Fritigern was a great general, but the same cant be said of valens.

Here is a resumé of the battle:

Adrianople, the romans initially had a good grip against the Goths (surprise attacks, ambushes and other tactics of guerrilla warfare) but it was also clear that the goths were much more tougher than the other "traditional" german opponents and much more organiced. The romans fought them using their strategy of containment and attritionwar, who worked initially quite well, but that alone could not lead to the victory. A decisive battle was needed and here we come to Adrianople.

Emperor Valent management of the battle was disastrous, he underestimated grossly the Goths numerically (also due to bad inteligence work) since he outnumbered them he dreamed of a fast victorious and easy battle.
He pushed hes troops to hard, with incredibly long marches (under the hot sun) without pauses and almust no food and water.
This contrast with the traditional roman way of fighting always with fresh troops, so when the soldiers arrived at the decised point they were exsausted.
The organisation of the roman formation was exagerately disorganiced, there were almust no reserve collum ( traditional roman strategy ) and there were to much space between the wings.

When the gothic cavalry charged the left wing, the roman formation was not entirely deployed, so the roman cavalry just as the infantry was cought at surprise and without sufficent reserves to support them they were easely defeated.

The romans in other words were cought with their pants down, all the best soldier valent had did their best, but they were all sl*ghtered. The lanciarii and the mattiaci fought to the last, but they couldn change the situation.
The romans apparently lost the battle because they didnt employ the common roman way of formation and manovre. They were disorganiced, confused, exsausted, slow and undisciplined, many units charged the goths (especially the promontori and the sagittari)at their own initiative (and they were easely defeated)...breaking their formation and leaving the entire area vulnerable to Goth initiative.

Ammianus describe the battle wery well, the roman was charged from all sides and sourronded could not manovre, they kept stand uintil it was humanely possible. Many dyed from both sides, included emperator Valent, hit by a arrow (say some) or burned alive in a house were he was trying to hide (say others).

Adrianople was a masterpiece of incompetence and disorganitation. if the romans were fighting in their traditional way of order and discipline, the disaster would probably not be roman but goth (or both).

When do we have a ZAMA or ALESIA day? ;)

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