Yesterday, Southampton’s chairman Nicola Cortese resigned. Depending on how long you have been trailing this story, he is either being tempted to take up the chef exec job at struggling Milan, or has found working under owner Katharine Liebharr too much. It’s also possible that Ms Liebharr has insisted on a return on her family’s two rounds of investment in the club and forced his hand.
Five years ago Cortese was a working in Switzerland as a banker and acted on behalf of the now-deceased and father of Katharine, Markus Liebharr. They successfully put a deal together to buy Southampton FC and rescue the club from administration (liquidation is not inevitable, some clubs survive). Cortese had no previous experience in the football industry.
Southampton are a small club who seem cursed to produce incredibly talented youth players, only to see extraordinarily bad executives spurn their bounty. I remember writing about their ‘blood on the boardroom carpet’ six years ago.
A year ago this Saturday, Cortese sacked Nigel Atkins, the manager who won them two successive promotions and put them in a comfortable position on the FA Premier League. Cortese was to 2013 what Vincent Tan is to 2014, the butt of a thousand jokes, but none of us were reading the script.
Cortese’ next move was to appoint Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, the 40-year-old recently sacked manager of Espanyol. Southampton haven’t looked back, despite the words “Hooiveld” and “Fox” regularly featuring on team sheets.
Pochettino is now one of the hottest properties in football but he’s not the story, his former boss is. In appointing a young, low-profile, manager, Cortese tackled square-on the biggest problem in football – the vast risk invested on the shoulders of one man, the manager. A football manager is expected to be a master of tactics, a motivational dressing room speaker, a media communications expert, a scout and pretty much guru of everything.
None of them are good at all of this. As a consequence, clubs invest vast proportions of turnover on player wages and transfers, with haphazard diligence being carried out. The man ultimately responsible for approving this spend is more likely to be a shouty media darling, spending an average of 2.5 years at the club, than someone who has experience of long-term strategic planning.
Cortese figured that what he really needed in a manager was a tactical head, someone who could run a technical team, consulting with scouts, coaches, nutritionists and fitness trainers, and come up with what American football teams call a playbook. You want to play at Old Trafford? This is what worked when small teams visited the Bernabeu last season. Playing teams’ taller/faster/luckier with referees than you? You’ve got to see how these guys are leveling the playing field in Uruguay.
Football clubs need their manager to be Master of Tactics, and if they can concentrate him on this, they’re doing better than 90% of clubs in the game. They don’t need someone ‘connected’ to agents in value markets, this attribute can be recruited easily. They don’t need a good media talker. Despite being able to speak English, Pochettino gives press conferences through an interpreter. Yet the fans love him!
Clubs don’t need someone to play to the galleries, or someone with the ability to induce affinity from his public, most of the time results will keep (most) fans onside.
With his technically-proficient and happy-to-be-working-anywhere manager installed, Cortese had all operations working as he wanted, including the inordinately expensive recruitment process. Sacking a good and successful manager in Atkins was the most ballsy and innovative thing to happen in English football in decades, but he was operating in an industry which is the biggest financial basket case in sport. So, despite his clarity of vision, the Southampton gig was never going to last.
Today’s newspapers predict a mass exodus as Pochettino and Southampton’s gifted players head for the exit, good news for Joos and Danny, perhaps, but you feel for the beleaguered fans, who were shown a glimpse of how things should be done, but for years will wonder, what could have been?
The rest of us can ponder the opportunity available due to entrenched inefficiencies in football.
“You should always have pressure on you”, Stefan Johansen, 15 January 2014. I like this guy already.
Last shout for North America based Celtic fans for the Feile, which starts in Philidelphia tomorrow. Full details of the events can be found here. it’s bound to be a great weekend so get along if you can.
[calameo code=000390171ece27dd9e54e lang=en page=98 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
942 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- ...
- 25
- »
The Big Hoose stayed open
Their sheer arrogance and superiority complex, their sense of self entitlement, their crass disregard for sporting integrity. A mentality forged and fostered over 100 years through a poisonous entity called Rangers FC and a socially backward European backwater called Scotland.
It truly is the rock they perished on and will do so again.
As a by-product of this disaster/scandal/farce, we as Celtic fans can also feel much vindication for decades of corruption, whether it be ‘honest’ refereeing mistakes or Farryesque rulings.
Paranoia is one word you’ll never hear again from the Huns or their Laptop poodles.
HH
Ralston disnae work for The Hun for nothing you know….:)
!!bada bing!!
16:02 on 16 January, 2014
Changing the Club badge is a non-starter……..incidentally, apologies for being a wee bit late coming on tonight…..I was away buying a further supply of sedatives…….. hahahahahahaha
The more observant in our ranks will have noticed that I have been laughing a lot recently …. like you, Bhoys, I have been ‘seeing this coming’ for a wee while noo’…hahahahahahahaha
SSB pundits are in shock…..keep fluffing their lines….hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Does anyone actually think the bhuns would have bought SB’s if they hadn’t bought all those duds, sorry players…….hahahahahahahaha….away to read back….oh, the jhoys, bhoys…!!!
bsr
Even better >}
HH
Where can I buy the righrs to the name THIRD RANGERS :))
I was thinking of going out tonight
Stayingonblogcsc
Ff.
Nearly every comment mentions them being protestants.
Except when it comes to actually protesting about their club.
What’s the difference between a SHAMBLES ! And an OMNISHAMBLES !
Can any of the lurking dregs of Servconia enlighten me please :)
Mmmm – I wonder what Paul is telling us with this latest insight into Southampton? Perhaps that a football manager shouldnt manage transfer dealings or decide targets.
CFC – the harlaam globetrotters of football – without the style…..
Heheheheheh, http://youtu.be/EPcy45EuGcI
bournesouprecipe
18:46 on
16 January, 2014
Brilliant!!!
channelislandcelt4dam5
18:44 on 16 January, 2014
Hahahahahahaha….brilliant…!!!!
BBC………………..Sevco players asked to take a pay cut move along Timmy nothing to see here
bournesouprecipe
Tea over the keyboard moment :>))
HH
charles green is now so wealthy, he wears 2 shirts
look at big hoose photo
Neg2
This is a sevco site don’t mention Celtic and their problems.
NA2
In the rest of europe, coaches coach >}
We are turning european !!!!!!
HH
Evening all
Celtic sign Norway’s rising star. Shortbread shows a Norwegian player who left 14 years ago missing a penalty.
Rangers announce they are seeking to make 15% wage cuts. Same station shows Rangers scoring a goal.
If I didn’t know better I’d swear that the state broadcaster was a touch biased.
Jimbo67 supporting Oscar Knix
“You gotta give Ally McCoist credit for the standard of football this season”
Too funny
He said: “People come out and say ‘Ah, it’s not necessary for them to have those players in that division’. But it’s not just the division that matters at R*ng*rs, it’s the fact that you have 45,000 people coming to watch something on a football pitch…they are still losing money. But when you make a decision to be involved at R*ng*rs, there is no common sense to it. The financial bit of R*ng*rs Football Club and common sense don’t often go together.”Walter Smith
Change deadco for sevco Taaaaa Daaaaaa
Djynwa67
Well……you have to……
Lmfao
THE EXILED TIM-Free the Dam 5
18:46 on 16 January, 2014
DjYNWA67
Did you get the SSB link I posted ?
HH
Yes, I did indeed. Cheers for that man!
Hail Hail!
Now, now this is serious (stop laughing at the back there)…
If you were one of them (I’ve told you already about yon sniggering)…
Seriously…what would you want to happen? What would be the best way forward?
Best to avoid admin? Is admin inevitable?
Over to the financial experts on this site.
Dallied in talking sense shocker, I need to lesson to this sage more often.
RealisationCSC
SSB Ffs, Bobo Baldie?
ryecatcher
Martin Corry may be a militant republican but this piece of repression by the government shows to me that the British presence in Ireland remains capable of acting like a bloody tyrant too.
Let’s have some balance please
HH
Marrakesh 1848…
BRILLIANT… succinct , spot on..
Gonna wear me some green in the gym tonight. Maybe a wee Notre Dame T shirt..
Hilarious..
Arrogant SMSM & Govan franchise till the end..
I hope in their anger Regan, Ogilvie et al, feel the wrath of William ..
JCGE
tonydonnelly67
18:35 on 16 January, 2014
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..haaaaaaaaaaaaa…brill
DjYNWA67
Good, wouldn’t want to miss out on the hilarity >}
HH
Have they shown Harold Brattbakk missing the penalty again – yet?
It’s happening again isn’t it?
Sevcomedians lose their sense of humour as the idea that all may not be well flits through their ‘minds’:
“We need to cut costs, but this approach makes me worry.
This is a sign of financial strain more than of prudent business.”
——
“Never saw this coming”
——
“We cant just make players redundant! we would get absolutely hammered and our reputation would be worth nothing.”
——
“I wonder how this was conducted. A simple majority, a 75% majority or of it had to be unanimous. Could be that all players rejected this or just the one. It is clear the state of our finances is not good and paying near on 100% of income on wages is not a good way to run the club. I thought we were going to spend no more than 30% on player wages.”
——
” We are spending 35% of income on playrr wages, it’s costs elsewhere that are the problem.”
——
” I have a horrible feeling in my gut” [That Sammy, is one big horrible feeling.]
——
” shameful,we brought 22 million in and also sold 36 thousand season tickets,we have a wage bill that sits at 37 percent of the clubs turnover,were the f*** has the money went because it certainly has not went on players”
——
” We are still a f***ing shambles and people give me verbal for being worried about those c[haps] doing ten.”
——
” Theyll be selling the trophies in the Barras next”
——
” First of all,to all the rhattlers(with the low post counts)…………….keep f****** dreaming(the clock is ticking on you corrupt reptiles.Your day will come after all!!!)
To the Bears on here………no time to panic.”
——
“A f***ing hate tims! Scum b*****d rodent f***s!” [We’re most grateful for the input, Sammy.]
Now we know why Regan spoke out the other day.
And then there was Celtic…
I said earlier that the bhuns wouldn’t have bought SB’s if they hadn’t bought all those duds …the main reason was that they wouldn’t have bought even the poultry number of shares they did buy…… Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Been working all day offshore and haven’t seen the news
What’s happening with the deady bears is something going down ? HH
Regan’s rabbling statement the other day making sense now…..