The Scale of the Task

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robbiez666

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I think, as the season's progressed, we're quickly becoming aware of the scale of the task Adkins has on his hands.

When he took the job, he must have looked at the team on paper and thought he had some good players who he could easily tweak to go for promotion. Add the fact that we have wealthy owners who had committed and promised to invest in the team.

What he's found is a team in complete disarray behind the scenes. Older players who are bad influences. Young pros who are more concerned with drinking and looking good than actual football.

He came in and gave everyone a chance. You could argue that the coaching staff already at the club should have done more if a culture already existed at the club. Assuming they weren't part of the problem.

He had clearly been told that money would be made available but saw his attempts in summer and January frustrated. It looks as though he was lied to by the Board (or at least 'mispromised' if he was told by Jim). He's tried to massage the wage bill by shipping the odd player out but then struggled to bring people in. He looks to have lost patience and shipped all the troublemakers out that he possibly could. The only ones who have been successful at all have been McNulty (who's clearly a dickhead) and Dimao (but it's early days).

He's now down to a very bare bones squad and results have suffered. Some of us, including me, have questioned some of those outgoings which has left us threadbare in places but in order to get rid of a cancer you need to ensure you get all the tumour out.

There's clearly a large percentage of the squad he inherited at the start of the season who had a bad attitude, drinking culture and lacked discipline or professionalism. What kind of examples have the younger pros set for the U-18s with their shenanigans? And then there's Baxter...

As for those he's brought in:

Sammon clearly wasn't his choice
Billy has done well
Hammond has added little on the pitch but I'm guessing much of the rationale of loaning him was to try and address those problems behind the scenes.
Woolford was clearly signed as cheap cover for Murphy
Edgar has been mixed but I feel he was never one of his first choices but the desperate need for a CB forced his hand
Baptiste is obviously a quality player coming back from a bad injury. It was a gamble but again I think he's been restricted with the funds he's had to work with.

There's a lot of people calling for Adkins to be sacked but I think it's important to look at the scale of the task he's had on his hands and not just where we are in the table and the results.

Its fairly clear until we eradicate the rot within the club we'll never progress.
 



I think, as the season's progressed, we're quickly becoming aware of the scale of the task Adkins has on his hands.

When he took the job, he must have looked at the team on paper and thought he had some good players who he could easily tweak to go for promotion. Add the fact that we have wealthy owners who had committed and promised to invest in the team.

What he's found is a team in complete disarray behind the scenes. Older players who are bad influences. Young pros who are more concerned with drinking and looking good than actual football.

He came in and gave everyone a chance. You could argue that the coaching staff already at the club should have done more if a culture already existed at the club. Assuming they weren't part of the problem.

He had clearly been told that money would be made available but saw his attempts in summer and January frustrated. It looks as though he was lied to by the Board (or at least 'mispromised' if he was told by Jim). He's tried to massage the wage bill by shipping the odd player out but then struggled to bring people in. He looks to have lost patience and shipped all the troublemakers out that he possibly could. The only ones who have been successful at all have been McNulty (who's clearly a dickhead) and Dimao (but it's early days).

He's now down to a very bare bones squad and results have suffered. Some of us, including me, have questioned some of those outgoings which has left us threadbare in places but in order to get rid of a cancer you need to ensure you get all the tumour out.

There's clearly a large percentage of the squad he inherited at the start of the season who had a bad attitude, drinking culture and lacked discipline or professionalism. What kind of examples have the younger pros set for the U-18s with their shenanigans? And then there's Baxter...

As for those he's brought in:

Sammon clearly wasn't his choice
Billy has done well
Hammond has added little on the pitch but I'm guessing much of the rationale of loaning him was to try and address those problems behind the scenes.
Woolford was clearly signed as cheap cover for Murphy
Edgar has been mixed but I feel he was never one of his first choices but the desperate need for a CB forced his hand
Baptiste is obviously a quality player coming back from a bad injury. It was a gamble but again I think he's been restricted with the funds he's had to work with.

There's a lot of people calling for Adkins to be sacked but I think it's important to look at the scale of the task he's had on his hands and not just where we are in the table and the results.

Its fairly clear until we eradicate the rot within the club we'll never progress.

The scale of task and to eradicate the problems is made worst , as Adkins has created a number of problems directly himself. Hope the bloke does succeed more so for us than for him . The bloke is becoming harder to have any empathy with . He has done absolutely nowt to not get the sack , and we have got worst not better. , but let's stick with him because I am sure he will resolve all issues and get us promoted. How can we doubt him.

UTB
 
I think, as the season's progressed, we're quickly becoming aware of the scale of the task Adkins has on his hands.

When he took the job, he must have looked at the team on paper and thought he had some good players who he could easily tweak to go for promotion. Add the fact that we have wealthy owners who had committed and promised to invest in the team.

What he's found is a team in complete disarray behind the scenes. Older players who are bad influences. Young pros who are more concerned with drinking and looking good than actual football.

He came in and gave everyone a chance. You could argue that the coaching staff already at the club should have done more if a culture already existed at the club. Assuming they weren't part of the problem.

He had clearly been told that money would be made available but saw his attempts in summer and January frustrated. It looks as though he was lied to by the Board (or at least 'mispromised' if he was told by Jim). He's tried to massage the wage bill by shipping the odd player out but then struggled to bring people in. He looks to have lost patience and shipped all the troublemakers out that he possibly could. The only ones who have been successful at all have been McNulty (who's clearly a dickhead) and Dimao (but it's early days).

He's now down to a very bare bones squad and results have suffered. Some of us, including me, have questioned some of those outgoings which has left us threadbare in places but in order to get rid of a cancer you need to ensure you get all the tumour out.

There's clearly a large percentage of the squad he inherited at the start of the season who had a bad attitude, drinking culture and lacked discipline or professionalism. What kind of examples have the younger pros set for the U-18s with their shenanigans? And then there's Baxter...

As for those he's brought in:

Sammon clearly wasn't his choice
Billy has done well
Hammond has added little on the pitch but I'm guessing much of the rationale of loaning him was to try and address those problems behind the scenes.
Woolford was clearly signed as cheap cover for Murphy
Edgar has been mixed but I feel he was never one of his first choices but the desperate need for a CB forced his hand
Baptiste is obviously a quality player coming back from a bad injury. It was a gamble but again I think he's been restricted with the funds he's had to work with.

There's a lot of people calling for Adkins to be sacked but I think it's important to look at the scale of the task he's had on his hands and not just where we are in the table and the results.

Its fairly clear until we eradicate the rot within the club we'll never progress.

I'm inclined to agree with most of what you've said here mate.

Although I think NA should have been able to get an accurate assessment of the squads glaring, long standing deficiencies a lot quicker than he did ........ which suggests that from a very early stage he was not able to bring in players until culling had occurred.

A review of last seasons dvd's would have told him most of what he has taken 6 months to find out by trial and error.

Hopefully, the retained list in the summer will be a very short one; personally, I would retain Long, Brayford, Adams and Sharp and the rest can be released or be told in may "get your agent to find you a new Club as you're not in the plans" !!

He can then bring in around 12 / 14 new players of better quality and consistency to add to these 4, plus the youngsters and start fresh next season.

Lets just hope the "ambitious" board offer more tangible support to him next year than they did this season .........

UTB & FTP
 
I think if you look at the squad now and put your hand on your heart and ask have they got it to improve a notch to get us promoted?

I'd say there's only the youngsters that could maybe improve enough !

Which won't be enough to up the levels next year.

These are worrying times.
 
I'd be interested to know if 'fully assessing the squad' and 'giving everyone a chance' was an excuse to cover lack of finances and attempt to encourage squad players to show him what they could do. We've had several different excuses since but it could all have started there.

I would add Done to your list and maybe J-Mac as a squad player.
 
we've gone backwards since Adkins arrived. he originally had the same players at his disposal as Clough who got us to the playoffs? players in
hammond .. old crock
baptiste.. crock
woolford.. old .. crap
sammon .. crap
edgar.. ok
billy.. good but didn't actually need a striker?

not good reading
 
we've gone backwards since Adkins arrived. he originally had the same players at his disposal as Clough who got us to the playoffs? players in
hammond .. old crock
baptiste.. crock
woolford.. old .. crap
sammon .. crap
edgar.. ok
billy.. good but didn't actually need a striker?

not good reading

Didn't need a striker? Wow that's really clutching at straws just to have a dig at Adkins!!! We've been crying out for a 20+ goal a season man since you know who...

The majority are loan signings and it's always a risk to sign ones who are 1) not crocks or 2) who are going to actually give a shit when the going gets tough.

He's been left high and dry by the board. He's had no money to spend on perm signings, he's had to get rid of shit players and bad influences in the squad. With so many players heading for the exit they simply don't give a shit, promotion or not they know they're going, and he's struggled. But hopefully he gets to make signings in the summer to replace the dross accumulated by his predecessors and we have players who actually want to be here and fight for him, for us and ultimately for promotion to prove themselves in a higher division.

It's hard to defend I'll admit but we were the ones calling for him so let's look at the bigger picture and back him.
 
Didn't need a striker? Wow that's really clutching at straws just to have a dig at Adkins!!! We've been crying out for a 20+ goal a season man since you know who...
more importantly we've been crying out for a CB since Harry left.. that should have been prio 1 IMHO
 
we've gone backwards since Adkins arrived. he originally had the same players at his disposal as Clough who got us to the playoffs? players in
hammond .. old crock
baptiste.. crock
woolford.. old .. crap
sammon .. crap
edgar.. ok
billy.. good but didn't actually need a striker?

not good reading
Agree we have gone backwards with Adkins - incredibly given we were bad enough under Clough - but I do think Sharp and Baptiste are decent signings - and we definitely did need a striker. Edgar is average but the other signings have been very poor.
 
There is not the money available to rebuild this squad in one summer, people better get that idea out of their heads.

This is a two to three season process starting from May onwards and the powers that be better decide sharpish whether they think Adkins is the right man and stick with him.

If they don't think he's the right man get it over with and make a move for someone else ASAP.
 
I'd be interested to know if 'fully assessing the squad' and 'giving everyone a chance' was an excuse to cover lack of finances and attempt to encourage squad players to show him what they could do. We've had several different excuses since but it could all have started there.

I would add Done to your list and maybe J-Mac as a squad player.
I think he was told he had to work with the existing players and probably assured by the likes of Brannigan that they were good enough (he's hardly likely to admit to signing a pile of shit is he?).
I'm concerned that he's now had enough and is getting a bit Micky Adams 'play for me or fuck off'. If he's not careful he's going to piss off the few decent characters at the club and sign his own P45.
 
I think, as the season's progressed, we're quickly becoming aware of the scale of the task Adkins has on his hands.

When he took the job, he must have looked at the team on paper and thought he had some good players who he could easily tweak to go for promotion. Add the fact that we have wealthy owners who had committed and promised to invest in the team.

What he's found is a team in complete disarray behind the scenes. Older players who are bad influences. Young pros who are more concerned with drinking and looking good than actual football.

He came in and gave everyone a chance. You could argue that the coaching staff already at the club should have done more if a culture already existed at the club. Assuming they weren't part of the problem.

He had clearly been told that money would be made available but saw his attempts in summer and January frustrated. It looks as though he was lied to by the Board (or at least 'mispromised' if he was told by Jim). He's tried to massage the wage bill by shipping the odd player out but then struggled to bring people in. He looks to have lost patience and shipped all the troublemakers out that he possibly could. The only ones who have been successful at all have been McNulty (who's clearly a dickhead) and Dimao (but it's early days).

He's now down to a very bare bones squad and results have suffered. Some of us, including me, have questioned some of those outgoings which has left us threadbare in places but in order to get rid of a cancer you need to ensure you get all the tumour out.

There's clearly a large percentage of the squad he inherited at the start of the season who had a bad attitude, drinking culture and lacked discipline or professionalism. What kind of examples have the younger pros set for the U-18s with their shenanigans? And then there's Baxter...

As for those he's brought in:

Sammon clearly wasn't his choice
Billy has done well
Hammond has added little on the pitch but I'm guessing much of the rationale of loaning him was to try and address those problems behind the scenes.
Woolford was clearly signed as cheap cover for Murphy
Edgar has been mixed but I feel he was never one of his first choices but the desperate need for a CB forced his hand
Baptiste is obviously a quality player coming back from a bad injury. It was a gamble but again I think he's been restricted with the funds he's had to work with.

There's a lot of people calling for Adkins to be sacked but I think it's important to look at the scale of the task he's had on his hands and not just where we are in the table and the results.

Its fairly clear until we eradicate the rot within the club we'll never progress.

100% correct.

Sadly, mob rule is starting to dictate that it's all Adkins fault and Clough was great and only Warnock can save us.

Adkins will be driven out by the years end if not well before, and he'll prove that he's a good manager with a good club that's not riddled with cunts like ours.
 



more importantly we've been crying out for a CB since Harry left.. that should have been prio 1 IMHO

We needed a GK, CB, wingers with pace, 20goal Striker.

Thanks to our owners we haven't replaced any of the quality we've lost over our time in league 1 whether that be maguire, Murphy, McDonald, Quinn, Evans. Its now down to the board to give Adkins a reasonable wage bill and kitty to rebuild in the summer.
 
We needed a GK, CB, wingers with pace, 20goal Striker.

Thanks to our owners we haven't replaced any of the quality we've lost over our time in league 1 whether that be maguire, Murphy, McDonald, Quinn, Evans. Its now down to the board to give Adkins a reasonable wage bill and kitty to rebuild in the summer.
totally agree. IMO a cb was higher prio than a cf that's all
 
the powers that be better decide sharpish whether they think Adkins is the right man and stick with him.

If they don't think he's the right man get it over with and make a move for someone else ASAP.

This is the biggest issue facing us at the moment I fully belive the board is split and can't decide what to do on Adkins, it's affecting everything from the budget to the season ticket renewals, to the retained list.

They need to sort it, for me I am becoming convinced he is not the right man.
 
As pointed out several times, but several people, no he didn't.
yes he did.. other than murphy who was NOT the world beater that he has miraculously morphed into and Holt and Davies who were universally regarded as shite. so they don't count for anything.
i was all for getting rid of clough. but this guy is even worse.
 
And if we'd done that the same people would be saying a striker should have been priority number one.
pure speculation. i lost count of the number of people saying we need a CB fast. Not one person said we needed a cf
anyway the guy is all talk and management bullshit. if he signs hammond i'm going to flounce and watch the meltdown from a distance. end.
 
We actually have a manager who has proved he can do it, lets at least give the bloke a fucking chance before we write him completely off. He might not be pulling any trees up but Houdini would struggle with some of our so called professionals.
 
We actually have a manager who has proved he can do it, lets at least give the bloke a fucking chance before we write him completely off. He might not be pulling any trees up but Houdini would struggle with some of our so called professionals.
that was years ago though?? has he still got it??
 
yes he did.. other than murphy who was NOT the world beater that he has miraculously morphed into and Holt and Davies who were universally regarded as shite. so they don't count for anything.
i was all for getting rid of clough. but this guy is even worse.

So he had the same squad, expect the players you name as they don't count?
 
So he had the same squad, expect the players you name as they don't count?
christ on a bike. you know what i am saying . they didn't contribute fuck all anyway..perhaps murphy one game in five.
anyone would think we'd shipped out Pogba, Messi and Ronaldo
 
that was years ago though?? has he still got it??
We won't know until he's better equipped with more resources. Another manager will get less money than him due to paying him off so lets back Adkins.
 
i'll back him if he doesn't sign hammond.
Funnily enough, I said the same on another thread, surely he can't!

We can ill afford to sack him now, that would set us back further than we can ever imagine imho.
 



I think, as the season's progressed, we're quickly becoming aware of the scale of the task Adkins has on his hands.

When he took the job, he must have looked at the team on paper and thought he had some good players who he could easily tweak to go for promotion. Add the fact that we have wealthy owners who had committed and promised to invest in the team.

What he's found is a team in complete disarray behind the scenes. Older players who are bad influences. Young pros who are more concerned with drinking and looking good than actual football.

He came in and gave everyone a chance. You could argue that the coaching staff already at the club should have done more if a culture already existed at the club. Assuming they weren't part of the problem.

He had clearly been told that money would be made available but saw his attempts in summer and January frustrated. It looks as though he was lied to by the Board (or at least 'mispromised' if he was told by Jim). He's tried to massage the wage bill by shipping the odd player out but then struggled to bring people in. He looks to have lost patience and shipped all the troublemakers out that he possibly could. The only ones who have been successful at all have been McNulty (who's clearly a dickhead) and Dimao (but it's early days).

He's now down to a very bare bones squad and results have suffered. Some of us, including me, have questioned some of those outgoings which has left us threadbare in places but in order to get rid of a cancer you need to ensure you get all the tumour out.

There's clearly a large percentage of the squad he inherited at the start of the season who had a bad attitude, drinking culture and lacked discipline or professionalism. What kind of examples have the younger pros set for the U-18s with their shenanigans? And then there's Baxter...

As for those he's brought in:

Sammon clearly wasn't his choice
Billy has done well
Hammond has added little on the pitch but I'm guessing much of the rationale of loaning him was to try and address those problems behind the scenes.
Woolford was clearly signed as cheap cover for Murphy
Edgar has been mixed but I feel he was never one of his first choices but the desperate need for a CB forced his hand
Baptiste is obviously a quality player coming back from a bad injury. It was a gamble but again I think he's been restricted with the funds he's had to work with.

There's a lot of people calling for Adkins to be sacked but I think it's important to look at the scale of the task he's had on his hands and not just where we are in the table and the results.

Its fairly clear until we eradicate the rot within the club we'll never progress.
If he was so easily misled, it makes me realise the extent of his naivety and overall incompetence.
 

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