Every time I have a look across the internet in the world of Saints I find supporters anguishing about the future of Mauricio Pochettino and snippets in the national press predicting he will go ! But why ?

Out of seemingly nowhere after the departure of our former CEO back in January came a concerted campaign of muck spreading about Saints in the national press, it was easy to spot the journalists who were doing it, they were usually the same ones writing eulogies about Nicola Cortese on the next page, often praising the way he had developed the likes of Luke Shaw, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and some of the more ignorant ones even insinuated he had had hand in Gareth Bale. The truth is all of our current crop of youngsters were at the club before our ex CEO.

So why was there a concerted effort to de stabilise us, the insinuations we were about to go into meltdown came thick and fast, the manager was going to walk with Cortese, some players were so incensed they were going to tear up their contracts (Impossible legally) Katharina Liebherr would sell the club within days, as I say they came thick and fast and you have to surmise that due to the not only sensationalist tone of them but how vitriolic they were to the woman who actually owned the club and had put a fair amount of her money into keeping us going forward, that this was not the usual page fillers from the national media who are usually disinterested in a club of Saints size, but a more concerted campaign.

Three months on and although they have died down mainly because they A. had no real substance and B. even the most fervent pro Cortese journalist cant persuade a national paper to give Saints that much column inches.

With respect to players leaving, most of that is agent's trying to stir up business for when the transfer window opens, it could be that some of our stars will leave, thats natural in any football club, the trick is to have their replacement in place and/or use the money wisely to improve the team, Luke Shaw is a great player, but if we got say £30 million for him, if we used it wisely we would be a stronger team.

But in the case of Mauricio Pochettino there is something deeper far more sinister going on, partly its from the paranoia spread in January about how upset the manager was to see the CEO leave, any manager would be concerned with boardroom upheaval, but the rumours of Pochettino leaving for the likes of Spurs or Real Madrid etc are not taking into account his standing in the game away from Southampton.

We Saints fans of course hold him in high regard, we appreciate that he has moulded together a tight team spirit based on playing a certain way and that way is often exciting to watch, the fact that we have achieved our highest league position for a decade also helps, but why is Pochettino linked with some top jobs whilst Roberto Martinez isnt, after all if Everton dont qualify for the Champions league then what have they got to look forward to next season, a Europa League campaign that could drain their small squad and another fight for 6/7th.

If I was Daniel Levy I know who I would want to replace Tim Sherwood, it would be the man who has shown he can take a mid table club on to another level and win trophies not the man who both at Espanyol and here has a track record of taking bottom third sides and keeping them safely in mid table. Why is Steve Bruce's name not being bandied about, he has had a more impressive season than Pochettino and has done so with a far inferior squad ?

This isnt a slur on Pochettino, this is just illustrating where he sits in the pecking order, Spurs are a desperate club, they have constantly shown over the years that they go for the big name option and they are not afraid to use the press to de stabilise their target as we found out with Glenn Hoddle some 13 years ago now.

So why is Pochettino's name mentioned for Spurs every time, usually as an added thought after the latest big name to reportably have been seen leaving White Hart Lane after talks ?

I would offer the opinion that in the Premier Mauricio Pochettino would struggle to get a club with more potential

But in essence why should Mauricio Pochettino's future at Saints be such an issue mid season, he has 15 months left on his contract and he has already said he intends to see it through, on the continent contracts are viewed differently, there a manager or player signs for a period of time and sees that as part of his career plan, over here we still see contracts as being for life, why would any player want to leave a club, its all about keeping players on long contracts, partly because of the re sale value, but also the fans struggle to accept that a player would only want to play for their club for a short period of time.

Perhaps Mauricio Pochettino feels the same way, in his career path he might harbour thoughts of managing in other countries or back in Spain, that being the case why would he need to sign a long term deal, maybe he is happy to do his 2 1/2 years at St Mary's and move on, that doesnt mean that he wants to go now.

The rumours also persist that if Pochettino goes that will signal to the players the club has no ambition and they will all be writing transfer requests, strangely this is the only time i have ever heard this at any club in the Premier League, players are not as stupid as their antics in the press often portray them, yes there will be some players who know they can go to a genuine big club, Luke Shaw for example, but most know that they would be unlikely to get much better than Saints, they also know that managers come and go, Adam Lallana has played first team football for 7 yes 7 permanent managers at Saints, he has seen doom predicted when both Alan Pardew and Nigel Adkins left, why would he suddenly be so concerned about Pochettino leaving, he will know that managers come and go, he will save his worries for when the replacement is named, because the key to success is who comes in next, not who has just left.

Since Nicola Cortese left it has been business as usual for Saints, they have got no more nor no less points than they were getting under Cortese's alleged golden hand, they probably knew at the start of the season that all the talk of getting into the Champion's League was folly, professional footballers know what teams limitation's are, they were at Saints because it offered them as good as they could get last year, if Liverpool had wanted Lallana or Rodriguez in the summer they would have got them, as they got Coutinho ahead of us, its about pecking order and as much as Cortese would try to tell us different sadly that will be the case unless someone wants to pump in Manchester City type cash into our coffers.

As they know last summer, Saints is a club with a good foundation, it has the chance to repeat this season and perhaps even go one better and win a Cup, ther e are 7 better teams that our players could go to, but that doesnt mean that those 7 want them.

Now is the time for cool heads amongst Saints fans, none of us know what Mauricio Pochettino or Luke Shaw are really thinking apart from the fact that neither of them have stated they want to leave, in fact the opposite, in todays modern game the media has to speculate on transfers with little substance for 9 months of the year with two small windows where actual business is done, these little rumours with social media soon become big ones with every man and his dog claiming that Pochettino is going to Spurs and Shaw is going to everyone, there are enough muck spreaders trying to do harm to our club since January, we dont need our own supporters to join in

Photo: Action Images

slynch added 10:26 - Apr 16 As Saints get higher in the league so there is fewer and fewer teams Saints' players would want to leave for. Additionally, fewer teams that can afford them and only a very few that would want Saints players to replace the players they've got. If the very best Saints players leave good money will be generated cos NC got them on long contracts and with that money multiple good players can be bought to improve the overall team. MP is more difficult to replace as there is effectively only one of him. Sign him up!!

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St_Guido added 10:52 - Apr 16 Honestly, the only player I despair of losing is Lallana. He is the new Le Tiss for me & crucial to our team in so many more ways than Shaw or Schneiderlin etc. I'm hoping that he continues to match Le Tiss as a one club man.
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Jesus_02 added 11:36 - Apr 16 Wow – what a negative article!. “if Liverpool had wanted Lallana or Rodriguez in the summer they would have got them, as they got Coutinho ahead of us” Your insistence that saints would have achieved what they have over the last 5 years without “Cortese's alleged golden hand” is wearing a bit thin now. We have had another great season and now we are safe thoughts turn to the summer. I do think that most normal fans will be wondering and hoping if our new board will do as well at fending of teams that want best players as Cortese was. Our only significant defeat in the transfer market was the loss of Oxlade Chamberlain in a deal that cost Arsenal dearly for a League 1 players (10m + 10k a match?)

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schatfield added 13:13 - Apr 16 Good article Nick, an enjoyable read and a fair amount of truth in there I would say
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BoondockSaint added 14:23 - Apr 16 Agree with St. Guido! I would be suprised if MP or any manager of note takes the Spurs job. Big money yes, but likely to be fired withing months. They players on that team are the problem, not the managers. Who would want to work there?
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ClickInsect added 15:35 - Apr 16 The "why" is super simple. MoPo and the players were sold on the "this is our time" shtick which was a plan to put Saints in the Champions League with a combination of player development and capital investment. If the new administration aren't prepared to finance that & want to replace that vision with a business which makes a profit in turnover every year by aiming for mid-table then the manager and players who are being coveted by teams who do have ambition, will want to go. I don't see how anybody could blame them. Even guys that care like Lallana would be stupid to stay with a club that might struggle when he could be earning double while playing at the highest level. MoPo's future is in doubt, because the project he was sold on has ended & nobody as yet told him what the new project looks like. The same goes for the players. I don't think that Spurs are a "big club" they are a bigger club but not be degrees. If MoPo ends up managing them, it will be because he wants to leave us, more than a desperate desire to be associated with the Spurs go Marching In, side-parting brigade. If you aren't going forward in the Premier League you are going backwards as so many teams in relegation trouble have shown this year. Everton are the only club that have managed to be a selling club while performing and that was down to stability on and off the pitch. On the other hand, the bottom ten in the league show you all you need to know about what happens when you have no investment and instability.

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SaintNick added 15:55 - Apr 16 If Mopo and the players were sold the "This is our time" schtick as you put it then they were lied to by someone, because clearly Katharina wasnt prepared to finance it to the levels needed so it certainly wasnt her.
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IanRC added 16:44 - Apr 16 Somebody should be sued. Scandalous rumours just put out to unsettle players (and supporters) are unfortunately part of the way the rubbish press (and certain clubs it would seem) in the UK operate. Such rumours can however do real harm and have a tendency to become self fulfilling. Just one more way the moral standards of football have deteriorated over the years.
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ClickInsect added 17:41 - Apr 16 @SaintNick I think that's a bit binary. From what came out in the press it seemed like the club had a review every season, which resulted in stand-offs regarding capital investments that Cortese got the better of, all the way up to this year when he didn't. It was clearly Cortese's plan, but she did fund it for a number of years even with objections. Cortese's point was that he was providing value for the investment.

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Jesus_02 added 17:53 - Apr 16 @SaintNick Cortese was good enough at the "This is our time" schtick to convince players to stay with saints..Isnt that what leaders are supposed to do? Surely football like any brand/business/club is about selling the dream not capitulating to the reality. I just hope that the current set up can continue to build on what we have
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densham41 added 17:59 - Apr 16 Some saints fans have a very short memory. Remember our club went bust. Remember the points reduction? Remember the fear of "are we going to be saved". I'll remind you, that was when are record signing was Rory dalap at under 5 million. In those days we sold out or the corperate boxes and the corperate seats were all sold. This last 2 years those boxes have seldom been sold out there is nearly always empty seats opposite where I sit in the kingsland. However we have signed some seriously expensive players. We are not a champions league side and unless we find someone with deep deep pockets we never will be. I want my club to be playing attractive football, winning more than loosing and aiming for a cup final. All of these are achiveable. What I want most of all, is not the fear of there never being a Southampton football because we went bust. MP is a great manager, however we gave him the tools to be one when he arrived. The tools being Lallana , shaw, lambert etc etc. he is not as important as kat and Marcus are and was. While kat is around with or without MP I'm sure we will win ore than we loose

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ClickInsect added 19:57 - Apr 16 @densham41 You might want to remember even further back, when Rupert told us what a well run club we were. How we had no debt, a sustainable wage bill & great commercial prospects. The league changed, particularly in regard to wages & we sank down the league like a stone. Then we found that our sustainable business model was based on being in the premier league, because nothing else can even come close to bridging the gap in revenue. We ended up hours from liquidation. The club isn't about to go bankrupt. The owners have spent 50 million. Just our playing staff are worth more than double that. Turnover isn't the only indicator of organisational health, if it was than Google & Facebook would be worth about twenty quid each. Whether the owners want to/should continue to invest is a fair question for debate. Evoking bankruptcy is nonsense. As is guys like Kreuger and Hofstedder talking about "financial difficulties". When NC saw that a new premier league deal had been signed, he bought players to establish us in the league, then he structured the deals so they would be paid off the year that the club got the first excess payment from the new TV deal. Some people would call that a smart move. Not all debt is bad debt, if you borrow 100k for an asset worth a million, then it's time to smile.

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davepid added 22:00 - Apr 16 Thought provoking article Nic. This article, the one about season ticket increases and all those which comment about our pitch performance point to the dilemma every fan is in ,other than for Chelsea, Man City , Man Utd and perhaps Everton. It's a three prone dilemma. We want success on the pitch in keeping with the clubs character; we want success on the pitch which is continually improving season by season; we want the club to have a relationship with their fan base which is somehow qualitatively different to the usual customer/ supplier realtionsship. I'm not sure how you achieve all three in harmony. To get to the next level either requires time , e.g Everton, or invest ruthlessly , Man City, Chelsea.

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cheltenhamsaint added 00:56 - Apr 17 Good article, good read, as have been the posters. In any business, in any industry, if you want to break into the establishment you have to be different, to have an angle, something the main players haven't thought of. In theory, Saints could throw a lot of cash at CL or bust. But deep down none of us want this. We want to do it our way, we want our home grown heroes. It is how we get a buzz about our club. I'm not convinced the vast majority would sell the Saints soul and be Man City or Chelsea with their squads made up of mercenary, but talented oversees talent. I don't fall into the camp that NC was the messiah, I think he made a lot of signings that have been a ball and chain to our progress (Forren, Mayuka, Osvaldo financially) - and yes they were his signings, everything was his decision - but he also made some great calls. MP was one of them. Largely unknown, no track record, but a hunger to develop young players and a playing style, that he could be proud of. A willingness to be patient, make mistakes but learn from them. I see now that Everton, Liverpool and to a lesser degree WBA are copying this model. Others will follow suit. It is only my opinion by observation in his manner and speech but MP is not using Saints as a stepping stone. He may well move on at some point but not before he has learnt all he can, given all he can to the cause or out stayed his welcome

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BaselSaint added 12:12 - Apr 17 IanRC I completely agree. as Saints get stronger in status I think we need to stand up to the media bullies and rumour mongers.
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