Many Leeds fans thought Nigel Adkins was the best option of those managers we could realistically bring in to replace Neil Warnock, but today it was confirmed that he is on his way to Reading.
Adkins has a proven track record in the second and third levels of English football, having secured promotion from League One with Scunthorpe before moving to the St.Mary’s stadium. At Southampton he achieved successive promotions before his surprise sacking, when he seemed to be guiding the Saints away from the relegation positions.
It’s reported that GFH had sounded him out about the possibility of taking over as Leeds manager at the start of next season, and he was initially enthusiastic about the prospect of moving to our great club. But he wanted to be sure that he would get the backing he needed to build a promotion-winning side, and this was by no means certain with the ownership of the club thrown into uncertainty once again.
So rumours began to circulate in the last week that he was in talks with Reading, so today’s news isn’t that much of a surprise, but it’s still disappointing that a manager could go to a club like Reading instead of coming to us. But although we may think of Reading as the most boring club in the Premiership, they do at least have the advantage of a wealthy owner and the prospect of £23 million in ‘Parachute Payments’ next season if they were relegated.
So where do we go from here?