From BBC's Nabil Hassan: Simon Peach tweeted about an interview with Le Tissier earlier and was talking about Matt and Cortese. Bit of a shame if he's sold a story on him again.....it is all a bit pathetic. DTLW
Article to now go with it: http://www.teamtalk.com/premier-league/8173423/Le-Tissier-hits-out-at-Cortese
The guy is a legend FULL STOP But, I would rather remember him for the better times than this un-relented campaign he seems to have against a bloke who has had a huge role in the turnaround of the club's fortunes.
Matthew Le Tissier says Nicola Cortese is "not a very nice human being" but promised their feud would not lessen his support for Southampton. There has long been tension between Saints chairman Cortese and one of their greatest ever players. Cortese played an integral role in the now-deceased Markus Liebherr's takeover of the debt-ridden south coast club three years ago - a time in which Le Tissier was part of a rival bid by Pinnacle Group. The 44-year-old did not pinpoint that as the reason for the pair's strained relationship but made his feelings on the Italian abundantly clear. "I suppose the only real story will probably come out when he leaves the football club," he claimed. "He is not a very nice human being. It's as simple as that. "I think a lot of the stuff will come out about him when he leaves the football club and only when he leaves. "He has a lot of hold over a lot of people and while the club is doing well on the pitch he will get away with it. "When it's not quite going so well and the spotlight starts falling on other areas of the football pitch, then that's when he'll come under a little bit of pressure." Le Tissier was speaking at the Tullow Oil Golf Day, which is aimed at raising more than £150,000 for CLIC Sargent - the UK's leading cancer charity for children and young people. The former Saints man was amongst a number of famous sporting faces at Sunningdale Golf Club, with the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Harry Redknapp and Alan Hansen also in attendance. While the aforementioned remain revered at their former clubs, Le Tissier says he feels "that the chairman doesn't want anything to do with anything that happened before he turned up" at Southampton. However, he insists the fact Cortese is calling the shots has not tainted Saints' return to the Premier League after a seven-year absence. "No, not at all," Le Tissier said. "Nothing he does to me will ever stop me backing Southampton Football Cub 100 per cent when I am watching them play football." On the field, it has not been the greatest of starts to life back in the big time for Southampton. Four points from their opening seven fixtures leaves them 17th in the standings heading into Saturday's trip to West Ham. "It has been tricky but it was always going to be tough with the fixtures we had," Le Tissier said. "I think we have acquitted ourselves quite well without perhaps picking up the points that some of our play has deserved. "I don't think we deserved to lose to Manchester United at home and, while four points is not a great total, we're still not in the bottom three." Le Tissier was also quick to back manager Nigel Adkins, who helped the club to back-to-back promotions but is reportedly already under pressure. "With what he has done for the us over the past few years, I think he deserves a fair crack at it," he added. "I think it would be incredibly harsh if he was to lose his job at this point of the season." No-one at Saints was available for comment when contacted.
This seems pointless. A smear article - "Cortese is a bad man!" - with no substance or explanation. If Le Tissier is so ardent that Cortese is a bad man, then what exactly is stopping him from giving "the true story"?
He's embarrassing himself now. He needs to either tell us what he says he knows, or keep his mouth shut.
This is what I don't get. He says a lot of people at the club won't speak out as he has control. So he can't? He already tells us they try to exile him.
Le Tiss is only expressing his opinion........The media is writing about it..........Strangely and for what ever reason Cortese has upset a few people. That is evident by the way others talk about him not just Le Tiss.....so he is not actually repeating or saying anything we didn't already know. So there should be no surprises by this latest outburst........
As an outsider, I'd assume that he's been told a variety of things in confidence and revealing them would expose his sources, who presumably still work at the club and could be disciplined or sacked. Cortese might be a bit cold or harsh, but then a lot of successful businessmen are.
Coming from someone as important to the club as Le Tissier, this kind of thing is divisive and is damaging to the club. He needs to put up or shut up, having him constantly chirping vaguely about how Cortese is "a bad man" is not helpful to anyone.
I don't believe Le Tiss would make these allegations if there wasn't some truth in the matter. I believe that he has too much respect for saints to smear whatever dirt he has, but not enough that he can't let sleeping dogs lie.
Yes but these are clearly based on something, this and everything else that has been said previously. Not like it's one off, he's clearly hinting at something deeper.
Yeah that's exactly the problem. Hinting at these problems is damaging to Cortese, Le Tissier and the club, and until we know what he's talking about it will continue to be so. He could just be trying to undermine Cortese without any evidence and because of his stature people will say, as you have done, that there must be something to it. I'm sick of it, he needs to reveal what he knows or keep quiet until he's able to. I don't care how good a player he was for us in the past, he's a thorn in the club's side now and he's making no friends with this stuff.
We all know they have problems with each other stemming back from the Pinnacle/Fialka fiasco. Since then there appears to have been a slight personal feud between the two that Le Tiss likes to use as something to regularly bitch about.
Seems like it's every opportunity to cause a spot of bother in the SFC camp. OK, Matt, we get it. You don't like Cortese and we shouldn't either. I'm way past that. I didn't like Askham, Lowe, or Wilde but I liked Crouch. Did that make any difference..?
