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  • "Thoughtful Post.

    I have been wondering for most of this season how the declared club ambition of European Football would be possible when we seemed to be flirting with the danger zone. I did not think that we would be go down, but I felt that we seemed naive, and had obvious difficulties both in attracting some players and some of those that we did attract seemed a surprising choice. Additionally, we did not seem as assured as we were last season. I found it very difficult to put my finger on what was amiss.... I did wonder how patient the obviously ambitious NC would be. Now we know.

    I am a Saints fan and I cannot transfer my loyalty elsewhere, but neither can I turn back the clock to the days of the Dell.
    When I look in the mirror I ask myself do I want the Saints to be a successful Premier Club (and not a relegation survivor, year on year) and to be in Europe? The answer is "yes".

    Do I think that NC is the guy to deliver this? On present evidence, yes I do. I may not like the means, but I know that I would trade them for success.
    And I have answered the question about ends justifying the means, and I am not as happy as I was last Thursday. Perhaps events at SMS have had caused me to think a little more than usual......

    Should the changes not work then I have real fears for the future.....

    COYR"
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Saints fan backs Nicola Cortese's judgement

3:42pm Sunday 20th January 2013 in Saints News

Nicola Cortese Nicola Cortese

NIGEL Adkins was not the man to take Saints to the next level.

That is the view of Saints fan Grant Goddard who has written to the Daily Echo in the wake of Adkins’ sensational sacking.

Goddard writes: “I do not claim to speak for any other Saints fans but am writing this because I am fed up of current media portrayal of how the club is being run. I am not the only one who feels this way.

Firstly can I say, I was and am still a massive fan of Nigel Adkins, from the moment he was first linked with the job, and saw interviews of how he spoke about our interest, I was sold that he was the man to take us back to the Premiership.

Do I think Nigel should have been sacked? No.

Do I think he was the right man to take us onto the next level? Unfortunately no. As a club we want to attract big names to play for us, and as we don’t have the club history of a Liverpool then we need to rely more heavily on the manager to help attract a better level of player. Nigel, while I think the world of him, at this time is not that man.

The sorts of players we have been linked with at times have been two very different areas. Some have been players who we are battling the likes of top 6 teams for, and others are very good Championship players who we are competing with Norwich or Villa for.

And I mean no disrespect to those teams, but I feel our club is trying to aim high than that. I would have liked Nigel to have stayed with us until the summer when the season could have been assessed and a statement of intent to step up a level could have been made by Nicola Cortese in a more media friendly way. However, this is not how football works.

I believe this is a decision that was made months ago, maybe caused by our lack of ability to sign some of the desired targets in the summer, who knows.

While in many ways it does feel sneaky that things have been going on in the background, is this not the best possible change over? Would weeks of “who will be the new manager?” have helped our campaign?

For the people who question Nicola Cortese sacking a manager after a 4-0 win and now a 2-2 draw at Chelsea, would you rather a chairman who panic sacks a manager after a 6-1 defeat to Arsenal?

Plus when you have decided on your new manager, who is to say he will be available when its “media friendly” convenient to sack your current one?

Rumours of a meeting with NC and the first team in the summer have now come out where he stated many were not good enough for the Premiership. You could argue that we have replaced at least 5 or 6 of the regular starting line of last year with better players (GK, LB,RB, a CB, RW?, CF) and still we are only just above the bottom 3.

Where do we honestly believe we would have been without them? And where are the fans “up in arms” for players like Richardson who was excellent for us for two seasons and now barely gets a sniff? NC has had to make a lot of tough decisions over his time with the club, and I for one have yet to see anything that has played out to be a bad move in time.

As the Echo stated in an article over the last few days, Pochettino “will be judged on results & Cortese could end up being praised for it if it goes right”. The end of this season and next is where this decision should be judged, but I hope NC is proven to have made a correct, bold call.”

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