CB Fry

Quite. I note with interest no one complaining about "lack of coverage for the championship" has actually come forward and said they would sit down and read a two page article on Coventry City. Because they wouldn't.

Hang on, what do you want? You want "rumours" in the media but at the same time you're grizzling about negativity and slagging off when someone "comes out with a snippet". Any rumour is going to get a proper going over on here, even when they are based in facts - we had weeks of pompous idiots saying "the papers make stuff up" when they dared to suggest Alex O-C might be leaving. So make your mind up - you either want rumours and the slagging off that entails, or you want a media blackout. You can't moan about both things.

Your opinion certainly chimes with the chairman who is expecting us not to just go up, but go up as champions. However, you have to remember that the "we're trying" mindset is that of the manager, who like it or not, is going to be playing stuff down all season. He is patently not Billy Davies and he has his we'll keep trying and see what happens post-match routine perfected. But let's not forget that behind the scenes I have no doubt focus is there. But I think you have to accept that the next four games are not make or break at any level - not for this season, not for the club, not for nothing. If we lost all four of them we still would be in touch for if not still in the top six which before christmas is absolutely fine. Plenty of clubs have had a storming first half of the year before petering out. We will have a bad run this season. However annoying it is, and it does annoy me as you know, people being equivocal on a web forum won't actually stop us winning games.

Not really. It was last season, as our awful start meant we had no room for error. We have given ourselves plenty of room for error as the season progresses. QPR lost only six last year, but Norwich lost 8 and they both drew plenty. Of course, there is a faction of absolute idiots on this forum who think we only need to get what the third place team gets and then we'll finish second. Those people would point to Swansea losing 14 games. But then, they are convinced that 80 points is "enough" to finish second and laugh at those who disagree. So if you listen to those wallies we've got plenty of games to lose.

Quite. Never has an opening post been so completely overegged. But heaven forbid anyone questions any of it - "few can doubt we'll be spending £40-50 million in January", "we have the best academy in the country", "it was Leibherr's dying wish", "doom and gloom from some of the fan-base", "what's wrong with our mindset", as if contributors on this forum are stopping the team winning, the classic attack from the simpleton happy-clapper, especially as, we are, umm..winning quite a lot. Despite the "mindset" of errr, people on a forum dragging us all down. And picking apart this drivel is apparently "trolling" according to some.

Biscuits.

The main difference between the two was while David Beckham secured a mulit-million pound contract with Real Madrid, Anders was only successful in getting his agent to pretend he was being tracked by Barcelona. A really good acheivement getting to that many caps for his country though. I remember celebrating the free-kick he scored at the 2002 world cup nearly as much as anything the England team did that tournament. If you squint, he could be in our FA cup away kit....

Absolutely, there has been loads on us recently. Won't stop the divs making out that the "BBC are against us" and "the media have an agenda against us" and all that guff. I always wonder how many of these people grizzling about newspapers and TV stations not giving coverage to "the championship" would read a two page interview with the manager of Coventry City, or watch a twenty minute profile about the Cardiff manager. I know I wouldn't. I'm not really bothered. Which is kinda why the Daily Mail and the Guardian aren't bothered either. So don't pretend you want more coverage of "the championship" when what you really want is just loads of stuff about Saints. Which is fair enough, but also utterly unrealistic.

I think you're talking about a miniscule number fans here. All I can see are lunatics saying we desperately need a 50,000 seater stadium for when we're in the Champion's League "regularly".

But the question "are you afraid of success" was entirely based on a supposed fear of spending money, and the fear about us being finacially unstable. The entire first post is about money. Read it again. The entire first post is about money.

If I may be sold bold to say it is a pretty dopey question all in all. As far as Saints go, I am not afraid of anything and I have no idea why the only measure you are using for being afraid or not is a demand to spend loads and loads of money. If we get promoted then great, I completely supprt the Cortese plan to get promoted automatically this season. Never had any time for the rather sillly theory that it's better to stay down for another season to "get ready" for promotion. There is very little evidence of clubs gradually building and building to promotion. When it happens it is one big push in one season. I have no doubt we will spend some money in January - I think even more likely if we are fourth than if we are top, funnily enough. It will be no where near twenty million - the regime haven't spent that much for the entire time they have been here, and neither would we need to spend that much. No club that has been promoted from the second tier in the last decade have spent anywhere near that in the January window, so why on earth would we need to submit the squad to such pointless disruption? When we get promoted, let's see - I doubt we will be spending £50m. It's got nothing to do with fear, it's just sensible. I am not one of those who thinks we can or even should be aiming to get into the Champions League anyway.

The original poster said "few can doubt" the Leibherrs will give us £40 to £50 million to buy players if we are top in January, which was then downgraded to the equally fanciful £20m. How can challenging ridiculous amounts like that be trolling? If anyone is trolling, it is the original poster, who has a reputation of setting up utterly spurious arguments. We won't be spending anything like twenty million pounds in January. Nothing like it. How that can then be translated as Saints fans being "afraid of success" is just beyond me. Opening post: troll.

But why is it the team in second (conveniently the team with about 85 points) the one that magically disappears? Why not the team in fourth, or eighth, or twelfth or twentieth?

For one, I have made no comment about "the top after ten game" statistic, so not sure where that little dig is from. But I am absolutely delighted that I "cannot follow" your idea that 80 points is enough, when frankly it isn't. 80 points would not have got us to second last season. Or in 2009-10. Or 2008-09. It would in 2007-08. Well done. But not in 2006-7. Or in 2005-6. Or in 2004-5. Or in 2003-4. Or in 2002-3. Or in 2001-2. Or in 2000-1. So one season out of eleven has eighty points been "enough" to finish second. Do you think you, and MLG, and all the rest of you wallies will be able to follow this? No, it's not. Because that is what teams in second place tend to get. They get 85 points, or 87 points or ninety points. Us bumming about being satisfied with 80 doesn't actually stop other teams actually trying to finish second getting that number of points. As we can see, 80 points is enough to get second in one season out of eleven. That, to me, is pretty bloody relevant.

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.