Adkins relishing the challenge

Southampton are bottom of the Barclays Premier League after conceding 28 goals and suffering eight defeats in their opening 10 games.

Such performances have seen the spotlight fall on Adkins' position, despite having led the club to back-to-back promotions and enjoying vocal backing from the Saints faithful.

But despite talk of relegation and his job being on the line, Adkins remains defiantly upbeat.

"I love being the manager of Southampton," he said. "I don't like being bottom of the division but I love the situation we're in.

"You find out about yourself, you find out about other people and I want to be in the Barclays Premier League.

"I want to be a manager for a long period of time. We worked very hard to get into this situation.

"We knew that every game was going to be challenging in the Barclays Premier League. It is the toughest, most desirable league in the world.

"This is where we want to be and you know you' re going to be faced with the media speculation like that to have gone on this week.

"I must say I have not read the papers but I get told about one or two different situations.

"Every situation we are faced with is a great challenge. I love being in it and, as I said, you find out about yourself.

"I am finding out about myself and I relish this challenge, believe you me. I am looking forward to many, many years to come."

Talk has been rife that Adkins had showdown talks with executive chairman Nicola Cortese this week and that failure to beat Swansea on Saturday could see him replaced.

"Until you are actually placed in that situation, you never going to know how you will feel or react," he said of the reports. "It hasn't fazed me at all.

"Let's not hide away from the fact that in football at some stage there is always a parting of the ways between a manager and a football club.

"I am determined to be a success here at Southam pton Football Club, the chairman is determined to be a success here at Southampton Football Club so we both share the same ambition.

"What we do is we get on. There doesn't need to be any talk about it. We will be a success here."

Adkins also quashed speculation that team selection, transfers and tactics are influenced by others at the club.

"The manager of the football club picks the team," he said. "I am the manager of the football club, I pick the team.

"My objective is to win games of football. You talk about tactics, previously you've seen the different formations we've employed. We have not just employed one formation.

"We've changed formations, we've changed tactics with a desire to win a game of football. We've done that very successfully over the previous seasons and will continue to do that.

"Obviously from the structure down, we have in place a certain philosophy and a certain way of playing for the youngsters, which just gives us a framework to go and work from.

"We believe it is a good one to help the youngsters develop and learn from. From that, you can then go and change things around and that's what we've done."

Adkins is now taking his players away for a couple of days somewhere in the UK in preparation for the Swansea game. It is a move he sees as important in his bid to stop the rot.

"We're going to change it around a little bit, change the stimulus round," he said.

"I think that's important because sometimes you can be coming to groundhog day.

"We reached 10 games, we were always going to look to do that. Change the environment, change the mindset and make sure we get focused for the next game."