Jeremy Wilson of the Telegraph is a well respected Sports Journalist and he has written an article this weekend that every Saints fan should read.

The inside story of Southampton's brilliant start to the Premier League season under Ronald Koeman

This is a very good article which is fairly accurate although I think it has been done with lets say "co operation" from the club, Wilson is a former Daily Echo sportswriter and has written a book on Saints.

Having cleared up the fact that Wilson is close to the club in some respects, it should also be noted he is a very respected journalist and not one who would compromise his own integrity for a free holiday to watch pre season training, if he has written it, it means it is well researched and he is happy with the facts.

It is balanced in that it does confirm that Cortese did some very good things, I have always agreed with that, sadly though as Wilson confirms here , he did many other things that interfered with the best way of doing things and ultimately became too embroiled in petty things regarding football rather than running the club properly in all areas.

In essence he thought he was bigger than the club and although not gone into too much detail here, he spent too much time trying to flex his muscle and show he was the boss, whether it be introducing petty car parking charges or his perceived persecution of certain ex players by supporters.

What is clear is that Katharina Liebherr became aware of these problems and decided she had to deal with them, one easy option might have been just to sell up, but that was not the path she took and the club is all the better for it.

Les Reed comes out of this well, in many respects he should, in that he has done a lot of things behind the scenes regarding sports science, identifying players etc, Cortese took much of the credit for this, but being realistic it was Reed who knew about such matters not Cortese.

Reed however is not good at some things and people management etc is one of them, that is touched on with regards communication with Lallana etc, for a while back in May & June Reed was left holding the fort and he wasn't up to that task, his strengths lie elsewhere.

What it does confirm though is that Saints were being targeted by certain clubs, some of whome behaved better than others and that Pochettino was far from honest in what he was telling the club, we are probably a better club without him and Cortese as well for that matter, both of whom were more concerned with their own interests rather than Southampton FC.

Things will change in football, they always do, but as I said in the summer, its not about what has happened, its about what happens next and Saints have been through a traumatic period in which many Saints supporters did not give those in charge of the club the leeway they deserved to keep it on track, preferring to believe the press reports being planted by various suspects we can only guess at, with the aim of de stabilising the club.

Now we have a balanced view, of course it may have a hint of PR about it, but as i say Jeremy Wilson is a respected journalist with integrity, he has not got that reputation by being the lacky of football club managers and Chairman.

Southampton Football Club has been vidicated for its behaviour in a very difficult summer, from a personal perspective rarely have I ever seen a manager at this club with as little respect for it or honesty towards it than Mauricio Pochettino and my thoughts of the path that Nicola Cortese was taking us down are well documented.

When I talk about Cortese there are some who will accuse me of bias, after all they will say, he took your season ticket away, that I cannot deny, but those who sang his names at matches and feted him as the greatest Chairman in the clubs history would do well to consider why on earth a man earning nearly £2 million a year and with his hands full running a football club would want to waste valuable time persecuting a humble supporter or an ex player for that matter.

Perhaps Katharina Liebherr saw these things and realised that leadership comes from the top, if she wanted a club that mirrored her late father's Moral & Ethical credo in his sadly short life, then Nicola Cortese was not the man for that, thank you Katharina Liebherr for taking back our club, there will be rocky times ahead im sure, every football club has them but we are in far better shape to tackle them now as a club and we know that the people running in will do what is best for the club and not just self serve their own interests.

Photo: Action Images

Hugh_Jarce added 13:32 - Oct 4 Had just read the Telegraph article before catching up on the UI. Totally agree with your comments Nick. There will always be the glass ceiling but we can continue as a solvent and successful PL club.
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WestSussexSaint added 13:39 - Oct 4 A good read for any Saints fan and one that gives confidence in the current regime. As for MoPo it seems he always intended to leave but not necessarily go to Spurs. However when it was pointed out to him he would have to personally pay off his contract he sold himself to Spurs so they footed the bill. If I were a Spurs fan I would not feel good about this as clearly MoPo has no loyalty to Spurs.

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slynch added 13:52 - Oct 4 He was paid to write a load of negative tripe about the club in the summer and now he's been paid to write a load positive tripe about the club. The only consistent thing in that statement is the word "tripe". Tripe is edible but best not swallowed whole, especially when you find out where it comes from.
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landsdownsaint added 13:58 - Oct 4 A great read , iv realised that what you was saying was correct! But I will allways have a soft spot for NC ,for it was him who took the name of SFC to Markus.
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ThereIn76 added 16:25 - Oct 4 A heartening read. I was sure we'd be OK as soon as Koeman had been appointed, as he wouldn't have been cheap and wouldn't have come without assurances that he could use to proceeds of the sales to rebuild and remodel the squad. Players have been brought in for the right reasons - to address weaknesses and to give the manager options. Some statements don't quite add up though. Wilson says "inside Southampton's training centre is also what is known as the ‘black-box', a room where every game and player is analysed from leagues across the world. Comprehensive checks are then done into their personality, family, friends, lifestyle and training habits." If this is the case how does it account for the signing of Osvaldo? Anybody who had carried out the most basic checks on his personality, lifestyle and training habits wouldn't have touched him with a bargepole. We shouldn't forget all the good things Cortese did - or indeed where we might now be had he not told Markus Liebherr about Saints being in administration and for sale back in 2009. But now I think the club is in very good hands - and it feels like it's our club again.

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ChristchurchSaint added 17:29 - Oct 4 I also had read this article before I logged on here. It appears to give us all some insight as to what happened from January onwards, and although I was definitely not a Cortese fan, I do agree that he did do some good things ( as I have put in a previous comment on here!). Nevertheless, he did appear to have let things cloud some of his judgements, and this undoubtedly left Judas with the idea of leaving, even if he decided to leave before he was approached by Spurs. I do agree with Nick that this article does seem to confirm that we are now in a much stronger position than we were last season, and hopefully this will culminate with 3 points tomorrow and somebody "loving " us a little bit less than he does currently!!

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redkraft added 07:55 - Oct 5 "He was paid to write a load of negative tripe about the club in the summer and now he's been paid to write a load positive tripe about the club. The only consistent thing in that statement is the word "tripe". Tripe is edible but best not swallowed whole, especially when you find out where it comes from." I guess that makes us unpaid bloggers the best sources of information since we provide our tripe for free.

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Saintsfaninoz added 08:56 - Oct 5 Good article, though, as you point out, one with a sympathetic assessment of the changes SFC have endured in the last 5 years. There is an interesting article on espn about the club, with a focus on the economic aspects of running a successful club faced with the realities of competing with the resources that MUFC, CFC, MCFC, and Arsenal have at their disposal. For those interested, here is a link : http://www.espnfc.com/club/southampton/376/blog/post/2069506/premier-league-sout

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08111952 added 11:07 - Oct 6 I agree that the Wilson article is balanced and full of decent insights. However, if you want to see or perhaps confirm the plan for the future, the sports pages are the wrong place to look. Try the Telegraph's financial pages under the Leisure section and read Natalie Thomas's article on Gareth Rogers, some time Deloitte Consultant and our CEO. The future is crystal clear. "Is Europe still a possibility? Rogers says that remains the club’s goal but you won’t see the side getting involved in a financial arms race to get there. Southampton may be a football club but it also remains a business, he stresses." “We still have a position whereby there is debt within the football club as a result of the owner putting in funds and Katharina Liebherr has put a significant amount of funds into the business,” he says. “Now the club is established within the Premier League… she wants to see sustainability put at the heart of everything we do.” After the miseries of Administration and relegation, frankly that's ok by me! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/111424 Dan Howard

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