Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
How thin is the line that divides success from failure? Size zero model thin, if you're Tony Adams. With five minutes remaining in Portsmouth's weekend clash with Liverpool, the former Arsenal defender seemed to have turned the corner. His side were leading the title contenders and powering out of the relegation zone when two catastrophic errors by two of his most experienced players cost him the game and subsequently, late on Sunday night, his job.
Adams never stood a chance. Just like Alain Perrin and Velimir Zajec before him, he found that replacing Harry Redknapp was an impossible task. With an FA Cup win and two top ten finishes, how could the Portsmouth job be anything other than a poisoned chalice? The Tottenham manager has a reputation for lifting players above their natural levels and of buoying up struggling dressing rooms with a bit of cockney bonhomie and banter. Adams has a history of visionary charity work, French poetry and the piano. But contrasting personalities were not the only reason for his downfall.
The money that had allowed Redknapp to rebuild his side from the one that so nearly went down in 2006 had vanished and Portsmouth are not a team who can lose two key players lightly. David Nugent, the forgotten man of Fratton Park, was putting in a fine shift attempting to replace the goals of Jermain Defoe, but there was no-one to even come close to the ball-winning tenacity of Lassana Diarra. The departure of Sulley Muntari in the summer had already hurt Portsmouth and the insistence on continuing to field the elderly Nwankwo Kanu shows just how parlous the situation had become. Without further investment, Adams was doomed to see his squad slowly dismantled in front of him.
In a way, he always seemed too nice, too intelligent for such a job. As anyone who has read his book 'Addicted' will know, he has a slightly different perspective on fame than his contemporaries. Adams was an alcoholic, imprisoned for drink driving. He would drink for hours and then black out, wetting the bed in the process. He recovered and put his own money into Sporting Chance, a clinic for troubled sportsmen and women. In a search for something to replace the booze, he threw himself into music, literature, languages, anything that would stretch his brain. His press conferences are a strange mixture of evangelical honesty and pseudo-psychological soundbites, like a sermon from a modernising vicar. Did the players 'get' him? Did they understand what made him tick, or did they just laugh whenever he left the room, quoting him snidely to each other? If they did, it's their loss. Here was a man who could teach them more than just how to win a header.
In sacking their manager one week after the transfer window slammed shut, Portsmouth have put themselves in a dangerous situation. Whoever comes in now, be it Avram Grant or Alan Curbishley, their hands will be tied. They will struggle on with the same under-performing side that cost Adams his job. They will be forced to find a way to stiffen up the midfield without spending any money and they will have to ask Sylvain Distin and Sol Campbell just what in the name of God has happened to their form. Adams, a good man with a lot to give the game, is better off out of it.
Adams never stood a chance. Just like Alain Perrin and Velimir Zajec before him, he found that replacing Harry Redknapp was an impossible task. With an FA Cup win and two top ten finishes, how could the Portsmouth job be anything other than a poisoned chalice? The Tottenham manager has a reputation for lifting players above their natural levels and of buoying up struggling dressing rooms with a bit of cockney bonhomie and banter. Adams has a history of visionary charity work, French poetry and the piano. But contrasting personalities were not the only reason for his downfall.
The money that had allowed Redknapp to rebuild his side from the one that so nearly went down in 2006 had vanished and Portsmouth are not a team who can lose two key players lightly. David Nugent, the forgotten man of Fratton Park, was putting in a fine shift attempting to replace the goals of Jermain Defoe, but there was no-one to even come close to the ball-winning tenacity of Lassana Diarra. The departure of Sulley Muntari in the summer had already hurt Portsmouth and the insistence on continuing to field the elderly Nwankwo Kanu shows just how parlous the situation had become. Without further investment, Adams was doomed to see his squad slowly dismantled in front of him.
In a way, he always seemed too nice, too intelligent for such a job. As anyone who has read his book 'Addicted' will know, he has a slightly different perspective on fame than his contemporaries. Adams was an alcoholic, imprisoned for drink driving. He would drink for hours and then black out, wetting the bed in the process. He recovered and put his own money into Sporting Chance, a clinic for troubled sportsmen and women. In a search for something to replace the booze, he threw himself into music, literature, languages, anything that would stretch his brain. His press conferences are a strange mixture of evangelical honesty and pseudo-psychological soundbites, like a sermon from a modernising vicar. Did the players 'get' him? Did they understand what made him tick, or did they just laugh whenever he left the room, quoting him snidely to each other? If they did, it's their loss. Here was a man who could teach them more than just how to win a header.
In sacking their manager one week after the transfer window slammed shut, Portsmouth have put themselves in a dangerous situation. Whoever comes in now, be it Avram Grant or Alan Curbishley, their hands will be tied. They will struggle on with the same under-performing side that cost Adams his job. They will be forced to find a way to stiffen up the midfield without spending any money and they will have to ask Sylvain Distin and Sol Campbell just what in the name of God has happened to their form. Adams, a good man with a lot to give the game, is better off out of it.
