Unlike Jackson, Dawes was not even a successful number two.
Indeed. More akin to Edwards than Jacko. And surely senior members of the squad - including players who’ve succeeded at this level and know what it takes - have started to suss him. It’s very hard to see how he can turn this around.
Totally agree with RLC on the management situation. Adkins appears like a figurehead with minimal impact on how the team is set up and plays. Danns is hard to fathom, but starting to believe he couldn't do any worse than the current incumbent.
Nor should he be, that’s firmly the manager‘s domain, albeit apparently buying into the ‘club identity’, including style of play, that Palios often says we’re striving for.
Adkins‘ role, according to the club, is to “
oversee the key football processes within the Club (recruitment, development and management) as well as acting as a mentor and advisor to manager Ian Dawes”. Same as most other technical directors. And, like most other technical directors, nobody ever knows exactly what it means!
But he definitely shouldn’t be telling Dawes what to do, or getting involved in the management of the team. Mentoring is all about influencing people’s thought processes rather than the thoughts themselves, as well as being a sounding board whenever called upon. Any failures in Dawes’ decisions are solely down to him, not Adkins; the technical director isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a shadow manager.
The two key questions for me about Adkins are (1) how much of the authority and decision-making over “
recruitment, development and management“ has Palios actually delegated to Adkins, and (2) how much of a say does Adkins have in hiring and firing a manager. They’ll tell us something about whether he’s just a figurehead or something more.
Fwiw I think we’ve already seen a change and improvement in, for example, recruitment, which might go some small way to answering (1). I also suspect we might find out the answer to (2) sooner rather than later!
Incidentally, Adkins has been doing his motivational clips on Twitter for years, I don’t think it’s part of the job description! Always felt they might be a bit too positive for the majority of our fan base!
As for Danns, I just think his profile as assistant is deliberately kept low (and especially during this difficult spell), seeing as his footballing CV and standing in the game way outstrips his gaffer’s.