Tony Adams’ appointment as Portsmouth manager, initially on a two-year contract, has failed to impress bookmakers who haven’t hesitated in cutting the South Coast club’s odds for relegation from the Premiership this season, despite a reasonable start to the campaign.
Pompey are now as low as 14-1 with Skybet for the drop with the new man in charge’s lack of experience regarded as a major negative along with rumours that many of Portsmouth’s big names will be following their former boss to Tottenham in the transfer window. The former Arsenal and England captain’s only previous spell in the managerial hot-seat was at Wycombe Wanderers five years ago, where his tenure ended with his side having only won 12 out of 53 games, and Adams‘ reign at Fratton Park got off to a losing start at Liverpool on Wednesday.
Adams, 11-4 with both VCBet and Bet365 to see out the season, will be anxious to buck the trend of underachievement that has plagued previous promoted number twos. Not even several years of learning the ropes under Sir Alex Ferguson helped Brian Kidd or, some would argue, Steve Maclaren, while Carlos Queiroz has found it tough to inspire Portugal in Worl d Cup qualification so far. Sammy Lee also failed to impress when making the jump from coach to manager, though I do remember a certain Bob Paisley didn’t do a bad job when taking over from the legendary Bill Shankly at Liverpool!
Harry Redkanpp performed wonders at Portsmouth and is clearly going to be a tough act to follow.
Betting for next March’s Champion Hurdle has perked up a bit of late with plenty of support coming in for Crack Away Jack. The four-year-old’s impressive Chepstow success was franked by runner-up Squadron‘s win at Aintree and, coupled with Katchit‘s eclipse on his reappearance, Emma Lavelle‘s stable star, reportedly set to go to Ascot next on November 22nd, is now a best priced 8-1 with Paddy Power for the hurdling blue riband.
