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O/T Manager Sack Watch

DeanoAustin said:
That's absolutely right. Had Nigel Adkins gotten Southampton to the play-offs and lost last year, he'd still have a job. It boils my blood to see what happened to him and McDermott. fudging jokes of decisions by people who know nothing about football.

Paul Merson made a good point about Reading last weekend (can't believe I'm putting that cnut in the same sentence as the words 'good point' by the way). He said they are doomed at this point and he's right. Next season they will be in the Championship and when you're looking at candidates to get you back up, Brian McDermott would be up there for any club. The sacking doesn't make sense in the short, medium or long term. They only gave that fella £7.1 million to spend too. How in the name of Saint Michael on a Bicycle can someone be expected to keep a team like Reading in the Premiership having spent £7.1 million? For fudge sake, Harry spent a fortune in January (not to mention what Hughes blew in the summer) while Villa spent that much on Benteke alone. And both those clubs were Premiership teams anyway.

Football is fudging rotten when you see good men and good managers being treated that badly and that idiotically.
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Being a good man doesn't really come into it. Adkins was a good man and a decent manager, but with the possibility of appointing Mauricio Pochettino I wholeheartly understand why Southampton sacked him. Pochettino is a promising young manager who got Espanyol to 5th (?) in La Liga and played some impressive football on the way, Adkins had taken them from League 1 and, with such a talented manager ready to come in, you can see why Southampton made the assumption that Adkins could take them no further.

McDermott's sacking was a total joke though. So they get a new big money Russian owner. Woopee. He then does absolutely fudge all to improve a distinctly Championship squad, apart from signing his compatriot Pogrebnyak. They look utter brick all season, destined for relegation, and January does little to change that. So what does this guy do? He rips out the one thing this underskilled group of players have to bind them together, the manager who got them promoted, at the most important point of the season, without having a replacement lined up. Farcical behaviour.
 
Pandy said:
Being a good man doesn't really come into it. Adkins was a good man and a decent manager, but with the possibility of appointing Mauricio Pochettino I wholeheartly understand why Southampton sacked him. Pochettino is a promising young manager who got Espanyol to 5th (?) in La Liga and played some impressive football on the way, Adkins had taken them from League 1 and, with such a talented manager ready to come in, you can see why Southampton made the assumption that Adkins could take them no further.

McDermott's sacking was a total joke though. So they get a new big money Russian owner. Woopee. He then does absolutely fudge all to improve a distinctly Championship squad, apart from signing his compatriot Pogrebnyak. They look utter brick all season, destined for relegation, and January does little to change that. So what does this guy do? He rips out the one thing this underskilled group of players have to bind them together, the manager who got them promoted, at the most important point of the season, without having a replacement lined up. Farcical behaviour.
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I don't buy it. Pochettino got them up to fifth and then took them back down again. He also had no grasp of the English language. To work in a country you should at least have a basic grasp of the primary language. He was also appointed the majority of the way through the jan window, which is a joke if you want your new manager to have time to get new signings in, on the back of Draws against Arsenal and Chelsea, a win against their relegation rival Villa and a draw away at Stoke, which is not an easy place to go.

Whereas Adkins had Southampton on course to comfortably avoid relegation whilst blooding some extremely promising young players at the same time. Take them no further? It looked like they were staying up. The players knew and respected Adkins, and were playing well for him.


Agree on McDermott entirely.


Would add RDM to that level of stupidity, look how well that went for Chelsea. I don't rate RDM, but he's better then the FSW.


In fact Hughes is the only Premiership sacking i could wholeheartedly agree with this season. He was given far too much money to spend, yet again, and it turned out as badly as last time.
 
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Villa have the firepower to stay up. Benteke, Weimann, Bent and Agbonlahor should be more than enough to get them the goals to win some games
 
Pandy said:
Being a good man doesn't really come into it. Adkins was a good man and a decent manager, but with the possibility of appointing Mauricio Pochettino I wholeheartly understand why Southampton sacked him. Pochettino is a promising young manager who got Espanyol to 5th (?) in La Liga and played some impressive football on the way, Adkins had taken them from League 1 and, with such a talented manager ready to come in, you can see why Southampton made the assumption that Adkins could take them no further.
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Cannot agree with this. Adkins took Southampton out of League 1. That was an achievement albeit not entirely unexpected. To survive in the Championship would have been a good effort last season but he did much, much better than that. Exceeded the wildest expectations of even the most deluded Southampton fans. To stay in the Premiership this season would have been huge and he was on target to do that. Even if he didn't, he deserved to retain his job if Southampton had any class about them. It is disgusting that he was sacked despite doing what even his harshest critics (not that I've heard of any) could only describe as a fantastic job.

The "he took them as far as he could" argument doesn't hold water for me. How does anyone know how far he could have taken them? You can only really judge that on what he has already done with the resources at his disposal. Did he do well with the resources he had? Undoubtedly. No one can argue otherwise. Did Southampton have the side to be doing much better than they were doing at the time of his sacking? You'd be hard pressed to make a case that they should have been. Therefore, you have a manager who was pretty much getting the best out of what he had and had a history of doing so in his time at the club. You want to do better? Give the guy more resources. Best will in the world, Mourinho or Fergie wouldn't get much more out of Southampton than Adkins did. Adkins surely built up enough credit, in over-achieving for two and a bit years, to get the chance.

As for Pochettino. Yes he got Espanyol fifth in La Liga but they were bottom of the table when he left the club. One season of fifth doesn't make a great manager. Ask David O'Leary, ask George Burley, ask Martin O'Neill. Hell, Mike Walker got third with Norwich but wasn't a great manager. This guy doesn't even speak English. If you want a similar situation, look at Juande Ramos with us. That interview with Ramos the morning he got sacked had me wondering how any Spurs player understood him.

Pochettino will not get Southampton anywhere more than lower mid-table if he is lucky and will be gone within 2 years. It's a brainless decision and just shows what little loyalty and class there is in the game.
 
Sky sources understand Brighton manager Gus Poyet has turned down the Reading job.

Good on him if true.
 
So once QPRs fate is beyond doubt, how long do we give Harry? Can we see him sticking round in the Championship?
 
DeanoAustin said:
Cannot agree with this. Adkins took Southampton out of League 1. That was an achievement albeit not entirely unexpected. To survive in the Championship would have been a good effort last season but he did much, much better than that. Exceeded the wildest expectations of even the most deluded Southampton fans. To stay in the Premiership this season would have been huge and he was on target to do that. Even if he didn't, he deserved to retain his job if Southampton had any class about them. It is disgusting that he was sacked despite doing what even his harshest critics (not that I've heard of any) could only describe as a fantastic job.

The "he took them as far as he could" argument doesn't hold water for me. How does anyone know how far he could have taken them? You can only really judge that on what he has already done with the resources at his disposal. Did he do well with the resources he had? Undoubtedly. No one can argue otherwise. Did Southampton have the side to be doing much better than they were doing at the time of his sacking? You'd be hard pressed to make a case that they should have been. Therefore, you have a manager who was pretty much getting the best out of what he had and had a history of doing so in his time at the club. You want to do better? Give the guy more resources. Best will in the world, Mourinho or Fergie wouldn't get much more out of Southampton than Adkins did. Adkins surely built up enough credit, in over-achieving for two and a bit years, to get the chance.

As for Pochettino. Yes he got Espanyol fifth in La Liga but they were bottom of the table when he left the club. One season of fifth doesn't make a great manager. Ask David O'Leary, ask George Burley, ask Martin O'Neill. Hell, Mike Walker got third with Norwich but wasn't a great manager. This guy doesn't even speak English. If you want a similar situation, look at Juande Ramos with us. That interview with Ramos the morning he got sacked had me wondering how any Spurs player understood him.

Pochettino will not get Southampton anywhere more than lower mid-table if he is lucky and will be gone within 2 years. It's a brainless decision and just shows what little loyalty and class there is in the game.
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I'm not saying he took them as far as he could. Just that I could understand how the Southampton board could come to that conclusion. Southampton were utter dog brick at the start of the season, some serious schoolboy defending (seemingly a 'you score one more than us' policy), and if it wasn't for the good run of form that you mentioned, they would have been rock bottom.

I agree that it shows little 'loyalty and class', but to call the decision 'brainless' baffles me. You can't just pick names out of the air and say 'he did well at one club, then brick at the next, so Pochettino has no chance'. The fact is that he did well in the first place. If he was still coming 5th with Espanyol, there would be no chance of him going to Southampton. An analagous case being AVB and Chelsea, it damaged his reputation, but our chairman still saw value in his abilities and decided to back him. This is how I see Pochettino's appointment.

There has been a recent trend towards more robust models of attractive football in the Premiership. Swansea are the best example of this, and Huw Jenkins has appointed Martinez, Sousa, Rodgers and now Laudrup to maintain a distinct style of football that has proven to be effective with the squad at their respective disposals. While Adkins was not due the sack, he wasn't doing brilliantly, and Pochettino offered the board the chance ostensibly to upgrade by giving a chance to a talented manager whose reptutation has been damaged. It would be lazy to equate AVB to Pochettino and Adkins to Redknapp, but it is a similar story, albeit not mid-season.

I think the whole language thing is very amusing. People only bring it up when it suits their argument. That's not aimed specifically at you, more a reference to Capello in the England job, Ramos in the Spurs job, etc. But no-one ever complained when Mourinho couldn't speak Italian! The fact is that there are more important things, and til now Southampton have performed to a similar standard as they did under Adkins, beating Emirates Marketing Project and Liverpool in the process.

I wouldn't have sacked Adkins myself, but I was a big fan of Pochettino when he was at Espanyol and can understand why the punt was taken. As long as he keeps them up he won't be a failure and can build from there, then we'll see how he does.

In fact I do mostly agree that Adkins was betrayed by his board, but the sacking just had so much more sense in it than McDermott's, which was a total farce.
 
Superted said:
So once QPRs fate is beyond doubt, how long do we give Harry? Can we see him sticking round in the Championship?
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Well, he would be under contract I assume?
So he would have to stay unless the owners deem him surplus to requirements and find a better candidate.

Not many out there may I add..
 
BushHillSpurs said:
Well, he would be under contract I assume?
So he would have to stay unless the owners deem him surplus to requirements and find a better candidate.

Not many out there may I add..
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Wasn't there some ITK a little while back where they said he wouldn't stay if they went down and he still has some of the same lucrative offers from abroad which he might consider again? I'm sure despite people saying he wouldn't travel far from home it was mentioned he was actually ready to accept one of these offers before QPR came up.
Probably all rubbish though huh.
 
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Jordinho said:
Reading are close to naming Nigel Adkins as their new manager, Sky sources understand.
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crazy sacking McDermott, but at least theyve made a decent choice in Adkins. Of course only if they stick by him even if they go down
 
indianspur said:
crazy sacking McDermott, but at least theyve made a decent choice in Adkins. Of course only if they stick by him even if they go down
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It would be the height of stupidity to let him go.


Adkins probably needs to win 4/5 out of 8 to keep them up. No easy task, especially as they still face Arsenal, Liverpool and City, and that Norwich, Fulham and West Ham are all away.
 
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