Planning for the championship

[trousers]

11 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Sorry, @trousers completely confusing me.

You should have quit while you were ahead.....

Yeah, sorry. Trying to be too clever has never worked out well for me

[Midfield_General]

On 10/10/2022 at 15:34, once_bitterne said:

The point being debated is what level of manager is (amazing chap) Nigel Adkins.  I would say L1 as the only decent season he had in the 2nd tier was with us where he had a squad of players several who would go onto to play for their countries, win PL/CL medals, etc.

I have to say, I don't remember watching Kelvin Davis, Danny Fox, Jos Hooiveld, Dean Hammond, Richard Chaplow, Jason Puncheon, Billy Sharp and Guly hoisting aloft the Champion's League trophy or the PL.

Playing international football at some point in your career also isn't really a particularly high benchmark, especially if you're from one of the smaller nations. And none of the players you're presumably referring to were at international level at that point either. Schneiderlin, Fonte and Shaw didn't get called up for their countries until two years later, in line with their development. Ward-Prowse didn't get capped until 2017. 

Lallana and maybe Lambert were the only ones who were really close to that level at that point, and even then it was another year before either of them got called up. The rest, while undoubtedly talented and with a lot of potential, were still very much a work in progress when Adkins was managing them. It's not like we were buying full internationals when we were in the Championship. Loads of players from other clubs who have gone on to play international football will have played in the Championship as youngsters at some point as well, that's not unusual at all. 

[The Kraken]

1 hour ago, trousers said:

You may have a valid point there sir....

(sorry @once_bitterne )

🤣🤣 excellent find.

I mean, we all knew that Bradley was talking out of his arse and in no way did he have pre-season expectations of getting promoted. But his flailing about avoiding the question multiple times and now that post highlighting just how full of shit he is; well, it’s really quite humorous.