Sandgaard removes Adkins
Just a little over 7 months after Nigel Adkins arrived via a Zoom call and talk of Premier League ambitions, Thomas Sandgaard closed the chapter on Adkins’ Charlton managerial career last night with us sat in a League One relegation place.
Adkins’ sacking was a long time coming and as nice a guy that he is unfortunately he has shown that his methods of coaching and man-management are outdated. For all of the arm around the shoulder and fireside positivity chatter, we are 13 games into a season with no clear system or identity with players being rotated game by game, each one as unfit and disorientated and as the other, and suddenly relegation to the fourth tier a daunting threat.
Adkins was an underwhelming appointment to begin with and never grabbed the imagination of fans, and although connectivity was difficult with empty stadiums, I never sensed a mutual warm affection between the two.
Mind your, we are a funny lot, we talk of new managers that have no connection with the club and they show up and we don’t accept them. I’ll give you Mullery, Dowie, Slade, Robinson and a host of Belgians.
Adkins does deserve some credit for reshaping and providing organization and structure last season to get us close to the play-off’s. Ironic really that those traits have abandoned him.
To get there Adkins had us playing a long ball game that wasn’t easy on the eye, but needs were must and he talked fondly of a future of the high press with a fast-paced attacking young team. We never witnessed even a tiny piece of that, let alone us emulating a Hull City team that won the league title at The Valley on the final day.
I don’t hold Adkins solely responsible for what has been a disastrous opening few months to the season as the structure that Sandgaard had him working in looks flawed to me, and there needs to be some serious improvement from many players to make our summer recruitment look anymore than just panic buying with no plan and too many cooks.
Farewell Nigel and keep up the walking and positivity. We move on to a new chapter with Thomas promising to give caretaker Johnnie Jackson some time to put some sort of order and spirit into what has become a large rag tag group of players.
Is Jacko part of the problem or a breath of fresh air? We will see, but one thing is for sure, there won’t be any lacking of a fan and manager alliance.
Chicago Addick 
The turn around from the last ten matches of the previous season to the start of this campaign has ben stark. Last season, one loss from those ten games under Adkins and the pay-offs missed on GD, this year, eight defeats. I would have expected to see around eight defeats all season, not in the first 13 games.
Where did it go wrong? The team rebuilding was objectively a shambles – too few players joined in the summer and we relied on the last few days of the window to fill the squad making our start to the season slow. There were reports of Roddy, Gallen, Adkins and Sandgaard plus a few others (maybe JJ and Jason Euell) getting involved and clearly not all were on the same page. That looks reasonably credible but it doesn’t excuse the lack of fitness, the constant tinkering with line-ups and experimenting with formations and the lacklustre football that we have seen. Whatever the recruitment issues Adkins was in charge for those games and he can’t complain about a lengthy injury list – we’ve only lost Ryan Inniss to a long-term injury since the season kicked off. Other excuses – covid etc were ones that affected other clubs. As the manager the buck stops at his desk, he ultimately decides who plays, the formation and strategy as well as the timing of substitutes and in game tweaks to the set up. Perhaps football has moved on from his last manager’s gig and League One with its constant high-press in your face physical style of football didn’t suit what he was used to.
Maybe also TS erred in appointing a new manager too quickly after Bow left and his comments about giving JJ and Euell some time suggest that this time he wants to carefully consider all options before making a decision on who replaces Adkins.
Good luck to JJ, Sunderland away is a tough start for him, but expectations are low and I hope realistic. Anything we get out of the game other than a hefty defeat and a couple of red cards will be a bonus and then we have Doncaster lined up.
The Taxi finally arrived for Nigel and I can only guess the delay was due to the fuel shortage.
Jacko and Jason will turn the team around and I will again be happy I have a season ticket.
I agree with your Managers with no connection to the club but I did like Alan Mullery before he jumped ship.I remember at the start of the season a young youth team centre forward was put straight into the team at centre half. Paul Elliot , remember him.
Paul Elliot was my favourite player.
I liked Mullery too and thought we played some good football and did well under him. Mullery left simply because Glikstein wouldn’t give him the funds to buy Archie Gemmill who he saw as the final piece of the jigsaw.
Maybe I was being unfair of Mullery. I was just a kid but rather ironically I was copied in on this photo on Twitter today/
Some great faces there including ‘who’s that scoring goals Martin, Martin Robinson’.
Two things concern me even with Adkins gone and they are 1) how much say did the Manager have on transfers regarding Individual players, considering there was a 4 member panel, and comments on the radio by Thomas that some of the squad are still not up to fitness yet.
I would hope Thomas would now keep an open mind and speak to Varney, who I think is the one person that can give him proper guidance on the running of the club.
I’d much rather he spoke to Curbs.
I hope so Ken. Why would TS look a gift horse in the mouth. Curbs is right there.