Adkins - another view??

[Laney Blade]

Laney,

In an ideal world every manager should be fair and honest and tell it how it is in a respectful way.
For example Wilder admitted he might have made a mistake in making too many changes against Birmingham
And he also said that Birmingham did a number on him, tactically nullifying our threat.

Wilder gives honest self criticism that he might have got it wrong
Then no doubt some use his honesty as a weapon against him.

This is why very few managers are ever honest, they play games and just highlight their good decisions and never admit mistakes.
Adkins was just like most managers, choosing his words carefully to protect himself during post match interviews.
Wilder just tells it how it is and unfortunately people take advantage to score points.

Whichever way you look at it we have some horrible bastards pretending to be loyal fans. This is what I find so difficult to understand. Its very wearing....I dread the day Chris W leaves us because of these bastard fans.

 

[John Street West Terrace]

Most of us wanted him to be fair. He was the best qualified manager available to get us out of League Uno.

Fraudsters nowadays Roy are very devious.. .. to be fair like you say we all thought he’d got a good CV with Scunnie & S’ton and inherited on paper a half decent squad ? ( question mark there for the jury ) .. but I’d put him in the same bracket as Happy Harry in his reign

 

[Laney Blade]

Bury away. Shudders.

Stuck in traffic jams on M62.

Couldn't get parked up. Ran to the ground in the driving, pissing rain.

Watched Bury go 1-0 up early and had to listen to their "ultras" giving it large for the rest of the night.

Saw United have one shot, a speculative pea roller from Ryan Flynn's left boot from 25 yards.

At full time, I booed the team off - the one time I've ever done it.

And Adkins stood there looking at 2500 Unitedites as if we were the ones who were in the chuffin wrong!

I didn't realise these far right Hitler type ultras were so prominent back then. Now they must be cast aside as the burden they are to the club achieving premier status. So they need to be rooted out as it's worth 20 million a year. The Board will have to ban these ultra twar

Laney,

In an ideal world every manager should be fair and honest and tell it how it is in a respectful way.
For example Wilder admitted he might have made a mistake in making too many changes against Birmingham
And he also said that Birmingham did a number on him, tactically nullifying our threat.

Wilder gives honest self criticism that he might have got it wrong
Then no doubt some use his honesty as a weapon against him.

This is why very few managers are ever honest, they play games and just highlight their good decisions and never admit mistakes.
Adkins was just like most managers, choosing his words carefully to protect himself during post match interviews.
Wilder just tells it how it is and unfortunately people take advantage to score points.

Yes but NA did inherit a truly terrible team .....which included Collins & Mceverkey....& was stuck with them eveb though they were thick & terrible.

Maybe had some thing to do with the cv he submitted seen as he had numerous promotions to his name and numerous from league 1.

We wasn't to know he was am apsoloute waste of breath and time. The kid just didn't know what he was doing and some how managed to gain them promotions, I do some times wonder if he had a twin brother that used to manage and he just kept it on in his name. I don't think we have had a manager that doesn't know what he is doing as much as that. He was totally useless in picking a starting 11 and the subs was adequately as good. I'd even go as far as saying he made clough look good just hope we give him and his dull side a proper stuffing tomorrow and then we can listen to his useless interviews again about how the endeavour was there etc etc. Don't think it was only the fans that didn't like him from reading the he's one of our own book was quite obvious numerous players didn't like him including a Mr coutts who was made to play out on the right. Only good thing he did for us when he was here was to sign sharp and I am truly grateful if that but the rest of the time was just a joke a minute.

He wasn't an absolute waste of space. .Unfortunately a lot of our players were an absolute waste of space...e.g. Collins & McEverley....But he was stuck with there pratts & couldn't replace them. What a nightmare it must have been.

 

[Weasel]

And one two three.....(clicks fingers)....you're back in the room.

 

[spongebobblade]

I’ll see you that afternoon at Crewe ... and raise you the evening away at Bury.

Pure horror.

For me the lowest point of our 6 years in league 1. Totally outplayed fo 90 minutes by a piss poor team who genuinely could have hit us for 6 if it wasn’t for George Long.
My overriding memory is watching him stood on the touchline, getting totally saturated in the rain, hands in pockets looking utterly clueless and like he didn’t care while the diehard Blades faithful turned on him with venom like I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Drenched, I walked back to the car with my other half, daughter and biggey blade and genuinely thought we would be down there for a long time. Teams no longer feared us. We were a laughing stock with no way out.

 

[ShockingBadBuy]

For me the lowest point of our 6 years in league 1. Totally outplayed fo 90 minutes by a piss poor team who genuinely could have hit us for 6 if it wasn’t for George Long.
My overriding memory is watching him stood on the touchline, getting totally saturated in the rain, hands in pockets looking utterly clueless and like he didn’t care while the diehard Blades faithful turned on him with venom like I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Drenched, I walked back to the car with my other half, daughter and biggey blade and genuinely thought we would be down there for a long time. Teams no longer feared us. We were a laughing stock with no way out.

God, the memries. Everyone, apart from Long, looked like they’d given up by half time. We barely got out of our own half. The pies were crap. Torrential rain all night. More rust than Hillsboro. “We’re fucking shit, We’re fucking shit ....”. Also, it transpired, the game where that useless twat Baxter failed his dope test?

AND it was BadBuy Jr’s birthday “treat”. Which made me the worst parent on planet Earth.

Awful, awful times.

 

[grafikhaus]

Yes, most fans were 'pleased' with Adkins' appointment - as we were with Clough, Robson, Weir, even (mostly) Wilson but that's because most of us had been so ground down by events since the 2009 PO defeat that it was surely 'law of averages' that the next bloke would reverse our fortunes. Wishful thinking, largely.

But lets not confuse that with thinking that the 'welcoming' fans were in some way complicit in the failures that followed. Nobody can tell how a managerial appointment will pan out (I was utterly underwhelmed with CW getting the job), but Mr. McCabe seems to have a blind spot when interviewing people who 'talk the talk'. We don't want talk of trophies, 'Europe in 5 years' (yes, Chris Turner, where are you now?), psychobabble about 'geese' and 'diamonds' or needing substantial investment in players (Steve Bruce and many others). Us Blades aren't built like that. What we do expect is honesty, passion for the shirt, committment and 90 minutes effort on the pitch. Every match.

In Chris and Alan we've stumbled across people who chime exactly with the Blades way of thinking. Something you'll not find in any coaching manual or managerial-bullshit seminar.

 

[Jan Age]

Adkins was a very popular appointment but quickly turned sour he wasn’t like inside or outside the club. He was pulled aside by the powers that be about his post match waffle and told to be ‘straight John Bull’ but refused, he didn’t get the fabric of the club and this led to his level of despise now.

Wilder came in at a great time with loads of player contracts up and was ruthless in trf listing players. Since then we’ve been on an upward trajectory and his relationship with all seems good. However, under Wilder the going had always been good let’s just see how it goes when we hit a sustained run of poor form or have a bad season.

 

[grafikhaus]

Whichever way you look at it we have some horrible bastards pretending to be loyal fans. This is what I find so difficult to understand. Its very wearing....I dread the day Chris W leaves us because of these bastard fans.

Don't forget Adkins turned on us 'bastard fans' at the end when the game was up. Such bastards that 21,455 turned up for the final match of an utterly turgid season - a season where crowds at the Lane averaged 19,803.

 

[ElephantBlade]

Whichever way you look at it we have some horrible bastards pretending to be loyal fans. This is what I find so difficult to understand. Its very wearing....I dread the day Chris W leaves us because of these bastard fans.

I get your point, but I think Chris knows he's forgotten more about football than most of these you're referring to have ever known. I'd imagine he's also got a fairly thick skin when it comes to it now all.

 

[Yellarbellyblade]

Most of us wanted him to be fair. He was the best qualified manager available to get us out of League Uno.

I was really pleased when we got him, wrong man at wrong club wrong time it turned out.

 

[diplomat]

Burton at home for me. If Clough wasn’t such a cautious bugger, we could have been hit for 6 or 7 easily. I’ve never seen a United side so uninterested in actually playing a game of football.

I mentioned that we made their journeyman winger look like Totti. I thought he looked quality and couldn’t believe his list of previous clubs that seemed beneath his quality. . . A Mr Mark Duffy

 

[8lade]

Teams no longer feared us. We were a laughing stock with no way out.

zoom forward to today and 'they don't know who they're fuckin' with now!'

 

[blade too long]

selecting a manager is fraught with danger
like with players , different managers suit different clubs

look at Holloway , put in charge at leicester , out of his depth
goes to Blackpool and shits miracles

And Adkins , was blessed with a great batch of upcoming youngster at southampton and clicked
he rode the wave of the youth teams progress
came to us , and after a 5 match run that promised much , fell apart through indecision
His failure to bring in players, showed up in full technicolour as the JTW passed with a whimper

he was too defensive, as our current cavalier approach highlights even more
I wanted Robinson at that time, but as always supported him at the start, but by the end of Jan he had
demonstrated he wasnt the cure to our predicament

 

[8lade]

I get your point, but I think Chris knows he's forgotten more about football than most of these you're referring to have ever known. I'd imagine he's also got a fairly thick skin when it comes to it now all.

(Although on this point we were talking about the appointment of managers not how they performed), moving on to performance it's the nature of the beast amongst sports fans, on Sheffield Live they said Luhukay is 2 bad results from vitriol, Wilder is 4 (after the Sheffield Steeler's coach was hounded out using social media). Having said that I was probably saying Robson should go way before he did.

 

[JackSUFC]

I was happy with his appointment at the time due to his track record...but then what followed were delights such as:

• Giving McEveley the captains armband.
• Signing the likes of Woolford and Sammon.
• Dean Hammond.
• 0-4 away at Gillingham in his opening game.
• Embarrassing home defeats to more clubs than I can be bothered to list.
• Weird, boring interviews.
• Having a dig at the fans.
• 11th place finish in League One (with the biggest budget).
• The most depressing period of all time.

Nigel, thanks for bringing Billy Sharp back and thanks for being so shit you got sacked, paving the way for Chris Wilder. I hope you get utterly embarrassed today.

 

[spongebobblade]

We don't want talk of trophies, 'Europe in 5 years' (yes, Chris Turner, where are you now?), psychobabble about 'geese' and 'diamonds' or needing substantial investment in players (Steve Bruce and many others). Us Blades aren't built like that. What we do expect is honesty, passion for the shirt, committment and 90 minutes effort on the pitch. Every match.
.

This^^^^
This is what you call the Blades DNA. It’s when Wilder says “he gets it”. It’s the way our club has evolved ever since I first set foot into Bramall Lane and probably decades before me. It’s what the players have to realise. They don’t have to be born and bred Blades. Morgan got it, Bash gets it now and plenty of others are following in there footsteps. Talent is lauded. The rest is expected and respected

 

[Revolution]

One thing I find strange about Adkins' reign is that although he only signed 3 players on permanent deals these 3 deals included arguably the best and the worst signings that any Blades manager has made this decade: Sharp and Hammond.

 

[bladesmanluke]

He’s a good man who did a bad job. Adkins is undeserving of many of the scathing attacks he gets.

 

[LS5 Blade]

His main problem was his ego.

He should have watched the highlights of the games from the previous season and seen our glaring weaknesses....He didn't though, and had such a high opinion of himself that he could coach poor footballers into 'world beaters'.

Adding to that bringing on his old boys club who were as bad if not worse than the players we had didn't help!

His interviews were cringeoworthy at best....I seem to remember one that stood out when we played Millwall away and got beat "we made a good start and were on the front foot" im pretty sure that Millwall went 1 up in the first 2 minutes!

Glad we are shut of him. Hope we just ignore him today and not give him grief however....Don't feed the ego!!

 

[Ernest]

Anyone defending Nigel Adkins’ spell at the Lane needs their head wobbling.

When he was first appointed, we all thought he’d do well and like many others have said, he was the man with the credentials to finally take us out of League 1.

Oh how wrong we were. This is a man who brought Martyn Woolford and Dean Hammond to our club. This is a man whose pre-match team talk involved a video of flying geese. This is a man who hit out at us, the fans, for mistakes he made himself.

In hindsight, it was a good appointment. In reality, he was fucking dreadful.

Thankfully though, it was the best thing that could’ve happened to us. If it wasn’t for this numpty’s atrocious stewardship of our club, we wouldn’t be where we are now with one of our own in charge.

UTB.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

ive seen a lot of slagging of Adkins and I understand that. Not really seen a lot of questioning/criticism of who recruited him. Plus who else at that time was interviewed and turned down. Sometimes when you back a donkey you have to ask who the tipster was???

When did McCall refuse?
Was that just after Adkins left?

 

[Kenilworth]

He’s a good man who did a bad job. Adkins is undeserving of many of the scathing attacks he gets.

Bollocks! - He was out of his depth and thought reciting corporate flannel was the best mechanism of masking it.
He fully deserves the shit he got for the utter wank football he served up and the post match interviews that clearly demonstrated he had no fucking clue, whatsoever.

 

[Kenilworth]

He lost it with me when he appointed McEveley as Captain.

Can't fuck off far enough IMO

 

[United Aren't Back.]

I thought it was a good appointment at the time.

We started well.

Turned to shit.

It goes to show, what the fuck do I know?

Lots of people on here, and on the internet in general, need to learn this lesson.

Fucking disaster 4 0 to Gillingham is how it began.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

I agree .....If Nigel Adkins was a bad manager there is no way Billy would have rushed to sign for him for the 3rd time. It was a terrible time for him as Murph was sold....our most intelligent outlet & player with most assists to Billy. Unfortunately NA couldn't pay off the rubbish like Collins who played the oppo onside every game .....but then started shouting at other players blaming them when it was his fault. Added to the waste of space players who went on Twitter criticising their boss. In any employment this would be gross misconduct. Lets face it half of his team were whining under performers & their posse fans were little gangsters who aspire to be drug dealers. The same ones who are now verbally vile about Leon & Oli Norwood. Making Chris job harder than it already is. I personally will always back Chris as he is our excellent manager. I feel this is a good enough reason to back all of his judgement views & decisions. He stands up for his beliefs team selections & decisions. Much harder than us just spouting our preferences & prejudices. They are the same bastards who were evil to George Long & now to Leon...cos they think he keeps out Billy which is bollocks....& now abusing & being vicious to Oli Norwood who these pratts think will keep out Duffy in the future. I sincerely hope Chris will not leave us because of the thick big gobs in the South Stand. But Chris is human & these big gobs with baseball caps worn backwards mini gangsters are making his job very difficult. So if they sit near you ask the stewards & police to eject these little twats.

Who were the underperforming players with a posse of aspiring drug dealers as fans?

 

[vas borbokis]

I hated watching us under Adkins.
What I can't really fathom is how when we have played Hull since he left us, both today and previously, he seems to have them working for each other and giving us pretty stern test.
It wasn't easy today so he must be doing something right. I guess he just has more quality players to work with than he had with us.
I think in the end he just didn't fit with the "call it as it is" Sheffield United mentality. The players didn't respect his psychobabble nonsense and weren't on-side in the end.
Thank goodness for our Chris, who basically just "gets" Sheffield United.
Long may his reign continue.

 

[super-dazzler]

I'll never forget him joining us and my Scunny supporting mate telling me how brilliant Adkins was.
I never listen to him about anything now.

 

[Laney Blade]

For me the lowest point of our 6 years in league 1. Totally outplayed fo 90 minutes by a piss poor team who genuinely could have hit us for 6 if it wasn’t for George Long.
My overriding memory is watching him stood on the touchline, getting totally saturated in the rain, hands in pockets looking utterly clueless and like he didn’t care while the diehard Blades faithful turned on him with venom like I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Drenched, I walked back to the car with my other half, daughter and biggey blade and genuinely thought we would be down there for a long time. Teams no longer feared us. We were a laughing stock with no way out.

The players we had that season weren't right for NA except for Billy who loved him. We should have paid off the dickheads as all still under contract so stuck with them. Which is why Chris got shut of these dickheads when he arrived as thankfully out of contract. The geese formation was Alex Ferguson's fave way of describing what he wanted from team play. The problem was we had a lot of thick players who just couldn't understand it. He said in the end he was reduced to you stick it in this end & keep it out of the other end ! Made me laugh if nothing else did that season !

 

[Laney Blade]

He’s a good man who did a bad job. Adkins is undeserving of many of the scathing attacks he gets.

Yes Billy had no hesitation when signing for NA for the 3rd time. NA & Billy had a special rapport because they are both intelligent.