A change is gonna' come.

Some of my best football related moments in the last two years have come courtesy of Nigel Atkins. He took over my football team, Southampton, when they were near the bottom of League One. First season in charge, he got them promoted to the Championship. Next season in charge he then got them promoted to the Premier league. "Back to back" promotions, no other Southampton manager has ever done that. In fact very few football managers have ever done that!

On Friday, because of the snow, I was working from home. During a break for coffee, I briefly checked Twitter. This tweet popped up. "Southampton Football Club has appointed Mauricio Pochettino as First Team Manager having relieved Nigel Adkins of his duties." My jaw dropped and and I mouthed "what!!!!!" I stared at the screen unable to take what I was reading in. On Wednesday night we had gone to the home of the European Champions (Chelsea) and having gone 2-0 down came back to earn a 2-2 draw. To me that was the night I felt we could rightly sing "We are Southampton, we're Premier League" and get taken seriously.

Now Saints Chairman, Nicola Cortese, has form in sacking managers. Adkins predecessor, Alan Pardew, was sacked after winning 4-0 away from home! That had been a shock, but worked out very well by his appointing Adkins. This was worse though, we had only lost 2 of our last 12 games and were 15th in the League.

Reaction to the sacking has been generally appalled at what we have done to a "good and honest manager". That's from the media and from fans of both Saints and other clubs. Everyone wishes Adkins all the best in the future and he will always be greeted like a hero at St Mary's, even if he turned up as Pompey manager.

Thank you Nigel for all the happy moments that you gave me and all other Saints fans.