Psycrow

No, he is getting it straight from the horse's mouth. MLT spoke about it on Sky TV and DM on Solent Radio. This wasn't a matter of a paper embellishing nothing quotes, NC would have heard these comments himself directly from the 2 people involved.

Here's my 2 cents First of all I think the timing was perfect. As NC said, he's not going to respond to every little rumour that is spouted in the media or even just on the fan grapevine. This statement came after the scheduled meeting with AP as was probably always planned. He didn't jump to respond when they wanted him to (that would have been construed as the dreaded "Vote of Confidence" as mentioned earlier), he responded in the next public statement that he had planned, keeping the ball in his court and staying in control. The Italian Media doesn't work the same as the English media. Its that reason that Mourinho is currently unhappy at Inter Milan and why the UK media are not happy with Fabio Capello. So NC has his way of dealing with them and as far as I can see, they better get used to it. In the past we've praised NC and the new regime for running such a tight ship when transfers were rarely known, leaked or hinted before they appear on the OS. Its not the Italian way to give a journalist or 2 a "scoop" a couple of days before a big announcement. So NC went about his business as normal, ignoring all the speculation and came out on the day he had planned to bring us the news that AP was going nowhere and all the rumours were unfounded. And as with all the transfers, it was on the OS first. That will teach a lot of people a lesson when reading and hearing rumours. Don't jump until you know the facts. The rest of the statement was excellent. Precise, to the point and totally unambiguous. I'm surprised to see one comment above that a general "Pardew is staying" statement would have been better (sorry, can't remember the poster) but I disagree completely. That also would have been seen as the dreaded vote of confidence and certainly would not have appeased fans nor stopped the media wheel turning. I also don't think NC was being too critical of MLT's association with Pinnacle. I think the reference was just to let everyone know who EXACTLY he was talking about, without naming a name. Yes it was a little dig that without that group's involvment, then maybe none of the current rumours would be going about, but I'd wash over it mostly. And I'd also agree with others above that the critisism towards MLT, DM and anyone else who mentioned it in the media, is warranted. I said a couple of days ago that I didn't want a response to the rumours, but as I've implied above, I do agree that they were dealt with in what I consider to be NC's post season statement. And I couldn't ask for them to be dealt with better. I'll admit to having a wide grin across my face when I got towards the end.

Worthy of Guided Missile!!

I see Leicester are 2-1 up away to Cardiff at HT. Do away goals count?

I hadn't seen that Hopkins. Thanks. I wonder how close it is to the truth though. If someone did mock it up, putting Mido on anything other than a grand a week would make it stand out as fake because that was so well documented., so they wanted it to be believed... I wonder if they are that precise, how much of the rest of it is accurate.

Yeah, all good ideas Rebel. I agree completely. I didn't mean to dismiss the idea of a salary cap at all, I just meant that on its own it won't change the financial problems of clubs outside the megarich.

What calculations are you doing? It's £260,000 over 2 years...

A salary cap won't stop these kind of things happening at a club like West Ham, nor will it stop what happened at Pompey. Any salary cap that is applied now will be at the higher end, the types of salaries that United, Chelsea, Madrid and Barca pay. It won't be a tiered cap that means West Ham or any other smaller club can't offer a player as much as Man United. So lets say the cap is £100,000 a week, nothing changes in the salaries above for a team who can't afford to pay half of that to any one player. Football doesn't need a salary cap, it needs rules the force clubs to play within their own means, more strenuous rules than the ones already in place.

No, you're not!

And calling them in a month early will only tire them out for the end of next season

It seems I need to type something out here too to be able to post.

Absolutely right. Exactly why nobody should be basing their beliefs on the what the bookies are doing. They're just following the bets, which are following the rumours.

That was my point.... I don't believe it either. But people will ignore that Pardew isn't the automatic favourite for the WH job with the bookies when it suits them, while swearing on the bookies knowledge on Pardew being fired with the next breath

I refuse to watch it simply because of the presence of Jamie Redknapp. If I could choose one person to never appear on TV again it would be him.

Surely not! None of them manage Southampton!!! Or maybe, just maybe, they appoint Avram Grant... the favourite for the job at the moment. And we all know how accurate the bookies are. Pardew seems to have been fired when Ladbrookes stopped taking bets on that market!

Rumours are rumours and though I don't agree with the ****e that's going around the board at the moment, they have a right to be here. This is completely unrelated however. A man got fired from another club. Its no more relevant to Saints than Phil Brown leaving Hull or any other manager leaving any other club. It doesn't matter what club is involved All it does is stoke flames.

What do you base that on?

Next they'll probably hire another manager. Surely this isn't Saints related when there is simply a rumour machine saying our manager MIGHT be losing his job that is based on no fact whatsoever

Uncle Avram is the favourite for the WH job

After everyone broked onto the pitch, a big "PLAN B" didn't flash up on the screens did it?

Since when is "Late in his career" 28??? He should actually be at his prime, no better time to "Step up" (and its not that big a step at the moment, they are in the same division as us) As for being rejected by Gills and Norwich, I wouldn't even pay heed to it. Plenty of very very good footballers have been rejected by other clubs. Its part and parcel of their career, and very likely to be a mistake on the part of coaching staff as a problem with the player themselves.

The bookies are stopping bets because so many people are regurgitating the same rumours and think they'll be onto a winner by going to the bookie. This doesn't solidify any rumours IMO

Isn't that like a tabloid newspaper saying they were first to tell us about a transfer, conveniently ignoring the other 99 they got wrong (or were just plain lying about).

As soon as Cortese comes out to do that it will be reported as "Pardew gets dreaded vote of confidence". Or if Cortese mentions something about Pardew being told last year that he had 18 months, it will be "Pardew has 6 months to save his job". I think he's right not to come out and say anything.

I don't believe anything I hear these so called journo/ex players say. I remember after we sacked Paul Sturrock hearing Mark Lawrenson on Irish Radio. He guaranteed... GUARANTEED... that Glenn Hoddle would be the next Saints Manager, of course he'd heard it from a source very close to the club. All bull****, they just try to make themselves important.