Brian, much as I'm still gutted to have lost him, built his team around fast countering play to the wings, very attack minded at the expense of defence (eg Harte!). That worked but we were obviously found out in the Prem where massive weaknesses were exposed: 1) lack of possession as we'd pump the ball up but just lose it and b) leaky 'defence'
Yes ok Adkins may not have stamped a definite formation and definite starting lineup but he has addressed major problems first and foremost. At the end of last season and over preseason he's clearly addressed the possession problem. And lately he seems to have made some changes to how we play to give us some clean sheets.
No matter how good you are at scoring if you lose the ball and have a leaky defence you won't succeed in the PL as Arsenal taught us.
Adkins has sorted these out (or is trying) ASAP. That to me is direction and a plan. We may not have sorted out the final third or the midfield or our best formation/ starters or even finalised our personnel yet but to me these two issues were our biggest. I'd almost much rather sort these out and have a firm basis upon which to build.
Compare that to Rodgers who didn't seem to achieve anything other than an infinite "preseason" trying every formation from his bumper book of tactics with every possible permutation of players. Adkins is identifying problems and achieving stuff.
Just for discussion really... But my humble opinion is that Adkins deserves credit for what he's achieving so far. Wait for it to click with the right personnel and we'll have a passing, possession keeping, tight defenced team that eventually learns to score. It ain't pretty so far, but once the foundations are built just wait
