I hate this phrase. Nigel Adkins and Alan Pardew will not have been "gagged". In my working life I was involved in the dismissal of a few people. A compromise agreement was always part of the deal. The company could be assured that there would be no Employment Tribunal to face and so consequently we could afford to be very generous with our redundancy packages. Nicola Cortese knows how to run a business. The fact that NA and AP have remained silent is in their best interests. Neither of them is stupid, they will have known the score.
The fact that NA was replaced would indicate that he must have been aware of the impending end. I loved having him as our manager. He comes across as genuine, with a good football brain and I liked having him as our representative. Hopefully he and his family are enjoying some down time before he steps back onto the treadmill. They deserve that and we must surely wish him well. But let's not pretend there is anything "sinister" about his silence. As for NC, it was purely business and nothing personal.