In which it all comes good.

As Saints headed into thel ast 15 games the situation was as follows, we had 52 points and my prediction at the time was that 85 was the target, given the league and the form of Brighton, Bournemouth & Huddersfield at the time, two of which we had to play away from home this was a hard task, it meant an average of 2.20 points per game, given that so far we had played 31 and got 52 given a ratio of 1.67 it looked harder, Adkins now had to really impose himself on the team and get it playing not only well but consistently.

I wont bore you with detail as we can all now look back on the fixture list, but it has to be said that Adkins started to show why he might have a long term future at the club, only 1 defeat in those games including great wins at both Bournemouth and Brighton saw promotion achieved in style and indeed Brighton almost caught, in fact take away the opening day of the season and Saints were a better team than the Seagulls in terms of points and goal difference, it ended up that close, perhaps emphasising what a decent squad we had.

But its no use having a big squad unless you use it well and in fairness to Adkins although he did still make mistakes, in the main he overcame the problems, as in when we lost Lee Barnard and used the squad to full effect as we effectively played two games a week for two months.

Yes there was still a suspicion of tinkering too much, yes he did still seem to not quite root out those making individual errors and yes he did still have his favourites, but you fel that finally he was starting to become his own man and impose his way of thinking rather than having to compromise.

Nigel Adkins also seemd to do things the right way and that has endeared him to the fans, he shows respect to the supporters and conducts himself in a calm manner, perhaps this is why it took a little bit of time before he got going, back in September the team was in turmoil, in the short term perhaps it needed a loud voice to get them back on track, but in the long term Adkins way is better and that showed in those final 15 games as the squad finally seemed to be pulling together.

Adkins stock has never been higher and this has both its advantages and disadvantages in that yes he can now dominate the dressing room etc but other clubs will be watching and hovering.

I would hope that there is no friction between manager and chairman, but only time will tell us that as was shown by the Pardew situation, if they are united then the club can progress, but obviously now Adkins is in a far better bargaining position, football is a mercenary sport and managers demand to work under their own terms, for the best part of 2010/11 season Adkins was a man given a chance at a higher level, he was not in a strong position to make demands etc, now he is and that could cause friction in the boardroom, its a very finely balanced scale at the moment.

Hopefully things will be OK, ifAdkins has enjoyed a cordial relationship with the Chairman then he is undoubtably a man who will be loyal, my only concern goes back to the January transfer window, Adkins was not given money to spend and that quaestion remains unansered, at the time as we have now seen, he was given a new 4 1/2 year contract, however that was not announced and seemingly was dependent on promotion being obtained, would Adkins feel that at that time he was still on probation and not quite yet trusted.

I think it is only now we will see the real Nigel Adkins, he can now finally start to stamp his own ideals on the squad and indeed make it truly his squad rather than Alan Pardew's, there are those that would say that if Pardew had stayed we would have still gone up, that view has credence in that very few of those that played a big part in our promotion were signed by Adkins, in fact most of his loan signings and his one real signing in Forte turned out to be distinctly average and couldnt break into the team even from the bench on a regular basis, we will now find out whether he signed these players because he wanted them or because they were all he could get with the budget available.

From this point of view there is still a question mark over Adkins, yes he undoubtably passed the biggest test, in that he took a good squad and got them promotion, but in truth it wasnt a job as he did at Scunthorpe were he took players and got them to punch above their weight, he inheirited the biggest and best squad in thedivision and got them to where they should have been, that being said, he could only do what he did, it was a thankless task to be blunt.

On a plus point perhaps the way that Nicola Cortese wants to run things will suit Adkins, clearly the manager does not decide on transfers at St Mary's nowadays, yes he will have an input, but so will Cortese himself and others including Les Reid, but  this might be the way forward at football clubs, it was the way Lowe was trying to head when he appointed Sir Clive Woodward and others and its the way Liverpool are going now, personally I think its the way forward, but lets not pretend its something new from our Chairman, we have seen it before and we have seen the supporters rail against it then.

But as i say this might suit Adkins who clearly is a great man manager and coach but lacks experience at buying players apart from the bargain basement.

This article is not meant to be critical of Nigel Adkins, far from it, its meant to be a fair analyse and overview, in life few things are black or white, sadly today;s football fan seems to feel that they are, players, managers, chairman even are only seen in the context of the last defeat or win not the long term view, I have high hopes for Nigel Adkins, but he will get things right and he will get things wrong, all managers do even the best and most experienced ones.

The future can be very bright with Adkins in charge at St Mary's he has passed his first tests and done what was demanded of him, now the real work starts for him.   

Photo: Action Images

geezershoong added 11:29 - May 19 The only thing that concerns me is the signings that he has made (excluding Chaplow).
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Chesham_Saint added 12:16 - May 19 Watched the Alan Sugar interview with Twitchy Redknapp in which the old brown bagger claimed to have no real input on transfers. Rather he [claims] he identifies positions that need strengthening and the chairman an CEO do the rest. So maybe the NA/NC relationship is more the norm these days?
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legod7 added 12:19 - May 19 He has signed only Jaidi out of the six that are out of contract. No news yet of the other five. Is he waiting to see who he can sign in the transfer window before giving any of them new contracts
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plasterer added 12:22 - May 19 Good article,I'm not sure if offering Jaidi sends out the right signal he definatly was suspect last season,and Cortese maybe just another power mad chairman who I'm sure will get through his fair share of managers,that decision not to announce Adkins new contract until end of season stinks,fact
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StSaint added 12:27 - May 19 Adkins' points per game average (2.15) was better than Poyet (2.06), Warnock (1.87) and Ferguson (2.10 - giving him a win v B'pool). The man is a genius and how anything to do with extending his contract can be looked on as anything other than positive is a bit odd. Finally we have added a hardened winning mentality. There are going to be glitches along the way, but everything about the club is spot on right now. If we keep the same structure then we will be in the Prem within 2yrs without any question.

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SaintNick added 12:50 - May 19 St Saint, a few comments on your post, I agree with most of it bar the everything about the club is spot on, if we are to maintain that hardened winning mentality and that comes from the stands as well, last season we accepted the ten point deduction as impossible to make up, this year we expected and demanded nothing less than automatic promotion and that contributed to the winning mentality, anyway if its to be maintained we have to consistently demand the best and that means accepting that nothing will ever be spot on, we have to keep improving, esecially as now in the championship there are at least a dozen clubs who will have similar resources in all aspects as to us. We might have money but in truth you cant spend that much in the championship, anyone worth anything is content to double their wages and sit on a premiership bench. As Norwich showed its about management and good buys. Sorry to seem a little criticalbut im interested in what you had to say

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bstokesaint added 13:02 - May 19 Adkins has grown on me with every game he has managed us. NC must have seen something special in him too to beat off all of the other candidates to replace Pardew. I don't want to bad mouth Pardew and I'm very grateful for our big day at Wembley, but you could tell there was an underlying unrest in the camp. Adkins has come in and finished a fairly thankless task. I agree with Geezer that his transfer activity will be scrutinised the most. This is the area everyone will be looking. That all said he is clearly a real football man, who has the respect of his players, and I tip him to take us up. In all honesty there isn't a huge gulf between the top clubs of League 1 and the bottom 5 or 6 clubs in the Premiership.

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Kiwifiedpom added 13:08 - May 19 I admire the content and tagree with the sentiments, but I found the text confusing.
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plasterer added 13:30 - May 19 Just read Rangers are going to offer 2.5 million for Puncheon,now we can start to be very optimistic,if it's true
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plasterer added 13:35 - May 19 Read it wrong it said rated,darn
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StSaint added 15:49 - May 19 Obviously I don't know for sure, but I find it hard to believe that the club accepted the 10 point deduction last year and did not expect promotion. I imagine playoffs were still expected and that is one of the main reasons that Pardew got the boot (in addition to sleeping with one of the players wives). It seems I am in the minority in being glad that he was given the chop. We were a soft touch and massively underperformed in the second half of last season. Leeds, Norwich and Millwall have shown that there is not much between the divisions. The fact that we will not be expected to win every game will be a huge plus for us and with a couple of signings I would be very surprised if we don't finish top 6 this year. The commitment to youth and upgrading facilities is really encouraging, so to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I can see anything that needs urgently addressing. All this combined with the knowledge that Pompey still have a way to fall has left me chomping at the bit for the new season. Football is a fickle world, so I will probably suggest it's panic stations by October!

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ThereIn76 added 23:10 - May 21 I think Adkins did a remarkably good job. Some might think that any manager who couldn't get our squad promoted had no business being a manager, whilst it would not have reflected well on Adkins if we hadn't gone up, you only need to look at the pressure put on particularly by Huddersfield to see that Saints had to be right on top of their game for a long period of time. I think there's a solidity about Saints that hasn't been there since the 83-84 season and that needs to be carried through into the Championship. We tended to fold when going behind, especially away from home. This season we've shown an impressive ability to turn losing situations into winning ones e.g. at Exeter, Bournemouth and Brighton and at home to Huddersfield and MK. Also we finish matches strongly which hasn't often happened in the past. We didn't just scrape promotion, we got the second highest points total in the professional leagues, getting 88 points from the 40 games for which Adkins was in charge (forget MK away as he was only appointed that afternoon.) I'm convinced he'll take us higher still - provided we can keep him.

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