He certainly sticks to his guns in the transfer market and has does well to keep players and sign new ones. Money does talk though. Has been a couple of lemons like Forren, but I guess every club signs a few duds along the way. Still a few questions I'd like answering about how exactly the club is financed. Whether this is more cash from the Liebherrs, or we are mortgaging against Sky income, but I know we'll never get an answer. I don't love Cortese anymore than I hate him. He's just doing his job (paying himself a lot (£1.5m?)) and doing it on the whole well. I'm still in no doubt that much of it is ego driven and if Saints do well, he will naturally bask in reflected glory for his own ends. I just hope there are no nasty surprises round the corner off the pitch if things don't go to plan on the pitch. Hopefully not and you can but live in the moment.
We did sign a few duds or at least players that didn't work out, though even Forte and de Ridder made some contribution. Forren did nothing at all. However, as CBK said, all teams do this. United, Chelsea and, especially, City buy a lot of players that we scarcely hear of again.
None of us have any idea what really motivates Cortese, nor do we know his true character . It's anybody's guess how this roller coaster will end, so it's best to just enjoy the ride. What we do know is, we're in the Premier League with a strengthened squad, a conveyor belt of young talent coming through, a progressive and well respected manager, and no debt thanks to a chairman who looks like a young Al Pacino. That'll do for now.
The mortgaging against Sky Income is interesting point. Do you mean long term mortgaging, as in Leeds, or short term as in "we're getting 60m this year in stages, can we have it now?" I agree about the ego part, however that is important that he has a big one. Wanting to be successful needs an ego. There are not many successful business or football people that are not egocentric. I also realise that you are probably raising the ego thing in terms of his ego running away with him and ruining our future for his own good/reputation. Your last point about nasty surprise when things don't go well, is what I said on the previous page. I don't want a bad time, but this is when his true colours will emerge.
To help with cash flow, Saints took out a loan with our first tranche of Sky money as collateral. Essential as last season we were starting in the PL on essentially Championship money. This may also be what precipitated Sharp's loan for 1 million at the start of last season. Books have to be balanced. And that is why Nicola probably tried to blackmail the Leihberrs...didn't want another season like that...he wanted to really kick on.
