After West Ham's home defeat to Wolves last night, I was expecting a torrent of anti-Zola comment in today's papers and perhaps a few obituaries of his brief managerial career - but not so. It's as if everyone is holding out until the inevitable parting of Zola and West Ham is made official.

But away from London and down to the English south coast, where football clubs appear to be more susceptible to financial heartache than anywhere else in the UK. Southampton, Bournemouth and now Portsmouth have all experienced administration and points deductions - but Martin Samuel at the Mail has focussed his attention on the Saints - and he has high praise for a former West Ham boss in Alan Pardew - who has helped turn the club's fortunes around.

"Can there be any area of England or Wales that has been blighted with so many berks running football clubs as the south coast? Portsmouth has seen a veritable procession of incompetents - and that was before this season, when they as good as queued out the door.

Brighton and Hove Albion are fortunate to exist, while Bournemouth were deducted 27 points over two seasons for financial mismanagement. Then there is Southampton, where the delightful Rupert Lowe was followed by a succession of wealthy populists who claimed to have the interests of the club at heart but succeeded only in running it into the ground. Southampton fell two divisions, and nobody would bet against Portsmouth matching, or outstripping, that decline.

Now to this litany of buffoons we can add another name: Nicola Cortese, the current Southampton chairman. His club are doing rather well, skirting the fringes of the play-off places, having begun the season with a 10-point deduction, and preparing to face Carlisle United in the final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy at Wembley on Sunday. In the circumstances, one would think Cortese would be rather pleased, grateful even, to the manager and his backroom staff. Apparently not."