Pardew, Adkins, Pochettino, ??? - getting better with each new manager?

[SaintJackoInHurworth]

OK, we are all disappointed to see Pochettino leave, but I thought it would be interesting to look at it from a different perspective. Basically, it could be argued that since we cam under Liebherr ownership each manager we have had has been better than their predecessor (although some may feel there is a case for saying that Pardew was better than Adkins and of course he was only the second manager in our history to lead us to silverware!)

 

So...

 

Pardew steadied the ship after liquidation and led us to win the Football League Trophy, but he was unable to get us promoted and while under his leadership we played great attacking football, we were defensively poor and woefully inconsistent - especially at home.

 

Adkins, unlike Pardew was able to get us promoted, both from League 1 and the Championship, but, arguably, he never really got the best from some of the players in his care and we struggled for consistency at times - especially in the EPL. He did, however, build a great unity among the squad and was able to even get some of our more prima-donna types to want to play for us (e.g. Puncheon).

 

Poch was able to take it to the next level, developing an ethos that brought the best out of the players and demonstrating that some of those players are very good. He was particularly good (most of the time) at giving opportunities to younger players to find their way into the first team if good enough. He was not so good at dealing with discord and with prima-donnas (e.g. Osvaldo, Puncheon, Ramirez, etc.) He was also less than committed to getting Saints to win in the cup competitions and in driving them on to qualify for the Europa Cup and sometimes allowed complacency to slip in when playing lesser opposition.

 

If that has been our progress over the past few years, then what if we could now get a manager who will take us to another new level? Perhaps someone who can maintain the same winning ethos, but will also be committed to winning at every opportunity - so that we try to win the cups and we are prepared to play in the Europa Cup if we cannot qualify for the champions league?

 

I don't intend to analyse the potential candidates for the job as that is being hotly discussed elsewhere, but I hope that we can push on to the next level whoever we appoint. Now is the time for Katharina, Les Reed and Ralph Krueger to show their ambition for the club. Nice words from Krueger are fine, but the suspicion that Poch has left because of a lack of ambition from the club and a lack of commitment to keeping our best players will not go away until a good manager is signed and those players (or most of them at least) are retained.

 

My hope is that we can continue the trend that Cortese began in terms of employing an increasingly high standard of manager. COYR!

[CB Fry]

Alpine has confidently told us our next manager will be "another Steve Wigley" and/or "Billy Davies stature". So give up now.

 

Everything is terrible these days, not like the wonderful good old days of the last five years when Alpine moaned about everything all the time.