Didn't Cortese blame Pinnacle/Begbies for delaying his and Markus's takeover, and thus for Saint's season getting off to a slow start, and he specifically mentioned that they lost one or two decent players as a result of this dithering?
Suggests to me that he would have been happy to have retained Surman (and McGoldrick?), thus one can conclude he'd be happy to see him back.
I reckon.