have only sacked him when we had someone lined up.

And of course if the reason for sacking AP is because he applied for the Villa job then we'd reject all applications from managers currently employed?

Paul Hart? The only good thing he ever did was vote against the CVA..... Total joke........

Well whoever it is will need to buy into the "Southampton Style" vision and bring on the kids. Cortese has banged on enough about that. MON doesn't really fit that template and I can't see him working with Cortese either - he isn't going to take kindly to a hands on chief exec. I think it'll be Zola. That would also explain why Dean Wilkins is still here - I'd imagine Zola is still mates with Ray.

This is clearly just a ploy to put other clubs off a cheeky deadline day bid...as is lambert's poor form this season. I also think we've been told by SKY to at least make the league look a bit competitive.

Well given that West Ham look like signing Obinna and Zines is well down the list then it looks realistic. probably not quite what we need but could be good.

Vegetarians are next.

I played it when I was a kid and then went that one geeky further step and got into "proper" wargaming - I had both a Gallic and a Carthaginian army. I grew out of that stage by the time I left school. It is a geeky pursuit but then I think adults playing computer games are geeks and it's no more geeky than that.