Has anyone ever thought that it was Les Reed who got Cortese out and this has made the players loyal to him unhappy. Therefore manager doesn't feel he can work with him (Poch) and now players don't think they can work with him (Lallana & Lovren).
no, doesn't ring a bell hadn't considered that podge might be included in that though. i'd written him off as a disgusting creature in his own right.
The mere fact that the players were loyal and believed in Cortese (if true) and no one else is a problem. I suspect this may have had something to do with Cortese overpromising, and his ego. But I don't know for sure, so I'm not all in on the "Cortese was horrible" bandwagon. But you do need to have players playing for the club and not the Director, so regardless of who is to blame it just highlights the need to make some changes. If Cortese were really an effective Director of Football, then there shouldn't be this many players wanting to go simply because he has left. Not if the KL and the board are still committed, and the transfer money is what they say it is, etc. I think that it's a lot of little things adding up. I don't believe any of the players or MP was truly as loyal/believing in NC as they say. Once other clubs came calling there would be those that want to go. I do believe that there was at some level a belief in NC and that NC was a good director otherwise we might have lost some people earlier. But between the money and allure of big clubs, the offers being made, NC leaving, the board in a state of flux, the way the odds are stacked against the non-big clubs it put enormous pressure on everyone. And then once one thing goes bad it becomes really easy for everyone to try and abandon ship. If we can get through this, the club will be much stronger for it. These are the hits you take when you try to crack the glass ceiling.
I'm not so sure. A manager of Koemans stature isn't coming here to just maintain our current level with no funds. He left a champions league club and has come here. As far as I am aware KL hasn't said she is reducing funding, just wanted more say in how its spent. If Poch bhad been sacked (a la Adkins) for Koeman, I would think it was a step up.
It's easy to play for a vision and ambition. I have written several posts on this subject. When you get a person who can convince players [or ordinary people for that matter] that they can believe they can achieve anything if they stick together and be backed to the hilt, then they will buy into this attitude. I know that the average person doesn't get into this frame of mind on a daily basis, but believe me, the truly successful adopt this attitude all the time. They not only work fairly hard [not knocking themselves out], but they work clever. Cortese was a believer in the little things adding up to big advantages. Guess what..? So did the manager of British Cycling. See any similarities..? Yeah, they both got used to winning. It's why I said at the time of Cortese leaving that the biggest asset at Southampton just walked out the door. Love him or loathe him, he was an absolute winner. They don't happen along that often. Certainly not to football clubs like Southampton FC. And Australia score..!
If the players at Saints were truly winners and self-confident, etc. shouldn't they believe in themselves and not Cortese? How much of a winner are you if you fall apart the minute NC walks out the door? And how much of a winner is NC if he was willing to walk out the door so easily? I believe if I were "backed to the hilt" I could achieve fantastic things. Probably 99.999% of the world does. I'd saying a winning attitude comes from believing you can achieve fantastic things DESPITE not being backed to the hilt.
Less about winning, more about inspiring and installing belief. Great leaders do both, no matter how good or talented their 'subjects' are, they take them higher.
I can quite easily see why Cortese walked out the door. Katharina Liebherr was [possibly/probably] offering him a watered down version of what he had already achieved. He wanted total control, not having to look over his shoulder. His vision was total. If you are a footballer, who is going to play in League One, and someone says to you that you can be playing at the heart of a successful Premier league team if you believe, work hard and work smart, within 5 years, and every time this person promises you achievements and reinforces the message, and backs you along the way, so that you can concentrate on being successful, you'd be a fool not to buy into that attitude. Plus, everything this bloke tells you will happen comes true. Sure you can achieve great things despite not being backed to the hilt. But what if you are the same person who is being backed to the hilt..? Result, you achieve more. It's not rocket science. This sort of stuff has been exercised by the most successful people in the world. The difference between them and people like you and me [no disrespect] is that they don't even have to think consciously about it. Their very being is geared up to being successful. You hear about the people who don't seem to have much education, yet they seem to be able to be incredibly successful in whatever field they find themselves in, be it business, industry, sport. Yeah, Saints players are winners. They have to be to be as good as they are or were. League One and Two players are winners, but it's the degree and devotion towards being winners that makes a good player a great one, or a great one an exceptional player. Ultimately, it's all about attitude. Look at Rickie. If Southampton hadn't signed him he may have been a League One player at best for the rest of his career, despite having great potential. He came to Southampton and his attitude was changed for good. And he knows it.
According to The Mirror, KL has promised Ron a "sizeable war chest". Apparently talks had stalled over the issue of how much he is going to get to spend, but KL has agreed to give him a decent amount. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/next-southampton-manager-set-ronald-3690634
Human beings remain human beings. They are for good and ill suggestible creatures that respond well to positive reinforcement from people they have established a relationship with and trust, and respond less well when that is taken away. It would be nice if the team consisted of LoyaltyBot 3000s, but as they would eventually rise up against mankind in an orgy of destruction, ironic yet inevitable given the name, we should count our blessings.
I'm not arguing that a good leader can't inspire people to better things. What I'm saying is that it's not a good situation if the players are so dependent upon an individual that once he leaves they'd all rather quit than try. Especially if that supposedly great leader is himself so unstable that he quit in mid-season. And it still doesn't add up. If the players after heroically battling from near administration in League One through two successive promotions all the way to being one of the most exciting young teams in the Premier League still have so little confidence in themselves that they scramble for the door after the Chairman-- not the manager who actually works with them every day but the chairman-- quits. What kind of leader is the first one out the door when he doesn't get his way? And if he was so inspiring, then why couldn't he get KL to buy into his vision? If Cortese's goal was a Premier League title and Champion's League with Saints, he didn't achieve it. And he didn't achieve it because he quit. I don't see a completed vision here, just a whole lot of excuses.
I think the problem is that the players have confidence in themselves - Lovren, Lallana and Shaw all believe they're good enough to play in the Champions League - but they don't have the same confidence in the new board. I think Cortese was also far more involved with the players than most chairmen
I think it's far more likely that the players were unsettled by the loss of Pochettino than that of Cortese. I have never heard of a single instance in footballing history when a player has said he is motivated to play well for his chairman (although that may happen in North Korea). It may be that Pochettino decided to leave after Cortese did, but it was the manager's leaving, not the chairman's, that has rocked the boat. Anyway, what a difference a day makes. Now that the Dutch have re-established themselves as Europe's most inspiring football nation, Saints under new Dutch management can get back on course for glory, while Koeman's treacherous Argentine predecessor can sink without trace at the managerial graveyard that is Spurs.
I have to agree....it was Pochettino leaving that has ruffled the feathers of the players in the main. However Cortese's departure will also have had an effect as he seemed to have been always available to talk to the players, either in person or the phone. He may not have been so accessible to others, but it was different in regards to our players. That would have been difficult a void to fill. Reed is just not that type of person....he is a "head down and get on with it" sort of person. Also Reed will have had his hands more than full trying to ward off the vultures, as well as trying to get Pochettino to stay. Not to mention now having to get a decent replacement. Hopefully with Koeman on board if the rumours are correct......Perhaps a trip out to Brazil might be the way forward to see some of the players and steady the ship...who knows?
