CB Fry

Indeed, but we can have an educated stab. Well, really? That time to break even is time and money not spent on wages, which would put our squad and our top flight position in peril and is funnily enough one of the major contributory factors to our going into admin in the first place. Here's a simple case study. 40,000 gates at £40 a ticket - £30m gate reciepts over a 19 game season. Lovely. A whole £6,000,000 more than 32,000 seats at the same price. But at a conservative £5,000 a seat to build those seats, that's a bill of £40,000,000 to cover that. Stick that on a 20 year mortgage and you're going to need to be coughing up something like £2.5-£3m a year, so that's your return down against the old stadium to £3m already. If we stick it on a "that's nothing" 10 year mortgage, well, we're making no money at all, are we? So what's the point? Stick a fiver on average seats, though, and with no outlay your turnover already up by £3m. Stick on another fiver and bingo, another £3m. No outlay, no risk, no mortgage, just £6m worth of juicy turnover straight into the coffers. If we want money to compete then "sweating" our resources is a far more sensible option to exhaust than seat expansion vanity projects. If we are selling 31,000 home to West Brom at an average of £50 per seat, with a season ticket waiting list of at least 5,000 then yes, there is a case for expanding the ground. Until then, there really isn't because it makes very little economic sense.

The usual drivel from the usual suspects, I see. Love these threads. If there is significant over demand for tickets at SMS when we are in the Premier League, then the first thing a sensible business focussed leader should do is not spunk forty odd million quid on a eight thousand more seats, even if the thought of it does make MLG's willy go all funny. The most efficient and effective thing for a business like SMS when faced with this massive over demand that the "believers" are claiming we'll have is to do one thing. Put the price up. Then put the price up again. Then, put the price up again. When faced with significant demand for a product with a finite supply the sensible thing is not to suddenly make more of the product. It's to make as much money as possible from the product you already have. If, like some of the experts claim, we'll have queues round the block for a November home game against Blackburn, then charge £50 a ticket. They want to cram in, they'll pay it. If, like the "look at Wolves look at Wolves LOOK AT WOLVES" idiots think we can fill 50,000 seats on a wet Wednesday versus Fulham, then charge £55 a ticket. We only need 29,000 to pay that much anyway. If, like the "they said you couldn't climb Everest" spanners think we can sell just as many tickets at Liverpool, then charge £60 a ticket. After all, they said man wouldn't walk on the moon and that means everything is possible and everything will definitely happen. Charge more money. That route will make us more money, allow us to sign better players, pay better wages and also won't saddle us with a load of pointless debt, as outlay would be zero. Nothing. It's not as sexy as the dopey little dreamworld of 50,000 stadiums the wallies like to cherish, but it would be a billion times more sensible. And it would definitely work. After all, something about Chelsea in the eighties and Roker Park and Everest and the moon and they all laughed at Christopher Columbus or something so there.

Presumably you are referring to this thread: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?33055-Are-we-afraid-of-success...&highlight=afraid+success+failure Being that the thread you started wasn't actually about whether we would (or could) go up or not this season, not sure where on earth you have drawn the conclusion that you encountered lots of "non believers". No-one on that thread could be called a non believer in the possibility we could get promoted this season. Not one person. But to be honest I don't think anyone had a clue what that thread was about, least of all you. The only non believers on that thread are the ones challenging your misguided belief that Few can doubt that if we are still at the top came January that the Liebherr family wouldn't give the nod to an extra 40-50 million out of their coffee money to give us the edge in the transfer market and seal promotion in obedience to Marcus Liebherr's dying wish to see " his club " get to the top flight Which you soon downgraded to 20-30 million spent in the next transfer window. So if you want to call me a non believer that we will spend between 20 and 30 million in January, then I'm a non believer.

Yes, but I think it is true that they are the only team in four divisions (excluding the teams that have never been relegated from the prem of course) that have never qualified for a single play off match. Season after season after season of mid table tedium in the Championship. A season in League one would be preferable to eons and eons in total mediocrity.

Obviously not "irrelevant". If we weren't in administration, the Liebherr's would not have bought us. We were available with stadium at an absolute steal of a price. Leibherr wasn't making anyone "offers they couldn't refuse" he bought us at the lowest price the administrators/Aviva had to take. Completely different.

So Paul Lambert didn't assemble quality and harness it then? Nigel Adkins and Southampton have some kind of monopoly on football purity have they? Like it or not Norwich won League One, we didn't, and they have been promoted to the Prem which we haven't yet achieved. Really don't think comparisons to Norwich are that lazy, and for you to make that kind of comment you would have had to have seen Norwich City play just as much as you've seen Saints play in the last two years, otherwise maybe it's you that's lazy?

Over the summer there was an absolute avalanche of contributors to this forum saying how this season's Championship was infinitely harder than last seasons because of the strength of the relegated clubs, and because of Brighton coming up too, and Leicester having loads of money etc etc etc etc. And here we are, head and shoulders the best team in it. Every season is all much of a muchness in all honesty. I don't think any of us needed reminding that we managed to get relegated from the prem bottom of the table with a team managed by Bryan Robson snivelled to 34 points or something. The "standard of the league this/next season" is a complete misnomer. You've just got to do what you've got to do.

Our home record is simply breathtaking. Next best to us (at eight out of eight) is WHU and some others on 4. Derby and Leeds could get to 5 tomorrow but you feel that at least one of them won't. Across the leagues only Sheffield Weds, and Man City really compare with our fortress. What a team.

They you go, this gives us 18 points and still pretty likely to be top of the league by the end of it (we'd be on 1.9 points per game, which is where QPR finished the season last year). To be honest, the defeats I just chucked at a couple of random teams. Someone, somewhere is going to trip us up. Our second favourite Nigel is a decent bet for killing off our home record though. And I notice I followed that up with two additional home non-wins. Let's call that our mid season wobble.

Too right - twenty points from the next ten games would be breathtaking and we'd be pretty much guaranteed to still be top of the league if we achieve it. You don't need to be a pessimist to know we'll lose at least two games between now and January, and christ, that's absolutely fine. Let's not start being a **** about things - we won't get, and we really don't even need thirty more points by year end.

Here's what I said on that thread, before some revisionist weasel posts it up for me because it doesn't fit in line with the happy-clapper opinion police. Happy with what I wrote at the time, and note the use of the lines "so what do I know" "good luck to him" and "lets hope Adkins can step up" before some utter dinlow decides that what i was really saying is "Adkins is going to be rubbish" We appointed a manager, I gave my opinion - trepidation - at the time. And if people want to have a go at me for being trepedatious, there were plenty of happy clapper idiots saying we needed to give him two or three (yes, some said three) seasons to get out of league one.

Alan Pardew is currently fourth in the Premier Leauge, level on points with Chelsea with a game in hand. He won't stay there, of course, but he's done pretty well so far, and has previously taken a club to eighth in the Prem and a cup final. Not bad. Burley has finished fifth in the Premier League in his time, but was a complete disaster for us ultimately. Sven, has won leagues and cups in Portugal, Italy and Sweden but would never even consider changing his team to attack another team's weak spot. Never. Oh no. Adkins is brilliant. Love the man. Personally I have only seen the team live twice this season in the East Midlands but we played flipping well both times despite winning neither game. That's why we're just so good this season - we even know how to not win with panache. But this overhyping of him is a little bit wearing. Come on. Great passing game, holding possession, amazing team spirit, interchangable team selections, brilliant brilliant brilliant. But he is not reinventing the whole of football like some try and make out. I remember a couple of weeks ago we had a load of comments about the "amazing risk" he took of, er, bringing on a third sub after 75 minutes or something, which was "groudbreaking" because a player might have got injured and "other managers" would never do that. Come on. Calm down people. He's good. We're brilliant. He's not the messiah, just a very good football manager at this time.

What I love about our forum is the absolute down to earth realism of every single prediction, and, even better, when we lose, how everyone goes out of their way to praise, admire and support the team that have just beaten us. The bedwetting on this forum gets worse. I'm surprised no-one has yet said "that Boro forum has an anti Saints agenda". We're top of the league. Why the desperate need for affirmation from opposition fans. I tell you now, next time we lose 3-0 away from home this forum will not be awash with pages and pages of Saints fans saying how brilliant the opposition were.

Oh yes, they'res plenty of them folk. Anyway, who cares. We are destroying Boro at the moment.

So have the sun said in their apology that Cortese didn't say "all these people wanting freebies here, freebies there" then? And does it mention Le Tiss or just Lawrie? If they haven't then who was Cortese talking about? And the thread at the time was full of plenty laying into "nothing but employees" Lawrie Mac and Matt Le Tiss. Will those people apologise as it turns out it wasn't them he meant?

Yes they do. But Matt Le Tissier is in a tiny minority and pretty much every other footballer in the world is in the majority. If we pull together a team of, say, six wonder kids that gets us into fourth place against all odds, I would still bet my bottom that at least half of them would be off to go to Manchester or London or Spain within the following twelve months. And if you want private conversations with contributors in this forum, then I suggest you PM them. But don't PM me.

I wouldn't call him an idiot but I personally think he could have done more and been more if he had left.I wouldn't call him an idiot or even ask him about it, because he has answered that question comprehensively over the years. And MLT is one player and there are hundreds more who do leave smaller Prem clubs to make more money elsewhere. And while I would never call the man an idiot - plenty on this forum were calling him nothing more than an employee paid for doing a job while he was here. Let's see how much you defend Matt Le Tiss next time those jibes are thrown around.

Amen to that. That's why i get sick to the back teeth of the "we're going to be champion's league regulars". No we're not and we shouldn't try, because the only way a club our size can even think about it is by over spending on players who would only come here for the money we'd be over spending on them. That's not to say we couldn't have a team of young academy grads that shock football and power to fourth place in like Everton did, once. It's just not that likely, and we'd struggle to hold on to a team like that beyond a season. A team of young academy grads powering to 14th is fine by me.

I was going to point out something about Chelsea in 1983 having low attendences or something but I drifted off. "They said they couldn't climb Everest" always works. I'll stick with that as proof.

No one needs to "know him" to know that SISA is a fiction in his mind and the mind of Citizen Chorley. They represent no-one, have no membership, no meeting or reporting structure, no nothing. Doesn't stop him spouting off to radio stations and newspapers using the Independent Supporters Association name to give himself cache. He's a liar and a self publicising gimp. You don't need to "know him" to know that. And if he doesn't want people that don't "know" him to not have an opinion on his actions and behaviour, may i recommend he stops spouting off to radio stations and newspapers pretending to represent a supporters body.

And people are saving up for next year's summer holidays as well.

More than Ted Bates, or Ron Davies, or Matthew Le Tissier, or anyone. Unfortunately we have some significant divs in our fanbase at present who have decided that they support their football club because of the chief executive. Wooo-hooo go that man in a suit.

Not in a gazillion years.

£14 a week? Luxury! TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor. MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness." EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof. GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING! TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor! MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph. EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US. GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake! TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road. MP: Cardboard box? TG: Aye. MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt! GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY! TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife. EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah." MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'. ALL: Nope, nope.. Life of Brian was on last night... Anyway, concur with the sound advice on this thread. In the current climate, with Job one, I wouldn't worry too much about haggling, and definitely don't even think about it until you have a concrete offer. And your original assumption is corrent - £18 to £24k means they have pretty much no intention whatsoever to pay anyone anything close to £24k.

Bit of a waste of time getting "done deals" sorted with players that aren't preferred targets isn't it? No wonder it took us to 10:55pm on deadline day to sign a centre back.