No doubt about that even with his idiosyncrasies, don't know what he can say tomorrow which can rock the boat anymore than it is at present. Until our owner speaks out or players start heading out the door we're just gonna have to hold on and keep riding the waves.
I will put it in short form. Cortese is a ****, he was our **** but now he isn't. So he can be a **** to us now. Whatever he says/said is 99% PR crap anyways.
I expect it will be terribly dull. He will thank the fans for the journey and all the players and wish the club well in the future. Most of you have watched too many of them Hollywood movies
Of course he won't do anything. It's all PR, why would he want everyone to see if he is being vindictive?
What does every one want from looking nice and kind in public? I haven't a clue why he would be vindictive but it's weird how all the journo's he kept in with are the same ones saying crap now. Even the guy who is doing the interview is one he used when he was at Saints.
This is Rupert Lowe all over again. He did exactly the same thing with Charlie Sale at the Daily Mail. Feeding him with stories after he left the club in an attempt to unsettle the club... and because people like that, can't EVER accept they failed. It's always someone elses fault and its classic dog in the manger stuff. Either people like Lowe & Cortese always had the power & attention mad gene, or more likely, football brings it to the front of their character. Unless you are a Branson or Bill Gates mega-billionaire, even the very successful business people get no where the media attention that running a football club gets you. They always say "they hate the attention"... bollocks, they ****ING LOVE IT. A few months out the limelight & Cortese was probably gagging to get an interview like this. Bet you anything HE instigated it, not the BBC mush.
Well that's hardly a shock is it? If he's been associated with journalists in the past he's hardly likely to do an interview with someone he's had nothing to do with before. None of what you've said proves anything.
None of it disproves it either. As I have said believe what you want to believe. Even a few other journo's are starting to say about the same old journo's saying stuff about Saints.
Well I don't believe anything at this point. It's possible Cortese is planting stories about the club, although nobody has really suggested a good reason why he would do that (I don't really think "out of vindictiveness" is a good reason) but there are other perfectly plausible reasons why the stories are appearing. First of all we've performed better in the league than people expected. When this happens a team's players are often - maybe even usually - linked with moves away. Look at Swansea last year... Michu, Williams and Vorm were all leaving. On top of that the new board are something of an unknown quantity which leaves the door open for speculation about their intentions. Another possibility is that journalists are writing these stories and looking for negative Southampton angles because they'd got used to getting inside info from the club and are now pissed off because they aren't getting anything from the new board. As you say yourself, Cortese used to get a very rough ride before he "bought" some journalists. Perhaps this negative coverage is inevitable until the new board decide who their pet journalists will be? Why now? Who knows? Maybe it'll become clear when we hear what he has to say. Maybe there was a time limited confidentiality agreement when he left like there seems to be with KP and the ECB. I don't think it's much like Lowe either. Cortese was/is nowhere near the attention whore Lowe was. He did a handful of interviews over 4 and a half years at the club while Lowe seemed to be on Soccer Saturday or Football Focus every other week.
I don't see what Cortese gets out of being petty, TBH. He never let himself get dragged too much into the mud when he was here, and he had his share of controversy. I think if he wanted to stick it to Saints, he would get a job at another club and take them to the top and that would give him the satisfaction of proving himself better/getting revenge. Maybe he does have another job so he's trying to unsettle things and maybe poach some players or at least weaken the competition, who knows? I could see him doing that. Or maybe he'll actually be very nice about it because he's looking for a job (and then might very well turn the screws later). Maybe he really does have a bombshell to drop. Or he's trying to take over. All of those things I could see, but just sort of complaining that Saints were mean to him or insult-slinging as an ends of satisfaction by itself seems somewhat out of character.
Ex-Southampton chairman Nicola Cortese believes the club risk undermining their recent success if they sell their best young players this summer. In his first interview since quitting in January, Cortese says if he had stayed the futures of Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana and manager Mauricio Pochettino would not be in doubt. "We created those talents," he told BBC Sport. "It was key to keep them. "You don't produce them just to sell, otherwise you give away your ambition." Manchester United have made a £27m offer for 18-year-old left-back Shaw, while Liverpool remain in talks over a move for captain Lallana, 26. The Anfield club have also made an enquiry for highly rated central defender Dejan Lovren, while midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin, also 24, has attracted interest from a number of Premier League clubs. However, Southampton are unwilling to sell any of their players. [h=2]Southampton's in-demand men[/h] England left-back Luke Shaw, 18, has played 67 times for Saints - his only club England midfielder Adam Lallana, 26, played for the club in their League One days and has made 265 appearances French midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin also played for Southampton in the third tier, having moved from Strasbourg in 2008 Croatian defender Dejan Lovren joined from Lyon last summer for a reported £8.5m Manager Mauricio Pochettino was appointed in January 2013 having left Espanyol two months previously Cortese, who took charge of Southampton in 2009 when they were in League One, said he was confident none of his players would have left if he had still been chairman and was never worried about losing star names. "I can tell you that I didn't have that fear to the last day I was at the club," he said. "I was confident about plenty of conversations I had with the players. I knew the players themselves wanted to stick together because this vision was something they believed in too. I didn't see any reason for them to go. "I didn't have written offers but I obviously had phone calls. My answer was that it was not going to happen for at least the next two seasons. The other chairmen respected that. Until the day I left, there were no offers." Southampton started the 2009-10 season in League One on minus 10 points after entering administration under a previous regime, but won promotion to the Championship the following season. A second successive promotion took them to the Premier League and they finished this season in eighth place, with a club-record points haul of 56 in the top flight. It was a season that also saw four players - Lallana, Shaw, Jay Rodriguez and Rickie Lambert - win England caps. The future of Pochettino - who took over in January 2013 - has not yet been resolved with a year of his contract remaining. Tottenham are known to have him on their shortlist of candidates to become their next manager. Cortese, though, warned the Argentine about the risks of moving on from St Mary's too quickly. "I don't know what has happened since I left, so it is difficult for me to judge whether he potentially wants to leave or whether the offer from another club is really that good," he said. "That is beyond my knowledge. But he is ambitious and rightly so. When you plan a career, it is important to make the right decision at the right time. Often we have maybe seen people take too quick a step which ultimately backfires. "But he has to make his own decision. He is a young manager; he has plenty of time to have a great career."
Great interview, just saying what we are all thinking. I knew he had better things to do than disrupt saints! Cortese is and always will be a legend in my eyes. No football chairman has ever achieved so much in such a short space of time.
Glad he didn't try and stick the knife in. I'm sure he is right that we would have kept the team together for longer if he had remained here. He is a tough guy to deal with...the perception is different with the new board, but we must remember no one has left yet. He is right about Mauricio...he would do himself no harm staying here and making us a success...there are always chances on the managerial merry-go-round. Nicola had a persona...the new board have to establish theirs. I just feel Kreuger is too reasonable when players really need some tough talk. Keep Mauricio, reinvest any money from sales back into the team, and keep most of the team together and they will have done well.
I am totally concerned by the tone and timing of this and now on heightened alert for forthcoming departures. Cortese is bound to be itk and will no doubt be coveting all the comments which will fly like "this wouldn't have happened under Cortese"
Tone and timing?...apart from saying that he would probably have kept the team together for a couple more years, he says nothing contentious at all. He admits himself that he doesn't know the situation since he left. Hasn't raised any extra concerns with me...the situation is as it was before. Must remember that he didn't pay the bills...we need to strengthen the side...that money has to come from somewhere. I would prefer to keep Shaw, but 2-3 players instead of him could turn out to be the best for us. Not reinvesting the money would concern me, but Katharina looks interested in the club, so I'm not expecting that.
