CB Fry

I get the explanation, I just don't get why anyone thinks it is remotely logical. A team getting slightly more than the third place team does not mean that the team in second gets removed from history. Quite the opposite - history clearly shows teams in second getting mid-eighties and even ninety points. Why would they be removed from history? Ask an athlete what he targets to win - does he aim to everso slightly beat the bloke in second, or does he want to beat the guy in first. There is a hell of a lot of difference between those two mindsets. Ask the Norwich and QPR teams whether they are aiming to match the third bottom placed teams average, and hoping the fourth bottom team is removed from history.....or are they aiming at least to get what fourth bottom gets? History and league flipping tables show that low eighties is almost certainly not enough. Aim for that and we'll end the season with the second placed team not removed from history at all, because they'll be there. In second place. Funnily enough. Overtake the guy in third, and all you do is finish third.

I've read this about four times and still have no idea what you are on about. In three of the four seasons you quote above, eighty points is not enough to finish in second place. If a runner in marathon overtakes the person in third place, what position is he now in? Ponder that, and then ponder your own utter stupidity. We need to finish second for automatic promotion, and the benchmark for that over recent seasons is solid mid eighties, with low nineties to be sure. 80 points will likely see us in third, especially as it is some way off the holy grail of two points per game.

You like a bit of pendantry, so lets remind ourselves of what you said in this very thread, and you were very specific about the term "comparable clubs" The comparable club line you wrote there is a reference to the 44,800 quoted in the text from the previous poster. Not any other number. So we now have our ceiling - 44,800 is not comparable, so Saints new super-duper "they said they couldn't climb Everest" aspiration from you is 44,799 or lower. Still effing bonkers, but at least we've brought you down a bit. So what? They're not comparable.

How do you work that out when you look at the following... Aiming to get one more point than the teams that have recently finished third is not the most reliable way to guarantee a second place finish. How about we aim to get as many points as the teams that actually did finish second - solid high eighties should just about do it.

Says the man who uses Wolves and Chelsea's situation in the eighties, and Sunderlands in the mid nineties, to justify his opinions.

If Newcastle are a bigger club and not comparable, and they are averaging mid-forties, remind me why we need a 50,000 seater stadium again?

Who cares about 1996 - this was before their new ground, ie comparable to our Dell days. In more recent times they've had high twenty averages in the Championship and you know it. They've had their new stadium effect, we've had ours. Sunderland would more or less fill SMS in the second tier, we get absolutely nowhere near. The best evidence for us out growing our ground would be massive gates in the second tier. We're not getting that, we're not outgrowing our ground. And yes, of course more plastics come when clubs are in the Premier League - there's about 8,000 of them currently not coming to SMS now. It's foolish to think that number is 20,000 or even 25,000. An Ewood Park full of new fans suddenly turning up for a game against Stoke or Wigan? And so what if other clubs have more away fans? Why extend a ground just to get more away fans in, especially when there is no evidence we need to extend. Little note for you - Sunderland's attendance over a decade ago is not evidence that Southampton Football Club need a bigger stadium. Real life is very different to computer games.

If Sunderland had our capacity in this division, they'd pretty much fill it. Why don't we. If you really think there are 20,000 additional fans desperate to see us play Wigan in the Premier League why can't even a quarter of that number turn up for a match against Birmingham, a Premier League team only last season? As for away teams want more tickets that's just utter garbage. Why on earth are we building a bigger stadium to allow more Mancs or Scousers to take over the atmosphere in a too big stadium full of plastic Saints "fans" only interested in the Premier League football. Stick to the computer games, you absolute freak.

The biggest issue for the "we could easily sell loads more tickets" is it all conveniently relies on lots of other things happening first. If we had investment, and if we were top six and if we were beating all comers at St Mary's and if we were challenging for the champions league and if we were delivering Cortese's dream then we would be filling a 50,000 stadium. But we don't like the boringness of the here and now, do we chaps. It's all nice and cosy getting offended when people say we can't get 50k and to accuse us of being negative and not believing in the potential and all that guff. But, back in the real world, Sunderland averaged high twenties in the Championship. Newcastle did too. Why, in the boring here and now, aren't we averaging high twenties in the championship now? We've got a stadium big enough and we've got a bigger catchment area than Sunderland and they said you couldn't climb Everest and we used to turn literally tens of people away when we played Charlton in the Premier League or something. So why don't we match Sunderland in this division, now? It can't be lack of success, can it. We're top of the frigging league. So why isn't the Everest climb starting now? Where are the 27, 28, 29, 30 thousand gates in this division. Not one offs, mind. Average. It will make the Everest climb to 50,000 a bit bloody easier if we started at 30,000 in the second tier rather than 25,000. Doesn't mean we'd need to double the bleeding gates anyway.

Pointless. If someone came in to Bristol City and seriously invested, then the club would probably build up a decent sized fan base. Fannying about merging with Rovers and upsetting everyone would be a needless distraction. The potential for plastics in Bristol must be huge. The city could handle a big ish club, but its name would be Bristol City. It's not Rovers stopping them.

Since when is the story about Matty's McDonald's breakfasts a negative comment? Makes him even more of a folk hero in my book.

1 Saints 2 Derby (lovely story if Cloughy pulls it off) 3 Leicester (winning the play off final - the East Mids clubs are well supported big clubs, and means nice local aways for me) 4 WHU 5 Leeds 6 Forest (have to say don't really care about the rest of the top six if we go up but these three are "proper" clubs worth being in the Prem. I for one, am bored with the Swanseas and Blackpools going up. Seriously, **** off back to league one) 22 Portsmouth, from being 17th at half time on the final day. Sorry, they and the greatest fans in the world deserve some pain. 23 Millwall 24 Bristol City (again, these two not really bothered) 18 Blackburn 19 Bolton 20 Wigan - in contrast these three north west clubs have sh1te support compared to Derby and Leicester both of which, like us, would easy get 30+ in the top flight week in week out. And they come from two-bob toilets rather than actual cities in their own right. Total waste of space in the Prem, the lot of them.

Completely this. Cannot believe this thread has been going so long. When I first heard the rumour I thought "no chance" and nothing has happened to change my mind. We don't need James Beattie, we don't need to waste money on James Beattie, James Beattie is not in form or in shape, we are clearly not, ever, going to sign James Beattie. All the James Beattie "well he was quite good two and a half years ago or something" supporters can all say "I told you so" when he is banging them in left right and centre for any other club - he's a free agent so there must be loads of teams after him if he really is that good.

Changed it for you.

You know this how? We won our last game under him 4-0 - I doubt you're saying Adkins has lost interest in his job this evening after today's 4-0 win. This is old spent argument anyway. The point is there are two good managers who used to work for Saints now performing well in their natural habitats - Pardew was as ill-suited to League one as Luggy didn't quite fit the Premier League. Both are now on home turf and doing very well.

Quite right - I railed against this pointless argument pre-season and I'm still banging on about it now. Utterly absurd that you plan for promotion next season, or the one after that. The best season to get promoted is the season you're in. Now. In the championship especially this idea that you build and build and build is a myth. Championship teams are incredibly transient - if a team don't get promoted that season the squad very often breaks up, or the manager leaves, or the money dries up or the momentum goes. It's a myth that promotion teams are slowly built - they are thrown together and launched into the Premier League. Have a look at Millwall, who finished nicely ninth last season, all ready with a jolly lovely platform to build on. Oh. As good as bottom of the league. Look at Coventry - they've had about fifteen consecutive seasons of "building" for a promotion push and they've got nowhere near. Thankfully Cortese has got this one spot on - we're going for promotion this season, hopefully as champions. Let's get on with it.

Hats off to two ex-employees (nothing more than ex-employees, of course) plying their trade at either end of the professional game. Alan Pardew: pretty astonishing start at the Toon, up to third and unbeaten with a team he's had to rebuild with not much money. Pretty darn good stuff. And the only person with any genuine honesty about Carlos Tevez - as the rest of the media soft-soaped about "gosh I've never ever heard that happen before" he was right in there and said "it happens more than you think". Paul Sturrock: despite a bit of a flop at Argyle (never go back) he shows he definitely has something in the bottom two divisions as Southend, who are completely skint, are at the top of the league just like his old club. I liked him a lot at Saints in his short time, and I am always pleased when he does well when in his element in the 3rd/4th tier - he's got two clubs promoted since Saints and he's on track for another. So well done Luggy and Pards for a start to the season almost as comparable as our Nige and the absolutely stunning Saints. Almost, but not quite - they're good, and we are a PHENOMENON.

Why are the only teams that are going to be "sussed out" are at the top of the league? Surely Burnley, Millwall, Watford and anyone else are just as likely to be "sussed" out as much as any team at the top? As the season goes on all clubs learn more and more about all the other clubs.

Win a cup every day of the week. I have no interest in Saints being in the champion's league. Which is handy because we probably won't ever be. A cup final is a day out, a trophy, a lifetime's memory, something in the record no one can ever take away, something that creates lifetime club legends, for those of us that don't view great players as "nothing but employees" of course. I bet Everton fans would have loved to have won a cup instead of their aborted knocked-out-in-qualifying champion's league campaign.

Hmm, so ex-Southampton players have some kind of emotional contract with the clubs where they have their greatest success then? You're saying being a southampton legend is say, somehow, more than just a job? Well, um, not if you are Matt Le Tissier, it seems. So I this "being a Southampton legend" is just a job sometimes and some kind of emotional blackmail at other times. Decided by you as and when. Beattie should sign for Pompey in a heartbeat if they want him. With the fan base we've got, we don't deserve any more bloody legends. Maybe Pompey might show some gratitude to him in the future instead of writing them off as employees paid to do a job like you do.

Our goal difference, after ten games, is plus thirteen. Jesus we're good.

Not really how TV works though is it. There is a reason why Coronation Street is on at half past seven and not quarter to midnight. When ITV had their brainwave to put Premier League highlights on Saturday evening (7ish it was, with Andy Townsend's tactics truck) no bugger watched it. Or they did, but in precisely the same numbers that watched Match of the Day at 10:30. I watch the FL show on iplayer or if its on, on the red button on Sunday morning. It doesn't warrant going on any earlier Saturday night, but a regular BBC repeat mid morning (or mid afternoon) on a Sunday would be a good idea.

This made me LOL. Anyway, I remember the days when Rupert Lowe tied up confidentiality clauses and everyone got jolly upset and outraged. Turns out they are now officially a brilliant thing to do.

More evidence of the anti-Saints bias on the BBC then. Great interview, BTW.