Neil Warnock has hit out at Southampton for dragging their heels over the signing of Kaspars Gorkss – and revealed he is “delighted” Reading captured the defender. Southampton declared an interest in Gorkss*after Rangers circulated his name for a transfer during the summer, but have also been on the trail of Bristol City’s Liam Fontaine. And*as an agreement between the Saints and QPR finally seemed close, Reading*manager Brian McDermott came in with a bid after having an offer for centre-back Paul Robinson rejected by Millwall. The Royals promptly signed Gorkss on a three-year contract in a deal worth around £900,000. “We had Southampton messing about for three weeks and to be honest I’d had enough of that,” said Warnock. “Brian McDermott was magnificent when he spoke to me. Then within five minutes he was talking to the player, within two hours was having a meal with him, and then he signed him. That’s how to do business. “At Southampton we had a chairman who was talking to us for weeks and weeks, and I’m delighted Kaspars has now gone to Reading. It’s a good club.” R’s boss Warnock, who hopes to seal the signing of Joey Barton in the next 24 hours, insists he had no doubts about letting Gorkss go despite Rangers’ limited defensive options. Bradley Orr and Kieron Dyer have picked up injuries, while Clint Hill is suspended and QPR were unable to recall Peter Ramage from his loan at Crystal Palace. But Warnock said: “Kaspars knew he wasn’t going to be in my plans. I spoke to him and said: ‘Look, you’ve been fantastic for me and I think if you can get a good club for three years, this is the time to do it.’ “He did great for me and I thanked him for that. He’s a fabulous person as well as a good player.”
As I said. We wanted them to take Puncheon - only reason we were interested in him. Would have been worth a swap to offload him but as a standalone deal there are better players out there. If Warnock doesn't rate him as a Premier League player then why would we want him? We only want players now who canmake the step up.
Mate, we all know we hummed and harred over the Gorkss and Puncheon transfers and then pulled out to persue Fontaine which then fell through. This is nothing new, well done on signing him he'll do brilliant for you but we've moved on so scurry a long now.
Quoting from the article: Just imagine if Brian had signed half a dozen separate players on the same day..? There wouldn't be room for cheese and biscuits.
Who is he to say how Cortese does his business. If Cortese wants to take his time, that's his prerogative. If he didnt like it, he could have walked away. Why should things move according to Warnock's timetable. The sanctimonious prick should get off his high horse and start worrying about keeping his team in the Premiership rather than what Southampton FC are doing. One of the things I like about Cortese is that he doesn't go around badmouthing others the way Warnock is and the way Howe did last year.
Trouble is take your time about things and you are liable to have your pocket picked.......as has happened in the Gorkss case. IMO
Gorkss could have been just a back up in NC's mind so he was never going to rush to sign him. Let's hope we have a back-up to the back-up. Cortese is a perfectionist and sometimes you just have to go for it. We'll never know the full facts, because Nicola doesn't mouth off to the Press. Not a man for soundbites..he prefers long considered articles in The Times.
Gorkss only came onto Saints radar when the Puncheon swap deal was put forward by QPR. He probably wasn't a target up to that point. I reckon Saints looked at him as an option, but clearly never persued it seriously. I suspect they were concerned they were getting a player who wasn't motivated to join us, as often happens in make-weight swap deals etc.
It seems you want us to bow down to you and say what a great sigining he is for you,well he is but i think what warnock says about how long cortese took shows that he wasn't that high up on our list and he thought we could do better.I must admit though that i would of liked him to come because he seems very experienced at this level and well respected by qpr fans.Oh well i trust NA and NC to have a back up plan,they have said many times before that there is always more than 1 option so i expect us to have another centre back lined up already and that also goes for the fontaine deal falling through for whatever reason.
