Only one problem with this : Matt iis on record as stating that he HAS met Cortese so someone is not telling the truth.These are both grown men and scoring points off one another is if no use to us supporters or the club. I would like to see them put past differences behind them and moreover let them share a box or sit next to one another at the next home game. Just imagine the boost that would give to all of us supporters fans players and ex players. We have come a long way and there is still more to do so in Adkins words, "together as one".
On a practical note dare I say it but I fully understand why Nigel had to go it had nothing to do with his performance or his personality and everything to do with resolving the difficulty there really is in recruiting players of the highest quality to the club. We , for the first time in our history can claim at least financially to be able to compete with the Man Us and Liverpools of this world. It is all down to the Liebherrs and Cortese. I can just imagine living on the continent as I do the sheer frustration Cortese must feel when trying to sell the club to foreign stars given the massive effort that has been made in terms of establishing facilities stadium etc to bring the club at least on a par with any other top club anywhere. This is where we are heading folks it may be a bumpy ride but I for one am fully behnd Cortese s vision. I have been slagged off for being too ambitious for the club in the past, even for berating Cortese for the lack of signings. I take it all back, as far as I am concerned the penny has dropped and we have all got to adjust to a new reality we are no longer the country bumpkins of english football where the premiership is concerned. Onwards and upwards COYRS

Dare I suggest that the ultimate objective is not the long term well-being of the club, it's employees or its supporters but to increase the value of the business so that it can be sold at a profit. The methods being used to achieve this are both bold and risky. Think of the club's future as being decided in the casino of the financial world.

That's what bankers do.

In my experience people always do what they always have:
certain ex players will continue to do whatever gives them the self-publicity they crave; newspapers will continue to create sensation from the mundane in order to sell newspapers; some fans will moan and some fans won't; and ignoring all of them, Cortese will continue to do whatever he thinks will make Saints a top 6 side.

"Life. Loathe it or ignore it. You can't like it." Marvin.

Nigel Adkins and the Saints were a perfect fit. It is a stain on our club's history that we ditched him. It was a joy to be a Saints fan under his leadership. We are less of a club.

"certain ex players will continue to do whatever gives them the self-publicity they crave"

We need to remember how this all started before we point fingers, why would le Tissier need to crave publicity, he is one of the Sky Sports football team his public profile has never been higher in certain respects

SaintNick
For the answer to your question see the first sentence.

If Pochettino takes us all on to greater things, we will never be able to judge if Adkins would have done the same. Cortese doesn't go into any detail why he thought that Adkins couldn't take us any further. Surely we deserve an explanation why he thought that he wasn't up to the job. Also, he doesn't tell us why he thinks that his new man is up to the job. It's good that he has spoken to the media, but unfortunately he doesn't actually say anything.

We are all grateful that he persuaded Markus Liebherr to rescue the club, but would it not be asking too much if he could be more open - more personable if you like. We seem to go from one PR disaster to another. Apart from the manager(s) issues, we have the Echo blacklisting,the photographers' saga, the reluctance to embrace the club's history (in particular, the lack of a minute's silence for Dean Richards), the dismissal of the original programme sellers, and so on.

"Surely we deserve an explanation why he thought that he wasn't up to the job."

Why? I can't see how that benefits anyone. I think that to come out and express Nigel Adkins limitations publicly would be a massive disrespect to him. I don't personally like the way it was done but it is done. And you don't sack the poor bloke and then list the reasons he's not good enough to the press! This way Adkins gets to go with his integrity and there won't be any shortage of job offers for him when he decides to get back into football. We all know that Adkins is a good manager at a certain level. That may even be PL level but it won't unfortunately be at Southampton.

Hulk_Wogan is right, the Chairman will not list publicly his reasons as that is disrespectful & could lead him into a law suit. Fact is, the reasons were in there if you listened carefully. When appraising Pochettino, he stated that he would help to retain our Youth and attract big signings. Essentially he is saying that with Nigel at the helm, this was hampered which would impact our progress. We may all think Nigel is great but out in the big wide world of International football, he's an unknown. Pochettino however, he's well known in Spain and Internationally. Young players will feel he can coach them to a higher level than Nigel because of his experience and that helps the Club when they get approaches from others.

As for the MLT issues, NC made it clear that he is welcome. However, continuing to publicly slate NC in the Media, makes it personal which was what NC was saying and for as long as MLT continues that, NC will make it hard for him. MLT keeps going over the same old things which is becoming boring now. The "free tickets" issue was publicly retracted by The Sun with an apology after Lawrie Mac complained. They stated NC did not say those things and they had made them up. MLT also chooses to fight Benali's issue publicly which is actually a private matter between FB and NC. I am sure Benali is a big boy and can fight his own corner; MLT should stay out of it. And as for his complaint that he is "guarded" whenever he visits St Mary's, I can understand why as clearly NC feels he will be divisive if allowed to wander into the Corporate area and undermine him.

Whether we consider NC's interview as polished PR, that fact is he has set out, without making any statements that could land him in Court, his reasoning for the Managerial change. He also called on supporters of the Club to be united and trust in his decisions. Up until now, the major ones he's made have all proven to be correct. Pardew, Adkins, £1m for Lambert, broke two transfer records in one season, etc, etc. His style may appear unorthodox to many but his backing of the Club is unquestionable. He may appear strange to many who haven't worked in a major corporate business, but for someone that does, be assured his behaviour is exactly like the Executives I have worked under for the past 20yrs. Emotion doesn't enter their thinking; they make decision, live with the consequences and move on.

Whatsforpud: the original programme sellers; was that a full time job that's deprived families of their entire income? No! The Club has made a decision to improve that area and has replaced them with a new style of programme seller.

Well done, Whatsforpud, your first paragraph was almost exactly what I would have written if you hadn't got round to it quicker than I could. It hits the nail right on the head.

I'm surprised that St Nick was prepared to let NC's anodyne remarks escape with so little critical comment, though I appreciate the urge to be conciliatory is the one that makes sense for the future of the club.

I can't recall such a supine interviewer as the Sky bloke who talked with NC, the latter clearly saw it as an opportunity to state (not remotely explain) his perspectives. A complete lack of " I think such and such because ..." No evidence of a fact based policy perspective here, just a glossy veneer.

The point about NC's comments are that they provide pointers to his thinking without citing any evidence to support the rationale. I recognise the points made by several correspondents about the potential limitations imposed by legal circumstances, but I suspect these are probably overstated in this case. There is limited prospect of any scope for further legal action against the club assuming that NA will have the rest of his contract paid up.

But the point is that NC's rather superficial references don't seem very credible when compared to the facts

It seems to me that Cortese's judgement has been driven by 5 perspectives in many ways peculiar to himself:

1. that Southampton FC warrants comparison with the top half dozen clubs in the Prem League and should expect to be playing in Europe regularly.

Well that would be very nice for us all, but to achieve and sustain that level of performance seems very unlikely without having a Russian billionaire or a Saudi sheikh to lay out megafunds and the construction of a much larger stadium. Nice ambition but is this in any way realistic. I largely agree with BlackRod's comments (above) as to what the agenda here is.

2. that Adkins was unlikely to ensure that the club would stay in the Premiership this season and would be unable to take the club to the level that the Chairman aspires to.

This is, of course, rather hypothetical because time alone will tell whether we survive the season. One can only judge from the trend which has been a great improvement over the last dozen games or so with a few very impressive performances towards the end of Adkins reign (and I include the performance against Everton as very largely down to NA and his squad). Clearly the trend might not have continued or other sides in trouble might have suddenly started to perform even better. On the other hand MC might prove to be a revelation or a disaster or somewhere in between. The point is that it's a gamble and one based on the assumption that the newcomer is likely (there being no certainty) to be more successful even though objective evidence of this is scant

3. that NA's commitment to the youth philosophy was somehow less certain than NC required and he perceived MC as possessing.

Again I'm not sure that there is much supporting evidence for this Shaw, Ward-Prowse, Reeves, Martin have all recently graduated from the Academy, while others have been given opportunities before being discarded in recent seasons and it sounds that there are other excellent prospects being brought along. This cannot in itself be solely credited to NA since the academy and youth staff have clearly made a weighty contribution. But by the same token over the next couple of years MC's contribution is likely only to be gradual, no overnight solutions here these are medium to long term projects.

4. that NA had insufficient reputation and charisma to attract big name, foreign players to the club in competition with those clubs who clearly have a higher profile.

I have to confess that I am a little sceptical about this since I would prefer us to invest in bright young British players (as we often have done very successfully over the last ten years or more) who have developed by playing in a team with some older, more experienced and wiser players able to lead by example. Clyne and Cork are for example good examples of this and, although he is French, Schneiderlein is perhaps the very best example.

I am not at all convinced that at this moment MC has a better profile, though his reputation may of course grow, I would contest that he is much known outside Spain as a manager and unarguably he is currently less well known in Britain. Again time will tell.

At the time of writing it looks unlikely that Coutinho will prefer Liverpool to ourselves (hardly surprising) despite his claimed good relationship with Pottechino, so not a good start to this new era of 'international prestige'. As it happens I don't think he would have been the right player for us at this time anyway, there are other more obvious priorities.

5. that MC is self evidently a better manager than Adkins

Precious little evidence of this. MC's achievements have been to keep Espanyol in La Liga for three or four seasons in which he has had little in the way of money to spend, had players sold to keep the club afloat, of necessity brought lots of youngsters into the team and had to work under the immense shadow cast by the vastly successful neighbours. On the other hand NA has achieved successive promotions, installed a fantastic team ethic within the squad, achieved a phenomenal level of support amongst the fans and introduced youngsters into the team while having money to spend, but (arguably) having a good deal of interference in the selection of transfer targets and presided over a period when some distinctly strange acquisitions have been made.

Finally can I take issue with DJI's contention that, had NC explained himself a little more fully, this would have been disrespectful to Adkins. What rubbish! Isn't it much more disrespectful to sack the guy on distinctly dubious grounds, to say nothing about NA's enormous contribution and achievements, to expurgate his name from the programme issued at the next match and to concoct a superficial explanation which doesn't stand up to much examination and amounts to little more that propaganda to justify a gamble.

OK I concede that NC possesses cajones, but it hasn't made us a more respected or likeable club, quite the opposite.

Whatsforpud and exiled - superb posts!

I am perplexed as to why people can't see why NC sacked NA. I would have thought that spending half the season in the bottom 3, plus having a record breaking, disorganised defence; and all that after NC had spent £30(ish?) million on players, would have been sufficient. Any improvement that occurred only happened after he was forced to change the line-up due to injury; the bookies had him as favourite to go since the start and they're not wrong a lot!? As Adkin's said "it all about winning games of football" - and he didn't.

slynch - I assume you're just trying to be a wind up merchant - very funny..

You can't be serious?!