Note to Thomas Sandgaard

Dear Thomas,

Woke up this morning and Nigel Adkins is still manager. Why? After the shambles of the last two months you must have made contingency plans for him to be replaced in the event of another howling performance. You must have told him results have to improve and they haven't. More than that, the performances are worse than the results. So why didn't you fire him last night? He simply isn't going to turn a corner and we risk things getting worse, if that's possible.

We are third bottom of the third division of English football. Our lowest resident position in our history just in case that's escaped you. Fans are clamouring for Adkins to be replaced and whilst I am in strong agreement, you have to act now to address both the on-field and off-field issues because addressing one without the other risks not making us sustainably better. 

I don't need to tell you the consequences of a relegation-battle season, let alone actual relegation. Season ticket numbers would halve as would merchandise sales. Supporters buy hospitality when they feel good about their club. They tend not to buy when watching matches is painful and embarrassing. So you really need to walk the walk and be decisive.

On-field

These are blatantly obvious to anyone who follows the club and has been watching games this season. I have seen them all and there are common themes;

Formation - Nigel Adkins may have a favoured style of play (4-3-3?) but we have been hopeless when we have tried to play it. It clearly doesn't suit our players but he has persevered and so have the defeats. He did switch notably to a 4-4-2 when we beat Crewe. It might be that Crewe are just not great but we looked more solid, even if the victory wasn't convincing. The problem appears to be the midfield where, in spite of whomever he picks and whatever tinkering he does around 4-3-3, we are a distant second-best. No midfield combination have been able to dictate play. We have really struggled to find our wingers in space or anyone up front. Most of the time they lose possession playing forward so play backwards under pressure far too often. This is the manager's responsibility to fix.

Negativity - the habit of passing back from midfield has meant that our back four have seen more of the ball this season than anyone else. Not only that, but we have the coached mentality of always playing out from the back. Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea do this to great effect and are a joy to watch. However, in this league and with the players we have, it has become a serious vulnerability when you don't have the personnel in midfield to do it. Goalkeeper to centre-half to centre-half or full back. By this time the opposition have pushed up. We eventually play it forward and with a relentless monotony, whoever picks it up is under pressure and either can't turn upfield or doesn't want to risk it, so returns it and the cycle continues. It's desperate to watch and hardly surprising we struggle to keep a clean sheet when the ball spends so much time in our defensive third. This is the manager's responsibility to fix.

Individual responsibility - I expect professional footballers to have a responsibility when they play for you. In return for the privileged working conditions you expect them to show for you on match days. You expect graft, commitment and ambition. You hope for more and you want to see them excel. You want players aiming to be the best they can. Players who may attract a bigger move and more success. I'm not being unrealistic here, even in League One, but this current squad has too many passengers. In far too many games we have players disappearing for long spells. Hardly getting a touch and content not to be involved. This is a motivational and managerial issue. Adkins has chopped and changed freely but he's back where Lee Bowyer was in the sense that every three games a player comes back into the side and too often there's no improvement. I'd name names but we all know who the guilty ones are and there are far too many of them. It's as if the players aren't that bothered.

Set-pieces - far too often this season we have been caught out by opponents taking quick corners, free-kicks or throw-ins. Very simply, our players seem to think they have far more time than they have and no-one seems to have learnt the lesson. If they can be coached to play our relentlessly from the back, they can be coached to be on their toes at set pieces. When we get them we aren't much better. Throw-ins are embarrassing. Yesterday was a classic - Souare got a throw-in well into their half. By the time he was ready to take it their players had picked the three or four of ours up. None of ours moved, no-one came running it for an option. Souare dithered and eventually had to take the shortest throw for a return pass which left him under pressure and once again he turned back and the ball was eventually played to MacGillivray. This wasn't a one-off yesterday and has been happening all season. It's as if the players aren't really that bothered.

Continuity - this is critical to the success of a season. You need to instill confidence in your side and build on results. You can't win every game but when you do, it's vital to build on that for the next game and aim to get your players to use that mind-set to get a sequence going. We have only won twice this season and have performed very poorly following each win. This is the manager's responsibility but it's also as if the players aren't really that bothered.

In summary then, we need a new manager now. I would also go as far as to say we need someone with something about them who will sort out the men from the boys. Those who want to be winners and those who are not really that bothered. I don't care if we have only just signed them or how long their contracts are. If they aren't good enough or really aren't that bothered, they need to stop being picked and moved on.

Off-field

Leadership - this is harder for supporters to gauge but we are a small club with a unique set of supporters, some of whom have held senior positions at the club in the past and who are still well-connected with club employees, many of whom are also keen supporters. All the chatter suggests all is not well within the club on a day-to-day-level despite what impression you are being left with when you visit. The club is desperate for an experienced Chief Exec who can galvanise day-to-day decision-making and provide leadership across the club. This is too important to do part-time from Colorado.

Recruitment - it is becoming more obvious by the week that this Summer's recruitment was a disaster. There seems to be an acknowledgment by all now that waiting until the season had started to finish off our recruitment was a glaring mistake. Banking on picking up hungry Premier League youngsters ended up with Lee and Arter and a panic buy in Leko. It may be that Premier League clubs saw the appalling start we had and decided their starlets would be better off at a club that wasn't struggling at the wrong end of the table. We have had a hitherto decent recruitment track record lead by Steve Gallen and our manager of the day. However, the current crop have been under-whelming and fans are left wondering what anyone could see in some of them. Time will tell but have we regressed somehow? Is there an over-reliance on player stats in a league where heart and soul are as important as percentages? Has the manager had too little say in the choice or negotiation of players contracts? Does he have players he would rather not - it looks like it? Are all the players playing for him - it doesn't look like it?

We need some honesty here. The club has closed ranks and presented a united front on these issues but the truth will out and sometimes it's better to put your hand up and acknowledge you have made mistakes that you aim to rectify. 

This club has a long and proud history. We have been degraded over the last fifteen years and our standing in the game has fallen. We are now at serious risk of a new low and a position from which we would struggle to recover. This has to change and it cannot be left to wither. You need to act decisively and now.