http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mauricio-pochettinos-southampton-future-still-3196822 DTLW
Is Cortese influential in Serie A? The Mirror made that up from rumours and speculation. The voting in that article is suspect....I voted yes he would stay and it came up as 100% no!!
Couple of the big Italian clubs were after him when we were in the lower leagues. Of all the Mirror's nonsense, this scenario is probably the closest they've come to something reasonable...I can absolutely see Pochettino being recruited by one of the Italian giants, and Gracia as a potential candidate.
About a week ago I posted an incredibly downbeat post (I'm usually pretty happy clappy) about how this summer was going to be a very pivotal moment in our fortunes. I've never claimed to be remotely ITK in the past but I was told by a person that I have 100% faith in, that Pochettino would be heading out the door this Summer and to expect several player departures (and I'm not talking about players that I would be happy to see leave). The source he mentioned could not be any more iron clad, but I really can't throw the name out there. Take it as you see it, but I'm not one for pointless bullshit.
oh well, sweep the deck. not 100% convinced by pochettino in any case. hopefully if we have to lose a few players we can replace them with players who score goals.
Well the interesting thing for me is how KL will cope with a bit of a Summer meltdown. If we lose Pochettino and some key players, she (or more to the point the Chairman she appoints) will have to act quickly. Relegation would see a hell of a lot of the value of the club wiped out, and I'm pretty sure she'd be dead set against that. This ****ty spell of results we are enduring at the moment does serve a bit of a purpose for me, it demonstrates pretty well to those upstairs the fine margins between being a very decent side in this league, and being relegation fodder. Hopefully that will sink in when deciding how much of any player sales to reinvest in the next campaign.
No source, but I too would not be surprised if Poch departed, and player movement may well follow. It's part of the reason I was pissed that we bowed out of the cup so meekly...while it could well turn out that everything holds together there's also the distinct possibility that we are in for a tumultuous summer, and we may not have many chances at silverware in the near future.
In many respects I would be sorry to see MP leave as I have enjoyed the style he has brought to Saints which has raised our profile no end. He has also been great at introducing our top youngsters into the first team. However the results over the whole season have been disappointing to say the least.
We're still on pace for the best points total of any Saints team in the 38-game PL era, and the best goal differential of any Saints team in the PL era. If "the best we've done in a quarter century" is disappointing, I'd suggest that your expectations were unrealistic.
A few more wins and a secured 9th place will make this a good second season. It has certainly been a good season for entertainment value and bringing some of our players international recognition. MP has got the players playing above themselves, but staleness is setting in. No lack of effort, but we are not as good in defence and attack as we were at the start of the season. The main problem is that we need a few players of true quality...that would have made all the difference yesterday as we played well without result. We still had the chances, but now our luck seems to have run out...or is it lack of confidence? Perhaps Mauricio's style is hard to keep doing with such a thin squad...we've lost the odd yard of pace perhaps. The next two games may reveal a lot.
Other than the cup defeat and his team selection it's incredibly harsh to be too critical of Pochettino on a very good season. The last two league defeats have been down to poor quality in front of goal as opposed to fitness or team set-up. I hope he stays and is allowed to add quality depth to our squad so he can make some game changing substitutions. If he does leave for Italy to learn another language then with Les Reed still at the club we're not totally clueless at management level and I hope we bring in a manager who implements the same style of play. It would be nice to get in a british coach, but i'm not convinced a Shaun Dyche or Malkay McKay could bring the club forward.
Everything will swing on the rest of the season. We are in no danger, so it won't go completely wrong, but we need a bare minimum of a few wins and draws to avoid the season petering out. If the rest of the season is at least adequate, I will be confident that some good signings will enable Mauricio to approach the next season with some confidence. If we don't get some reasonable results, I will start to think all is not well in paradise. If MP leaves (hope he doesn't) (can we keep David Salas anyway...he can translate the new manager's thoughts into Spanish ), I hope there is a super manager out there because our standards are high.
It would be hugely unfortunate if we let a stuttering end to the season colour our perceptions as to how well we've *actually* done.
