The hard work now begins for Nigel Adkins

When Nigel Adkins arrived at St Mary's the task was a lot more difficult than it looked on the outside, he arrived to inheirit a squad that was at its lowest ebb for a long time and had clearrly been upset about the departure of Alan Pardew judging by the results since his sacking.

On one hand he had the biggest and most expensive squad in League One, but on the other there were clearly some disgruntled players in it, his task was to turn the season around, assess the squad, identify the problems and sort them out, fine when you take over a team in pre season, but with six league games gone and only four points on the board we were running out of time, undoubtably he had to make do with what he had and with little money spent in the January transfer window it cannot really be said that this was truly Nigel Adkin's team.

Add to that the pressures on a manager that we dont see from the stands, the dressing room situation aligned with the fact that Adkins himself knew that only promotion would suffice otherwise he would find himself out of the club, indeed early rumours surfaced that after a poor start Adkins himself might be making a quick exit.

It has to be said though that Adkins stature amongst the supporters grew as the season went on, yes there were selection puzzlers and for one reason or another he didnt seem inclined to deal with poor performances from some senior players, but he eventually got them playing as a team in the nick of time to see them win 13 out of their last 16 games as he finally started to get used to the fact that he had a big squad that needed using.

Now as he sits here in the summer and reflects on what is needed to consolidate our return to the Championship and perhaps more, I feel certain that for the first time we will actually see Nigel Adkins working on his own terms and moulding a squad how he wants it, after gaining promotion he is now in a strong position, both in the dressing room as well as upstairs in the boardroom, he can now do things his way and i feel we will finally see the true Nigel Adkins working without constraints and with players he wants in his squad.

Undoubtably we have a big squad and last summer showed that the Chairman was not afraid to trim it down and this could again be the case, to be honest it is top heavy and although the bulk of it is good enough to form the basis of a decent Championship team it does need improvement.

We will now start to see whether the money is there to build, Adkins may want to persuade Oxlade Chamberlain to stay, after all what manager doesnt want to keep his best players, but he may have to watch him sold to fund new players, in short if OXO is kept and substancial funds made available for players then we can feel secure that the backing is still there, however if OXO has to go it will be interesting to see if all the money is made available for transfers, although as a word of caution that money would have to also fund increased wages so some would be have to be held back for that.

For his part Nigel Adkins finds himself in a little bit of uncharted territory, at Scunthorpe he built up a squad on a tight budget and having got them up his only target was to try and keep them there, at St Mary's he is now having to work with players with bigger reputations and ego's and a fan base that is a lot more demanding than at Scunny's in short the supporters are not looking to see the likes of Jonathan Forte arrive but established Championship players, Nigel's task will be to bring in those of that quality and its not something he is used to.

Also he can now finally impose himself in the dressing room, early on there was clearly some friction with Jason Puncheon being the tip of the iceberg, hopefully now the squad having worked with the manager and gained promotion will now be familiar with his methods and respect them, their are big ego's in dressing rooms and it is difficult sometimes for a manager to arrive in one where the players are more experienced at a higher level than he is, its about earning respect and that takes a little time, on a good note though the team spirit was a lot beter in the final third of the campaign as was shown by the results.

The relationship between Chairman and manager will also be crucial, Adkins will be well aware that a year ago it looked like Alan Pardew was going to be sacked, that turned out not to be the case in the end, but the statement that both manager and Chairman were working in tandem proved to be not entirely accurate, back then Pardew was not in a strong position having failed to get promotion, this year its different, our worry isnt that Adkins might get sacked but that he might be poached by another club, although I feel that the danger period for that will be around September when the first sackings of the season happen, if we have got off to a good start then Nigel will be high on the list of many of these club's as will Gus Poyet.

For the first time in a fair few seasons, Saints go into thesummer with some stability in both the coaching and playing staff, that can only bode well for the future and I feel sure that all Nigel Adkin's asks is that we judge him on what he does rather than this past season when Im sure he will have felt at times that it wasnt his team out on the pitch.       

Photo: Action Images

schatfield added 13:41 - May 10 good article...Must say Nick, your articles do keep me entertained throughout the year and this is one of the better saints fans sites out there. I look forward to all the transfer gossip articles this summer!!
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SaintNick added 13:44 - May 10 Thanks I do try to give the wider picture
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