sadoldgit

They are different. But Cortese seems if anything to be more arrogant than Lowe and less media/PR savvy yet he seems to have many people eating out of his hands whereas they wanted to hang Lowe. My point is though that we cannot really judge Cortese in terms of having "success" until he gets this club up and competes with the big boys.

This is theissue thoug isn't it? Their working relationship. I hope it was all speculation but I have a feeling that it wasn't and that more rifts are likely. It is good that Cortese wants it, but if it wants it a 100 mph he will have to put a serious amount of dosh in to pay the kind of wages that would attrcat decent CCC level players to the club. People like Danns are not going to come for peanuts and we need several players of his caibre to drop a divison if we are going to go up next season and be really competitive in the season after. If Cortese has doubts about Pardew deep down, will he back him to that level of keep his powder slightly dry until Christmas an save the mega bucks for someone else?

It depends how you define success doesn't it? Yes we won a cup, but under Lowe we stayed in the Premiership for 10 years, made it to an FA Cup Final and into Europe and had our highest Prem finish. These are the sort of things that Corest will be judged on if he is deemed to be a success. As for managers staying. If there is money available and a plan to take the club forward why wouldn't a manager want to stay? Manager tend to move on if they have no cash to build and are offered some elsewhere.

Life is to short to answer all of your responses Wes but I shall a couple. People like me adding 2 and 2 and amking 5? I think a lot of people did that and why? Cortese hardly showed any ringing endoresement of Pardew last season or in this statement. The hugs at Wembley...what was he supposed to do? The cameras were on him, he was hardly likely to blank Pardew was he? A media frenzy is when all of the national media pick up on a story not just one national newspaper and the local rag. None of us know for sure but I don't think it unreasonable to get the impression thta Pardew was out of the door, not from the speculation in the media but from Cortese's own actions. Perhaps thje media speculation and fan based support changed his mind? Who knows? I don't believe his statement though and I certainly don't believe it is all lovey dovey between them. Either way, the manager stays for a while, hopefully Cortese has leaned something about how to conduct himself and we have a summer of rebuilding to look forward to. The only real worry I have is that if Cortese feels he has been backed into supported Pardew, then perhaps he wont be backing him 100% in the transfer market and will look to unload him the minute that results allow him a window of opportunity. Interesting season ahead methinks!

Good to see the clear out starting and looking forward to the rebuilding process. Slightly surprised at James as Pardew seemed to be bigging him up ealier in the season but we need better so no problem there. Still some I'd like to see move on to make room for better players but the aeson has just finished so plenty of time yet. Does Pardew know what he is doing? Of course he does though no doubt those who have problems with him will look to pick over his every decisions looking for something to pull him up on. We shall start the season with a stronger squad that we finisished this season, that is for sure. How we fair next season, who knows. It will be tough but if Cortese backs Pardew in the transfer market and we bring in more player of the quality of Lambert and Fonte, we should be in for a cracking season.

Money has little to do with anything. Few managers spend a ton of it and get success in the same season. Burley only had one ful season with us and did make the play offs. Pearson has done very weel at Leicester but didn't set the world alight with us. Burley did a great job for Ipswich and Hearts. Some people work well in som eplaces and not so well in others.

Snodin wasn't at Ipswich when Burley took them up and into Europe the following season. Snodin wasn't at Hearts when Snodin broke the Old Firm stranglehold on the league. Burley was let down by certain players in the play offs but it is history now. Pearson was let down by a player and a joke penalty. It highlights that managers can only do so much.

I think that the two parties are too far apart to form an electoral coalition, but stranger things have happened. I get the feeling that there are a lot ot Tory and Lib Dem voters who are not at all happy about this situation. I am one. I voted Lib Dem and would rather they had sised with Labour as much as I dislike Brown. For the sake of the country I hope it works, but I hope more that the Lib Dems retain their identity and fight the next electiona as hard as this one for themselves.

Pardew went into this on weak ground but after today's statement he is in a much stronger position. I think Cortese threw his toys out of his Ferrari designed pram because the less you come out and say the more you are in control. He has now given the media actual quotes that they can hold him to, and that works in Pardews favour for now. The summer and the start of the season will be all about Pardew and not Cortese, and that is the way it should be. If he doesn't deliver by Christmas though I think he will be out of the door. The definition of "deliver" will be what we will all be debating on here from August until December. I have a feeling that Cortese's definition of "deliver" will be well clear at the top of the table.

I think he could have worded his statement a lot better. He might be the face of the new SFC but he will NEVER be in the same league as the people he chose to have a pop at here. Why did these people come out and say what they did? Because the really belived that Pardew's job was on the line. Blimey, even a blind man could have seen that. But not Mr Cortses apparently. You can get away with this stuff if your are successful, but as Lowe found out, you can't if you fail. Lets hope our new leader is the former.

All I can say is that if he wrote that piece then, once he is finished with football he could walk in into a job as a top political Spin Doctor! Perhaps not an accountant or maths teacher though because he obvioulsy doesn't know how many months make 12. No Nicola, you have not been at this club a year yet. There are a number of very simple issues here. The media "frenzy" (a couple of stories here and there is hardly a frenzy) only came about becuase of his very lukewarm response to his manager earlier in the season, no well done when he won us the cup and no resposne when the rumours started. He could have ended this stuff in a heartbeat but he chose to let it go on. Why? Why did Pardew feel that his job was not secure? Why did people such as Le Tiss, McMenemy and even Keegan for goodness sakes feel the need to come out and support Pardew in the media? It is a bit rich for Cortese to kick off about all of this when it was down to him in the first place. He seems to have a bit of the Mourhino about him Does anyone here really believe that he and Pardew have a warm and fuzzy realtionship? No, of course not. There is often no smoke without fire. I do wonder whether the huge support for Pardew has swayed Cortese and pushed him into keeping him on. Still, the main things is that Pardew is staying (for now). We shall have stability and a summer to build further. I see little difference between Lowe and Cortese except that Cortese has got money to play with (and how much he allows Pardew to spend this summer will be the real litmus test of his intent and trust in his manager). But frankly I don't care to much about his behaviour and his obvious arrogance. If he does deliver Premiership football in 5 years no one will care about his faults. If he desn't though you can bet your life that everyone else will get the blame. What he needs to remember is that he employed Pardew in the first place. If he is so hacked off that we didn't make the play offs and thinks that Pardew is at fault, perhaps he ought to consider his own judgement call. What a week, we have two squeeky clean clones running the country and now a slippery Johnny Foreigner has Saints fans eating out of his hand because he is forced into making a statement that should never have been necessary in the first place. Happy days.

Pleased for Dave Jones tonight. A decent man and I hope he gets Cardiff promoted. Feel sorry for Pearson. Another decent man who has done a great job for Leicester. But for all those people who slagged off Burley and said that Pearson was the better manager - when it came to it both were let down by one or two of their players when it really mattered. The same is true of Pardew. For the few here who have slagged him off this season. It is not him but the players who need to shoulder the blame for the results that have gone against us.

Really? And between them how much experience do they have in running a football club? Pardew put the points on the board, not these two.

I heard he was unhappy that he wasn't able to make it to the game. Depends what you want to believe I suppose.

If they don't get on perhaps you need to ask why? Pardew seems a decent enough bloke. Cortese seems a bit up his own b*m. Maybe Cortese ought to try a bit harder?

At the end of the day it is the manager and players that decides what happens on the pitch, not the money men...unless they don't spend any of it of course.

Agreed 100%

Do you really think he has nothing better to do than to play silly games? If he was that intent on causing trouble why wait until the end of the season? Wouldn't he have done it before now?

Me too. And thousands of others!

As opposed to your self-appointed role as the ringpiece for SFC spouting a daily stream of sh*t perhaps?

I don't think this has much to do with ML. He sees happy to let Nicola get on with the running of the club. Depending on what happens on Wednesday that might not be such a good thing!

If only we had hung on to our industies under Thatcher. Now we don't make anything anymore and having nothing to export, nothing to sell except what is left of the family silver. If only if only if only.....Still, at leats there are plenty of jobs for kids flipping burgers.

I don't think it is the owner we need to worry about....and we have had lots of practice slagging off Chairmen!

I don't think it is an issue of ML or AP, I think it is AP or NC. Given a choice of the two right now I would go for AP. Still, if NC gets rid of him and delivers Prem football in 4 seasons time he can say he was right. I personally think Pardew has done more than enough this year to show he is the man for the job next season and that NC should come out and back him.

Ah I see, so they pick the players, take training, sort out the tactics? So it is them that Alps should have ben slagging off all this time and not Pardew then? Mr Liebherr has kindly stumped up some cash but is Pardew and his management team that are doing the business on the ground.