Adkins tasked with saving Royals

By David Lee Wheatley


Reading opt for safe pair of hands

Premier League strugglers Reading today announced the appointment of the former goalkeeper and physio Nigel Adkins as their new manager. After trying and failing to lure Gustavo Poyet from Brighton & Hove Albion, owner Anton Zingarevich has turned to the ex-Southampton boss to lead the team away from the relegation trapdoor.

Adkins garnered plenty of experience of promotion campaigns with both Scunthorpe United and Southampton in the past, but has little success to point to in terms of keeping teams up when they’ve been in trouble. Admittedly, he got sacked unfairly by Nicola Cortese earlier this season before he could prove those credentials at St. Mary’s, but lost the fight against relegation from the Championship with Scunthorpe either side of gaining promotion from League One twice.

The back-to-back promotion campaigns he led Southampton through remain his most creditable achievements so far as a manager, but keeping Reading up would rank alongside that if he were to manage the feat. The Berkshire club are seven points adrift of safety with just eight matches remaining, which leaves the Royals in about as perilous a position as they could find themselves in.

More flamboyant men such as Poyet and Paolo Di Canio were strongly linked with the top job at the Madejski, but after negotiations with former Chelsea midfielder Poyet came to no avail, the decision was made to go with the sought-after Adkins. The new man will feel for his predecessor Brian McDermott, who was fired in similar circumstances to his own on March 11; Adkins had been dismissed in January when Southampton were three points clear of the drop zone and he will see the parallels with McDermott’s situation after the former boss led Reading to promotion prior to putting them in a position to possibly stay in the top-flight after a sticky start.

Adkins will have to work with a set of players who aren’t his own and get them suitably motivated to earn a second successive season in the Premier League. Obviously, with no transfers possible at this late stage of the season, the 48-year-old won’t have the opportunity to put his stamp on the playing staff and he may find it difficult to impose his ideas on a squad desperately lacking in confidence and belief.

There’s no doubting Adkins’ ability to get his teams playing attacking and winning football at lower levels, but it may well be too big an ask for him to come in and save a sinking ship. Reading are in dire need of two or three positive results and if they aren’t able to accrue those points early on, then it’s very hard to see the blue-and-white hoops escaping demotion to the Championship once more.

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