Nigel Adkins is set to be announced as the new manager of Reading later on today.
Once upon a time football clubs had traditional nicknames rather than the snazzy new ones that were invented by some adman, thus Crystal Palace used to be called the Glaziers and Reading were called the Biscuitmen nicknamed after the large biscuit factory in the town, now they are calling themselves the Royals and the way the cookie has crumbled is about to see Nigel Adkins appointed as their new manager.
Its ironic how these things pan out, last season Brian McDermott could be said to have out thought Adkins to come to St Mary's and win last April and overhaul Saints to win the Championship title, but it doesnt stop there, the season before that Adkins had a spat with Brighton boss Gus Poyet and although Saints beat Brighton at their old ground to poop their promotion party it was again a case of second best for Saints who finished runners up, in the long term it means nothing it wa promotion that mattered, just a co incidence that all three men should be in this bizarre triangle.
So Nigel is about to be unveiled as Reading boss and has to live with the fact that he is second choice behind Poyet, Im sure he will be able to do that, if he had been appointed a couple of years ago then you would feel that he would be going to a Club that perhaps had foregone the modern trappings of football clubs, they were a club that promoted from within and were prepared to give their manager time to work on things, now it seems with John Madejski selling out a big stake to the Russians times they are a changing in Berkshire and its hard to see what the sacking of McDermott will achieve, if it had been done back in January at the time that ironically Adkins was relieved of his post at St Mary's then you could see some benefit, but now what can Adkins do, he needs a miracle to stay up and he has to start working that fast as they travel to Arsenal on Saturday.
If they lose that game, then it could be said that Nigel's task for the remainder of this season will be over before its started, they would be seven points off safety with only seven games left to play, if Villa and Saints were to pick up points then the gap could be even wider.
Perhaps the best irony though is left to last, Nigel's home debut will be against his old employers, at least hopefully he will be guaranteed a standing ovation from all the stadium, but ironically (again) it will be perhaps those that want him to lose this game that will cheer him loudest before kick off.
I truly hope that Nigel gets that standing ovation from Saints supporters, yes there are those now that previously could see no wrong in him only 10 weeks ago who now glibbly say that he was tactically naive and that it was the right move to sack him, all I will say to that was that in the week before his sacking the Daily Echo poll reflected the fans view and 85% said they backed him to the end of the season.
Nigel's achievements though cant be taken away from him, two straight promotions and after a difficult start taking us slowly but surely out of the relegation zone, I agree that he was in an enviroment where he was unsure, but that was also the case last season and he learnt from his mistakes along the way, in the long term perhaps Nigel is never going to take a club to sixth in the Premier, but that wasnt what we wanted him to do this season and his sacking was badly timed, reading back my old match verdicts from both last season and this shows a familiar pattern, but Nigel always seemed to learn.
What became clear though with his sacking was that once again manager and clun management werent singing from the same hymn sheet and whatever you think of Nigel now he wasnt given the right tools for the job this season, so its too his credit that he left St Mary's leaving the club in a reasonable position to avoid relegation.
So good luck to Nigel at Reading, its hard to want him to succeed in keeping them up, for him to do so would almost certainly see Saints relegated and that would also certainly mean that Reading would have to beat us in a week or so's time, but Im sure that 99% of all Saints fans will want him to do well in the future wherever he may be and that should Saints stay up and Reading go down, Saints fans hope that he shows his calibre next season and takes them straight back up.
It was not so long ago when many Saints supporters would tell you that Nigel was perhaps the best manager we have ever had, its sad now that football in general has lost not only its loyalty from clubs to their managers and indeed players to their teams, but to supporters now, history seems to mean nothing anymore, once you are gone you are gone.