Is this from your normally reliable source, Beefy..? I suppose one has to take it seriously, but it's all after the event. There is no Cortese at the club to dispute this or show, by his actions, that nobody was going anywhere that he didn't want out. Personally, my belief is that if Cortese had remained at the club, under the terms he had worked out with Markus Liebherr, that we'd have a few additions to last season's squad and that would be it. There would have been nobody leaving who Saints wouldn't want to have been shot of, and the manager would be called Poch, because he'd still be here too. That's the simple single explanation for every question thrown up. No players wanting to leave. No promises of bigger clubs if they sign 4 year contracts. No nothing. Just the continual progression of the previous season.
If that's in answer to my post CMFG, I was suggesting no promises, remember..? Now here's the simple explanation as to why we had the exodus - Cortese left. Everything else flowed from that. People can dress it up in whatever clothes they want but that's the bottom line. In my opinion, of course.
I was just speculating based on Beefy's assertion that such clauses and promises did indeed exist. Otherwise, I'd follow your line TSS.
Ah, I get ya. I know people want to dissect things, but it's all just speculating in detail. Stand back from all the noise and people can clearly see a simple explanation. My only issue with that is that some people will start blaming Katherina Liebherr for all the upheaval. It's her club, so she can do with it as she likes, within the rules of ownership. Personally, I think she's done OK, so far. I'd have preferred it if she'd left our Don alone to do his empire building, but I'm not the one holding the purse strings. You know, Cortese did renegade on one promise to the Saints fans, after all. He said, a few weeks after Markus died, that if he felt the Liebherr family were not 100% behind him he'd get backers who would be, and he said that they were out there champing at the bit to join him. Well that didn't come true for one simple reason [now I am speculating myself, but it's quite likely] and that is that, like her Dad, Katie fell in love with Saints and didn't want to let them go. And here we are. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/9269293.stm
Yeah I agree with that. I don't think Cortese anticipated that happening in the way it did, that the owners would feel so much attachment to the club.
I think (my opinion only) is that Nicola had started to think short term...he wanted success now, because he wouldn't be here for ever. I think his attitude had changed and he had become more of a risk taker. On the other hand, Katharina (as owner) is thinking more long term...after all it is her business. If you think about it, Nicola would be measured on achievements, so would be more likely to risk Saints long term financial security than her owner would. On the plus side, KL also seems to care about Saints performance, so isn't being exactly penny pinching.
Personally, I don't think he'd gone short term. What he certainly had to do was re-adjust his time frame [the new 5 year plan he kept on reminding people about that he implemented after the first 3 years..?] because Saints were achieving things way ahead of schedule. I think I'm now in the minority here when I still think that Cortese was behaving very well indeed with the finances. But you do have to spend some money, at some point, if you want to progress. The £30M Academy was an intentional investment, so we know that was there. The £27M transfer debt was being paid off, so that was a drop in the ocean. Other clubs are 10's and 100's of millions in debt, some never to be paid off. Saints, by comparison, were positively frugal. Independent financial reports said the books were predictably well balanced. Where was the risk taker in all that..?
Players would have stilll left TSS and who knows Morgan may have got his move if Cortese was still here. Morgan does seem to think he had agreement to leave this transfer window. He kept the players for a extra year, which you have to say fair play. We wouldn't have got a season like we did last year if he hadn't changed their mind But I am 100% certain players would have still left, Lovren and Shaw being two at least.
Beefy, do you think Cortese knew that he himself was on the way out when the 'one more year' type agreements were made?
How do you know..? Who is there to refute this..? It's all speculation and most of the very few facts we have at our diposal don't support all this speculation. By the way, I'm not trying to undermine you Beefy, you could be right. Who really knows..? I just see the situation much more simply, based on what had gone on before and what the intentions of the club were, that is, based on the few facts we have. In that scenario, players leaving are an effect of a single cause that happened - Cortese left. If that had not happened players would not have left. All the text from ex-players and the ex-manager support that view as well. There is no mystery. There are no wheels within wheels. It's a simple explanation.
In this case, I'm choosing to stay with reported facts. Sorry about that, Beefy. As I said, I don't want to undermine you. I know you are reporting what your friend says in all good faith. But he didn't sit on Cortese's shoulder and peer at private contract paperwork, or sit in on private boardroom conversations or draw up contracts either. And what he says doesn't quite fit all the factual available info anyway. It just reads like very good intrigue and speculation to me.
There are no reported facts tho , just reported rumours. The only thing Reed etc have said is players wanted to leave. They didn't say anything else.
You mean based on the few rumors you choose to believe while ignoring the numerous other rumors that don't support your position. For example, the one player whose agent has been most vocal about his position vis a vis the old regime is Gaston Ramirez. He apparently very much liked Cortese, but did not like Pochettino. He could have easily gotten a move to a decent side. Yet he's still here. Also, there is the rumor that Cortese was going to sack Pochettino, but the players intervened. Why would Pochettino be so loyal to the man who tried to sack him? And why would the players have gone against Cortese if they believed in him and his vision so much? Also, even if you believe the players left because of Cortese he is still only one link in a snowballing chain of events. What made him leave in the first place is likely the underlying cause of all of this. If Cortese had such an awesome vision and ability to inspire, why did so many people dislike him? Why was he unable to convince the single most important person he had to? There wasn't this much upheaval at Manchester United after Alex Ferguson left. There is no way that Cortese was more influential at Saints than Ferguson was at Man U.
Yes, but even after Ferguson left, the club was still ManU...our players thought they were too good for Saints.
Yes, they were making a lot of money at a prestigious club that had just won a title. Big difference. Which is why I don't believe that Cortese leaving was the sole reason for the players wanting to go.
No, not at all. The only thing I believe is that Cortese left and then the manager and players left. The rest is window dressing.
Yes, and you are ignoring anything that doesn't fit that belief. Then you think the answer is simple. The answer is always simple when you make up your mind first and then ignore evidence to the contrary.
