Emiatss, I think that you are giving too much credit to Cortese. The real person who saved and became to love Southampton was Markus Liebherr. Cortese basically inherited the club. Yes all owners have the right to do exactly what they wish, but surely they have to have some regard to what the paying customers think. Unless there were things going on the background that have not been made public, it would appear that the fans have lost a good manager who could do little wrong in their eyes. I did not notice great demands from them for the manager to be replaced when the team was still finding it's feet at the beginning of the season.
Frenchie, you make a lot of very fair points. I was stating how things were, not how I would like them to be. Football would be a lot better if owners worked in conjunction with fans (as in Germany), but when you look at the decisions of Abramovich, Mike Ashley and now Cortese, it just doesn't happen in England, particularly the Premier League. These owners have all the power in such decisions, the fans have none. When they stop investing, clubs fall. Happens all over Europe, look at Malaga, Hearts, and even this week it looks like Swindon may follow the same route. Problem if very few clubs turn a profit without outside funding. Therefore, all the power goes to these outside funders, and the start of a potentially slippery slope.
That will be the main problem. The layers won't respect him and probably take the mick out of the poor guy.
The whole thing is completely bizarre. I think it's one of the worst sackings in football i can recall. One does wonder if there's more to this than meets the eye.
The fact that the new manager has said he had been researching them for a while makes it look like that it was always part of Cortese's wider plan, possibly as soon as they had been promoted.
