CB Fry

Nahh. Corny as hell. I think the stands have great names and really centre the stadium in the city. Naming stands after people is for other clubs to do.

It's a pre season friendly of no consequence. If its a sunny day I doubt I'll even watch it on TV. Berating people for not paying money to watch a nothing game is taking Uberfan-ness to the extreme.

Got to love wallies on this forum. They said "someday we'll be playing Man United and Man City", also known as "get promoted". If you can find fans on here that said us getting promoted from the championship would "never happen" then fair play to you. (PS You won't).

I think everyone on this forum (and indeed in the fanbase at large) would think that we are perfectly capable of getting into the Europa League through a cup run or league placing. Perfectly, perfectly possible. You will struggle to find anyone here who doesn't agree with that view. Also possible, but less likely, is doing an Everton (or a nearly-Newcastle) and finishing in the CL places. Yes, we could finish fourth once. But I don't think we should budget to achieve CL football or have it as a working target. That's also not saying people can't dream about it. They are quite free to. I think it us that slight distinction is the battle ground for most of the arguments on here. All you need to know is I am right....

Fine. Which people have assumed means sold. So we may be over egging initial estimations then.

Asking people whether they like something they have just bought is a bit of a pointless exersize, isn't it. We are selling more of everything because we're back in the Prem. Or do you think we are selling more season tickets because of our new kit too? And finally, there are a lot of people that don't like it. That's a fact whether you like it or not. Anyway. Don't want to get into this again.

People are buying the kit because we are back in the Premier League and because there is a group of fans who will buy the kit regardless. It is in no way a ringing endorsement of the design unless you are suggesting a red and white kit lauch would have been greeted with boxes and boxes of shirts gathering dust in empty shops and no one in the store on launch day.

Interesting no one bothered to answer this question. Does the website say those seats are "sold" or just unavailable? Being that people seem to have spent hours on totting things up, surely soneone can answer it?

...in the Star. The Star don't bother with the conventions of the form - ie Clyne is 'set to sign' - they just speak definitively and hope.

In that case you are loopy. The Di-ly Express is the most pitiful title on market, worse than the star which doesn't pretend that it is for anyone other than idiots. There, you reeled me in. But anyway. Clyne. Great. If true.

Exceptional WUMing.

Transfer record smashing Blackburn you mean. For us to do what they did would mean buying Eden Hazard this summer. There's some lines of argument so ridiculous there's almost no point trying. Please, please god save us.

It's entirely possible that the financial fair play rules could get tightened up significantly which on paper sounds good for clubs like us. But in reality if the clubs are told "you can only spend what you earn" then the bigger clubs would start to challenge "what they earn", specifically the TV deal which is split relatively equitably between clubs in the top flight. If Man United can only spend what they earn they will tell the league they have the same right to earn as much as they can, which they can do by selling their own TV rights on the open market. So financial fair play might bring clubs closer in the short term, but is as likely to cleave them further apart soon after.

Correct. Just a very odd strain of fans that don't accept that and have to keep pushing the target up and up and up and up and berating anyone who doesn't join in. In future debates I will just see if we can get MLG to admit we can win the Champions League title seven seasons in a row and if not, why not.

If me saying "we won't win the Premier League" is your definition of "an inability to have any ambition" then guilty as charged. Christ.

Pretty sure we have had slightly less rain in Derbyshire than in god's own city this week. Slightly less. According to speaking to my mum the other day. And we've had three, maybe four, hours of sun.

None of them spent big. Greece winning the Euros is like us winning the league this coming season, which you are also saying you are not talking about. Make your mind up. Are we going to win the league completely out of nowhere on shock value or are we going to SPEND BIG. Because if we SPEND BIG to win the league then we would no longer be unfancied shock winners of the league would we?

No. Ever. If we want to win the league we are going to have to over invest in players and wages to get players to come to, or stay, at Southampton. Next season, the one after that, the one after that, and every season subsequently.

So the examples of Wimbledon and Greece and Denmark were pointless then?

We're not going to. We're not going to win the league.

When did I say we couldn't do well. This is currently a debate about winning the Premier League.

We will have to spend the biggest to win the league because otherwise the players won't come to, or stay at, Southampton. We will have to over invest to get players to even consider us.

Man United have got the advantage of being Man United in the first place. Blackburn, like us, were the smaller challengers to that. And, err, I think Man U have spent a bit of coin on players in the past. Man City finished what fifth and then second or third. How did all the clubs that spent significantly less than city do? Did Bolton win the league when City didn't? Or was it Fulham that year? Are you suggesting we can win the league on a Wolves budget, because that's a massive shift from your usual tune. All these rome-wasn't-built-in-a-day look-at-all-these-unfancied-clubs-winning-everything...... and a grand total of five teams have won the league in the last twenty years and the fifth team to do it had to spend several gazillion pounds to get there on a last minute goal. Who's going to win this wide open Premier League this season? I'm going for Sunderland this time out. Just got a good feeling about them what with money not being the be all and end all, and what with Denmark winning the European Championship and everything.

Good enough for Blackburn though? Time was you used to rave about how important it is to SPEND BIG on the BEST PLAYERS. What's happened?

...powering Norwich to a sensational Premier League title proving conclusively that money is definitely not the be all and end all. Oh.