CB Fry

15,739 of the bestest I see. What a massive sleeping giant they truly are.

....is the right answer.

Yes agree with this completely. Well summed up.

I really haven't missed that one Phil. I said it on another thread earlier in the week. The 'but the Leibherrs really love us' brigade got jolly upset and start talking Champion's League and ten year plans. We will be sold but if we keep spending like thuis we won't do much more than break even, if that.

It's a semantic point but I'm going to make it again. I say they are giving us money to get to the Premier League. The only rewards available is the very fact of being in the premier league. There aint much money to be made back. What's Randy Lerner making out of thr Premier League? Or our friend Roman? We're jolly lucky for you to be able to say that there is no point balancing the books. We have that luxury because our owner is giving us money. Just because it has been spent well doesn't make it investment. It's just free money.

Who's got all the answers? not me. Plenty of other people with all the answers sneered and belittled Alan Pardew. He's currently besting Liverpool, a team that actually spent more than us recently. But hey ho. We're going up mush.

Yes, managerial severence packages are a rare old thing in British football, aren't they?

Sorry there is a hell of a lot of people having it both ways. Either Markus loved the club and wanted to see us right and to achieve his dream of seeing the club in the Premier league etc etc or this is some water tight s hi t hot business plan which can't fail? Go on one thread and say "this is simply business" and the Markus-he-loved-us brigade get upset. Go on a different thread and say "this is just a lottery win" and the response is "this is a business strategy". Eh? There's a lot of people who seem to be labouring under the assumption that once we are in the Premier League it's all profit profit profit all the way, and as long as we spend big to get there the pay offs then balance out the millions we spent getting out of, err, League One. There aint many people getting rich in the Premier League you know. Outside of players, agents and the dogs of certain cockney managers. Simply put we are being gifted money to get to the Premier League. Go us. But at some point this will have to stop if the club is to be anything like a sustainable entity. Or the Leibherrs will sell us, which is something else people on this forum get upset about. Because Markus loves us. Because this is a calculated business strategy. Or both. Or neither. Or something.

Yep, agree. With that kind of cash sloshing about the management could easily have spent it in far worse ways. Hello Leicester, Hello QPR, Hello Sven, Hello Joey Barton. We've done a hell of a lot right. But we have also spent far more than the club can really justify - remember the amount the family has written off is the same as the cost of the stadium which we couldn't afford the repayments on. And this just to get out of League One and, soon, the Championship. Let's not kid ourselves that success in the Premier League is anything other than a massive drain [on admittedly bigger] resources. So yes, pots of cash, spent very well, no mistake. But lets not start calling it sustainable yet. Let's be clear - I'd rather us a well run rich club than a well run self sustaining (aka skint) club. I can live with that.....

Yes, fine. And yes, investment builds businesses, but not that many businesses would risk that % of turnover on one bet in one year, which is what we have done. It's only sustainable because the family have turned it into equity, which is good fortune on our behalf. Our revenue increase I would wager is just in line with TV revenue and increased gates. Modest may not be the right word, but say it is outstanding is just silly. If a 25% increase is outstanding then a 90% wages to turnover ratio must be petrifying. I'd also suggest that if wages have increased more than 25% (i bet they have) then the revenue increase is definitely not outstanding. "Turnover is vanity.." is a phrase I am sure you are familiar with and I am sure you know the end of. Increasing turnover in the season you've gone up a division really isn't outstanding. It really, really isn't. Quite frankly, I woud not describe anything the Leibherrs have done as investment in any true sense of the word. They've given us money and the club is spending it. I'm more than happy, we are going up. But this is a lottery win far more than a business plan.

I knew someone would pick me up on that. My main thrust is what we have achieved is not some economic miracle when lots of shops are shutting down which was the hysterical stuff DP was coming out with. We spent a fortune and we got promoted from the third tier of English football. Some of it is down to excellent management on and off the pitch, but some of it is simple good fortune on our behalf. Some of the hyperbole on here is not dissimilar to a lottery millionaire being congratulated for his brilliant ticket buying strategy.

I agree with most of the rest of this post but this is stretching things a bit. The figures show we spent more than a pretty penny to get promoted, and since promotion we have got attendances back to where they were last time in the Championship. The idea the club has stumbled on some miracle elixir of growth is frankly bonkers. If we had got promoted on, say, 40% wages to turnover, that would count as OUTSTANDING (in your terminology). The idea that this is comparable with a high street clothing store is ludicrous. I bet Brightons revenues have gone up by far more % (probably in absolute terms too) than ours, and Sheffield Wednesday and United will see similar OUTSTANDING BREATHTAKING UNBELIEVABLE increases next season, pending promotion of course. Getting promoted from League one with the wage bill is anything but OUTSTANDING. It was expected and frankly, essential. Calm down people and stop bloody over egging everything.

Must have been a different Southampton finishing second in the top flight, and then eighth in the Premier League. Both of those feats achieved by the club under its own steam, not just bankrolled with free money from a billionaire.

Yeah, nice try. You did see and hear Les Reed in that interview? He can't believe his freaking luck. What are doing is clearly far beyond the neccesary, even for this tier one thing. Put it this way - if you are such an expert, would you have been on here complaining if the announement had us spending only five million?

I find it unlikely that we need to spend £15m to turn our current very well regarded academy into a tier one academy, and most of the tier one thing seems to be about time spent with coaches and teachers as opposed to grand bricks and mortar developments. If we need to spend £15m to upgrade ours, then there won't be too many tier one academies in the country.

If our prime advantage is catchment area then we don't neccessarily need the best of the best of the best of the best academy, especially when I don't think we need to tie up huge amouts of cash in infrastructure. We do have a pretty good one as it is. Making the club sustainable means being choiceful about investment too, and I remain unconvinced that this is essential. It's a "nice to have" but that isn't the same thing. And it wasn't long ago during the reign of a previous chairman that people on this forum would scream the place down if anyone suggested that infrastructure or investment in youth had any bearing on producing young players. According to many on here, Southampton just produce young players regardless, they just spring out of the ground and always have and no decision that that particular management made had anything ever to do with it. "We produced Channon and the Wallaces therefore we will always produce young players its nothing to do with fancy academies". Fascinating to see the remarkable change of tune these days. Lots of talk about how infrastructure investment is better than just spending on players, but we went into administration before primarily because we couldn't keep up with our mortgage on the stadium. So let's not kid ourselves that any bricks and mortar investment equals risk-free cash cow.

This is entirely possible. If I was the Leibherrs I think the optimal time to sell for maximum return is this summer (providing we go up). What is guaranteed at that point is a full season of hope in the Premier League and four years of parachute payments. Selling in the summer ahead of any pressure to start splashing cash on "Premier League quality players", before the agents are all over us and before we have kicked a ball, would be a masterstroke. If I was the Leibherrs that is what I would do. Mission accomplished, bought at the bottom of the market, sell at the top. That's said, I don't think this will happen, and Cortese and Adkins will of course push on to mid-table Prem establishment, which will make the club worth more, but will also require more investment, specifically in wages, even if we don't sign "big names". And brings with it risk. Selling the idea of mid table establishment to the next owner is the best way to maximise return in my view, rather than risk more money in the pursuit of it oneself. I'm saying Mid-may 2012 is the high water mark for selling up from the Leibherrs point of view but I don't think they will sell this summer.

Maybe so. But it feels like overkill to me. As a club we are not bereft of infrastructure. I'm not convinced that the extra X% this development will give us will deliver any return on investment in real terms. Bale, Walcott and Oxo came out of the peevious system and gave us thirty million back (or so). I can't see significantly more ROI from the new place than that. The old place gave us one or two players every three years. Is the new one going to give us five or six. Unlikely. Especially if we are premier league. Look at Chelsea if you want a case study. Invest in youth, fine. But fifteen million quid doesn't neccessarily make us fifteen times better than before.

I find the idea that we will be sold sometime in the next two or three years far more plausible than all this guff about how 'in love with the club' the Leibherrs are. Developing Staplewood is not to me proof that we will never be sold. Its over extravagent but essentially Cortese is sticking a loft conversion in to make it a more stable and "future proof" football investment. He's basically an Italian Sarah Beeney. Just with smaller norks.

That sounds to me like a ludicrous amount of money, if that number turns out to be accurate. I'm all for investment in infrastructure but this smacks of a vanity project to me. I imagine Matthew Le God is knee deep in his own love juice at the moment.

We'll never play you again. Nice and simple and will hurt them.

In that case it was none of our damned business when Wilde, Lowe and Crouch were in charge. We were listed but if you weren't a shareholder your opinion was equally worthless. Didn't stop you moaning though.

Maybe Sam is talking to his own fanbase? Maybe Sam is sending a message to his own players. Maybe the entire universe doesn't revolve around Southampton football club? Crazy stuff I know.

Correct. This forum is full of utter fannies. We clearly are going to win the division and only the soppiest sods on heee spend their time fretting about us suddenly losing three in a row. It's not going to happen. There are no mind games happening. We're a gazillion points clear of West Ham who know they are fighting for second. Get over yourslves.

So that's that then. Fu ck ing brilliant the old man covered every single possible eventuality in the documentation so no relation ever has to make a decision about Saints ever again. And here's me worrying.