The response to him is probably just that he raises his head above the parapet and is therefore an easy target.Personally,I like the bloke,good track record at Saints as youth team coach,pushed into the top job probably against his own better judgement and then discarded in a very shabby fashion.As you say,he enthuses about football.
As for the pronunciations,it not just foreign names that some ex Saints have problems with.Remember Mick Channon and "the boy Line-acre".