Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier has paid tribute to sacked manager Nigel Adkins.

Adkins led the club to two successive promotions prior to the current season.

Le Tissier said: "We have lost just two in 12 in the Premier League and looked like a team that had turned the corner, and now everything is turned upside-down again.

"The fans are very appreciative of what Nigel has done. He is very, very well regarded among the players and supporters and sadly for him there was only one man who thought he wasn't doing a good job.

"The strangest thing about it all for me was...he brings the new manager in about a minute after he sacked Nigel and then he hangs the new manager out to dry at a press conference on his own, which I thought was an incredibly cowardly thing to do.

"If he's going to make those decisions surely he owes it to the fans to sit there and explain his decision, but he wasn't brave enough to do that."