CanadaSaint

What a futile 'discussion' this is. When it comes to moments of pure genius, MLT was a big cut above anything I've seen in our shirt. But when it comes to consistent effort and an ability to inject real quality in most of the games they played, I can think of quite a few better candidates. That said, I don't have this inner need to choose a "best player" and engage in protracted arguments to support my personal choice. Equally futile is all this talk about whether Cortese is a nice guy. I'm fairly convinced he's not, but then I don't much care as long as he's taking my team forward, which - until Friday, I was convinced he was; I'll wait and see how the managerial change works out before reaching my own personal opinion in the matter. He should have handled it better but he certainly wasn't "gutless" or "cowardly" for not turning up at the press conference because A) it was best that he wasn't there, and B) he's studiously avoided them even when the subject matter was highly positive. And he wasn't sneaky for lining up a new manager while NA was still in place - any more than NA was when he lined up better players while picking and interacting with the guys who would be replaced. That's just football - and it's been like that for a very long time. What I find frustrating and very unhelpful is all this drive-by smearing with unsubstantiated allegations, especially when they come from or relate to MLT, Benali and Lawrie Mac. I get it, guys - he doesn't respect you as much as you (and I) think you deserve to be respected. The allegations may be true but if you're not prepared to put up, then shut up. Truth is a defence against slander, so your reluctance to "put up" suggests that you may not be able to substantiate you view - or not willing to defend what you've said. So forgive me if I don't pay you too much heed when you say - as MLT did - that you don't want to go into it further for fear of harming the club. You're harming the club already IMO by using your platform as a venue for unsubstantiated smearing, so what's with the sudden sensitivity? And the same goes for you, Turkish. You say Cortese is banned from a local restaurant but you won't say where and you won't say why; you mention a host of other things on a regular basis as though they are facts that prove NC is an obnoxious turd, but you won't (or can't) substantiate them. Same deal, put up or shut up, because your input has no credibility in my eyes if you don't. And, even then, I'm going to want to hear NC's "side" before making up my mind, which is never going to happen. That's why all this ongoing crap is so damn futile.

Good for you, Huffton. Without the emotion, this sport is nothing. As I suspect I won't have any say in it at the time in question, the words ringing in my ears as I (hopefully) pass through the Pearly Gates will be my mum's and my wife's - "I don't know why you get so upset; it's only a game."

So how come a number of people - far better connected than you or I - have said that Adkins knew it was coming from the day we were promoted? How come Nigel sat us all back in our seats when, in his moment of greatest triumph, he seemed quite morose and said that he knew his job at Southampton wouldn't last? How come the rumours have been bouncing around for months that his days were numbered? And I'm still waiting for you to answer Delldays question on the other thread - "do you think adkins gave billy sharp daily updates upon signing his replacement in Jay Rodriguez....?" Stop twisting your principles - and the facts - to suit your agenda. I'm not happy with Cortese either but you don't need to be a hypocrite in order to find the grounds to criticize him.

I never said that Cortese told Adkins he was negotiating with a new manager, not even close. I said that he told the players and staff, immediately after promotion, that many of them were not PL standard and would be replaced. You've dug yourself into a hole but don't misrepresent what I said in your attempts to get out of it. Nigel has worked behind his players' backs in order to improve the squad, and Cortese has worked behind Nigel's back in order to improve the management and coaching. That's not very "nice" but it's all part of the game. In order to bolster your anti-Cortese angle, you were criticizing that kind of thing if Cortese does it but not if Adkins does it, which is dishonest and hypocritical.

Now you're just making yourself look silly, so why don't you quit while you're behind?

As I've said on the other thread, Cortese told all of them - Nigel included - that many of them weren't of PL standard and would be replaced, and Nigel said himself - on promotion day - that he knew his job wouldn't last. You're twisting your principles to bolster your anti-Cortese position, because there's no real difference between Nigel secretly recruiting a new player and Cortese secretly recruiting a new manager. Behind the back is behind the back, regardless of whose back it is. I don't like how it was done either, but that's how it goes in the game.

But Cortese said when we got promoted that many of them - meaning Nigel and the players - weren't of PL standard and would be replaced; you can't get much more honest and straightforward than that, can you? And Nigel was aware all along that his job at Southampton might not last; he said as much on the day we were promoted to the PL, and that's also very honest and straightforward, isn't it? So - despite your self-serving mental gymnastics - the answer to my question is that it's no different, other than because one was Adkins and the other was Cortese. You're just twisting your personal ethics based on who you're talking about, which defeats the point behind your raising the issue of ethics at all.

So what's your take on instances in which Adkins knew a first choice player (who was working his balls off, too) wasn't up to it, and so NA worked inside the club on finding, negotiating with, and signing a replacement? Is the same tactic different just because one's a manager and one's a player? Or because one was perpetrated by Adkins and the other by Cortese?

Good post. The only thing I'd take issue with in it is this: The idea of secretly courting a new guy while NA was still working his nuts off make me feel rather sickened too, but why would a manager be treated any differently to the way in which he treats the players he manages? Managers don't give players a heads-up that they're negotiating to replace them - they keep them in the dark for fear of damaging their performance or the dressing room harmony, and then "Whack", they're out. It's not a nice part of the game but it is just a part of the game.

You're not capable of having a discussion on here without pigeon-holing people holding different opinions into non-existent categories. God help anyone who doesn't share your opinion. And you bang on about Cortese being petty and vindictive.

Is that all the evidence you cite for your MLT-all-good/Cortese-all-bad viewpoint - Lawrie Mac, Benali, MLT and unnamed ex players? Look, I've said I think NC is an obnoxious little man, and I don't like his disregard for the past any more than you do. But it's far from unknown for former players and managers to have a somewhat jaundiced view of any new guard, never mind one with such a thinly-veiled disrespect for the things they achieved. Multiply that manyfold, in MLT's case, because of all the Pinnacle stuff and his part in it - whatever that may have been. However, what I'm saying is that neither you nor I nor anyone else on this forum knows everything behind this situation. There was a lot of venom reserved for Lawrie Mac on this forum long before Cortese arrived on the scene, so perhaps NC saw that it was justified. And those three have been poking a stick in a proud (and arrogant) man's cage for too damn long for this to get any better.

You don't know whether it's petty or vindictive because you don't know what rests behind it. I'm sure there was plenty happening during the near-Pinnacle episode that we don't know about, and probably never will know about, so we're not in a position to conclude that Cortese's dislike for - and mistrust of - MLT is unjustified. And you can buy MLT's "isn't in best interests of the club" line if you want, but the other angle is that he's (justifiably IMO) worried about getting sued. MLT is a hero to me but I refuse to be blinded to his possible failings. And Cortese is an obnoxious little man to me, but I refuse to be blinded to his demonstrated strengths.

I think you might be dead right, Ohio. When a club of our size spends that much on one player, the intent is to use him in a pivotal role rather than the somewhat peripheral one he often had under NA. Leaving aside how he actually performed, and even his nasty injury, that's why we (Cortese) bought him. And when the book is finally written on this sorry little episode, NA's utilization (or under-utilization) of Ramirez might turn out to be one of the key reasons for his dismissal.

So, just as I suspected, you formed your 'opinion' without even seing Paine play then.

I'd say there's a much greater chance that this will get worse at some point - in the form of a lawsuit.

Roger, serious question: How old are you? Your strident posts on this thread suggest that you saw Paine play, which would make you 50+. But your posting style, complete with needless insults aimed at people who don't share your opinion on your heroes, suggests that you're about twelve. So what is it?

Could it be that Paine supports the NA decision because he's one of the very few people who, through his interactions with Cortese, knows exactly why it was made? Whether he's the toadying kind or not, I suspect that he has an advantage that none of us, and nobody in the media, has: inside knowledge.

Perhaps Cortese refused to install under soil heating and then deliberately timed the change in manager so that it would coincide with a postponement, thus allowing MP more time to work with the squad before his first game.

I'm not sure it was just about formation so much as not fully "toeing the company line", whatever that may be - a cardinal sin, I suspect, in the world of Cortese. It could stretch into things such as whether to start Rickie, where to play Ramirez, when to start/not start academy graduates, and a host of other things. Moreover, we still don't know (do we?) whether it was Adkins or Cortese who had the beef with the now-important Puncheon. And we've bought a number of fairly expensive players who haven't really had a sniff at a regular role - several "early ball" players who don't really fit into Nigel's final-third team style. When hindsight paints a more accurate picture, it's usually one involving a number of problems rather than a single issue.

I guess you need reminding - again - about your November post: I can handle opinions that differ from my own. What I can't handle is gutless hypocrisy.

Yes, that's an excellent piece, and it has a much better air of credibility than the stuff in the mainstream media. Another dimension of Cortese's style that does him no favours is the fact that he doesn't talk to the media - or even, as far as I can tell, leak anything to selected journalists. In fact he shows the same contempt to the media that he shows to the average fan. The two big negatives from that are A) they don't like him much, and B) "his" side of controversial decisions is seldom, if ever, properly aired. It's all very well for Winter to lament the disregard that chairmen have for fans (and I agree with much of what he wrote), but the media are equally culpable: they happily print without knowledge, present uninformed opinions as cast-iron facts, invite input from people with personal axes to grind, and some even knowingly print lies. The footballcourier article is the most objective article I've seen yet. It doesn't explain or excuse Cortese's abysmal handling of the issue but it does get past the uninformed veneer we see from the mainstream media.

I didn't say that. What I was getting at, trying to see this through Cortese's eyes, is that decisions like that could have been seen as a reluctance to comply with "the program". It might not have been a critical incident but - in Cortese's and Reed's eyes - another one in an annoying line. But if you felt that Davis was "neat and tidy" on Wednesday, we probably see the game differently anyway.

Because, for all his arrogance, Cortese recognizes his limitations on the playing side and knows that he needs a "football man" as an advisor and confidante - all the more so because he doesn't trust many people. Reed fills that role IMO. Who else might?

Fair enough but if you look at the Chelsea game, the one before the big decision, I'd venture the opinion that JWP would probably have been more effective than the plodding, space-marking S. Davis. Look, I'm not trying to excuse what Cortese did yesterday, least of all the timing, but I am trying to see it through Cortese's (and Reed's) eyes. And I keep stressing Reed because I suspect that he had a much bigger part in this than most of us have hitherto realized.