Noodles34

I was wondering how different it was back in 1984, when we finished runners up to Liverpool. What was the atmosphere of the challenge like, was it as surprising as now? Clearly there was no 'top four' place to go for, it was win or lose for The European Cup. Was their a sense of believing we could win the league or did everyone always feel that we wouldn't? What was the expectation at the start of the season? Should we have won it? I know, perhaps back then, we were one of the better sides during the eighties, so was there as much adulation about Saints as this is now? And what would have been bigger, winning the league back in 84 or getting fourth place next month? Would be interesting to heat the thoughts of those who were there back then.

Is Cortese going? FFS!

Really? he is having a good run presently but he still looks like he will miss as many as he scores. I am not convinced for the long run but to suggest he is anywhere near the class of Lallana is folly, there is no way that Mane will ever be as good as Lallana. Given his position, he will hopefully score more goals, clearly he is quicker but he will not dominate a game in the same way as Lallana did for us for about 4 years. Mane is about sudden impact, Lallana was control. but obviously this is about making out anyone who left under a cloud is **** now, Lovren yes, but not Lallana.

think its fair to say that was made up to create a bit of book controversy, backfired a bit. There was no spread betting on throw ons back in the mid nineties.

Not in the slightest I would suspect. Doubt Cortese was bothered about L1 and Championship Cups. nigel was sacked because Cortese saw that his kind of football, in which we see Leicester playing, ain't going to cut it in the EPL, not to the ambition of Cortese anyway. clearly it was a horrible decision that cut loose a genuinely great guy, but as a football thing, we are in a place now in respect of position, style and stature that we would never have been (probably) under Nige.

well you do, anyway, have a good week at school

you have obviously canvassed opinion of 'most' fans then, or is just the 0.03% on here?

thanks

not my original quote

We'll miss him, Clyne and Morgan next season, maybe we'll get lucky again or maybe we'll be found and short. We lost some great,ayers last years but kept some. Surely we can't repeat this season by losing the other great players we have. I mean we'll be left with Bertrand and Fonte and ......

Fair point

You've used that one before, if that's all you have got then just say so. Or better still explain what was different about the Loveen and Wanyama signings to Ramires and Osvaldo. Or you could just avoid it again. it would be great if someone could dig your comments following the Ramires singing,

I understand all that but my point has always (and only been), if we wanted to pay MS or NC that kind of money, which aside from the business model and the player politics, it would be possible. I point this out and get slaughtered for it but technically I am right.

there you go again. What about Lovren and Wanyama, do they not count? Jeez, you are so predictable. I remember this forum having a meltdown on the singing of GR (I wonder what you said back then?) but he turned out bad so its Cortese's fault. DO was bought by MP wasn't he? But that's Cortese's fault. RL and JF were bought by Pardew, nothing to do with Cortese. In fact anyone decent was bought by the manager and anyone **** was bought by the CEO. You couldn't make it up (well, you could)

its quite clear that we could pay anything we wanted to a small number of players whilst still complying. FFP is about the whole scheme of things, not whether we can pay one player a maximum amount of money. Whether its the right thing to do from a business sense or ethical etc. is a completely different question. And what the big clubs pay and competing with them is again, a different question.

that's another post from you that fails to answer the point, just like the Cortese signings eh?

Jesus mate, you need to relax or do you take this discussion that seriously, theres no need to be so abusive and i guess if you think i can only do dot to dot, then how can you blame me for not getting it? anyway, this is what Redslo and he came across as someone who knew what he was talking about.. According to FM 2015, he is making 34K per week. Doubling that would cost an additional 1.8 million a year. This would make him our highest paid player. That can easily be covered by this year's trading profits and still keep the club well under the salary cap. We can afford to pay a few players high wages--just not as high as the bigger clubs and we cannot pay everyone those kind of wages. Just to illustrate FM 2015 says that Manchester United has 17 players on their roster making more than Schneiderlin would be making if Southampton doubled his salary. This includes, by the way, Luke Shaw whom they believe is making 110K per week. Arsenal has 14 players making more--yet Arsenal's salaries as a whole are much lower than Manchester United, but I digress. My point is that FFP does not stop us from signing Schneiderlin, Clyne, and Alderweireld to big contracts--we just can't sign everyone to big contracts. And if we can afford to pay Schneiderlin an additional 1.8 million a year, Arsenal can afford to pay him an additional 1.8 million a year beyond that and Manchester United can afford another 1.8 million on top of that. and in a literal sense we can afford it as our owner is worth £4b.

but we can, never mind.

And not one youth player in the picture, well probably anyway

Think I made the point quite clear previously, clearly it's lost on you. Never mind.

hey, you haven't told me about the great signings under the NC era, do they not count?

You know you keep bringing up Osvaldo and Ramires time and time again. But you fail to mention Lambert, Fonte, Wanyama amongst others (if we are talking about signings under Cortese) and what about Lovren? You also fail to mention that just about every other club in the Premier League, and the divisions below sign dogs too, look at Spurs, Lamela and Salgado, there near on 60 million, Liverpool spent God knows how much on the Italian player a few years back and he played about 2 games and Utd payed a shed load for Pogba, look at Orzil at Arsenal or Sinclair and Johnson and that Everton kid at City. Chelsea, they signed some great striker called Torres for FIFTY million quid, he was good wasn't he? Thats football and we have never been any different, Dixon, Speedie to name a couple of others.

Appreciate that clear explanation, which sort of highlights the fact that WE CAN pay the best players the sort of wages to compete the with so called big clubs. We know we have the money and it's not like we are going to pay Stevee D 120k per week, but as for the players you mentioned, we could. Sort of goes back to the boards ambition, to be honest, MS doubling his money here is hardly big, surely the other clubs are going bigger than that? Not sure 60/70k is an ambitious offer.

Let me know the max wage limit per week and maybe I will, is it the 130 we can't pay Clyne? see below, come too quick on you Turkish.

Mike Osman