The successor to Nicola Cortese could be a local man as John Williams emerges as the main contender for the CEO job at St Mary's.

As Katharina Liebherr is set to address around 200 non playing staff at St Mary's on Monday morning, speculation rises as to who will be appointed CEO to run the club for her on a day to day basis.

Latest reports suggest that it wont be Christian Purslow whose name came out as a potential replacement for Cortese, but Totton born John Williams.

Williams grew up in Totton and moved to the North West in the late 70's to join Grenada TV, in 1998 he became Chairman of Blackburn and remained in that post till 2011 leaving when the club were taken over by the Venky's and put their own men in.

He then worked for Manchester City and after leaving them became the Chairman of the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd, so would have had some direct experience of the way our former Chairman did business with the recent spat over Adam Lallana's alleged conversation with Mark Clattenberg.

Williams is now favourite to take over as CEO at St Mary's according to various media reports, whether he is announced at the meeting between Katharina Liebherr and club staff this morning is not clear, but what is, is that Katharina is working fast in stabilising the club, its becoming clear that last week was not something that has just happened and that Katharina Liebherr has been well prepared for the situation.

Photo: Action Images

slynch added 00:31 - Jan 20 I think you need go to bed!
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schatfield added 02:29 - Jan 20 i like this 24 hours version of Nick....
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saintstuinoz added 05:04 - Jan 20 Really great write up of the man in Manchester Evening News: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/smooth-opera Didn't realise he is a Saints fan too. Looks a great move by Ms Liebherr.
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ExiledSupporter added 08:43 - Jan 20 Think I prefer Purslow to this gent, Purslow sounds more attuned to the Cortese way ie. the hard business acumen without the obnoxious personality.
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Zambucco added 11:23 - Jan 20 I like the irony, he's the current chairman of the PGMOL the organisation we were disagreeing with a couple of weeks ago. As for Purslow, when I posted that rumor on Twitter, it seems there is not a lot of love for him in Liverpool
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aceofthebase added 14:10 - Jan 20 The CEO will still be just another employee. KL controls the money and the POX controls the players.
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BlackRod added 21:53 - Jan 20 Is it April 1st already? Did they advertise the job in the Echo?
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