ericb

Palace have looked poor this season but fortunately for us they've looked very open too. Reckon this will be a 2-0/2-1 to us type of game as they won't park the bus like other teams. Can't wait to take the **** out of the palace ultras too, they quite possibly the most embarrassing thing in football at the moment

No he's a fascist cu.nt

Pleased to see the fascist cu.nt gone. As woody Guthrie said "all you fascists are bound to lose"

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=308792.240

Well that was quality, Morgan back to his best, Clyne and Shaw looking unbelievably strong (what i wouldn't have given for that run from Shaw to end in a goal), Lallana running rings round them, Osvaldo unlucky to score on a number of occasions, MP getting his tactics right. And then... Lovern. My god what a player we have there, an absolute rock and i'd go farther than comparing him to Killer, i'd say that if he carries on like this we have another Mark Wright on our hands. Utter giant in defence, quick getting back when needed can play the ball out of defence and scored. Feel a hell of a lot happier than last sunday, let's hope we carry this through to the Palace game and don't get complacent.

Thinks we'll get champions league this season and win the title some day http://www.itv.com/sport/football/article/2013-09-20/southampton-goalkeeper-artur-boruc-eyes-title/

Now that's fu.cking funny! I definitely imagine Matt Le Rainman etc. as trekkies in full saints kits.

Sums it up for me, it was a much simpler experience in those days but so much better. The fans made the game, and we didn't need goal music, comfy seats and big screens to do it. We had groups of our mates, genuine terrace wit and soul. The only thing that kept me going regularly if i'm honest was the relegation last time round, and i'm pretty sure a point will come again with the premier league - if we stay up - when i just have enough. Enough of shi.t atmospheres, enough of being ripped off, enough of sky hype, message boards full of geeks/stattos, new replica shirts every year, premier league "fans" of India, four teams competing for four places and everyone else being expected to hold them in reverence (or being patronised by the media). Football is fuc/ked, corrupt, soul less and as middle class as tennis at the top level, and the sad thing is that's exactly what those in control of it want.

Whatever people claim about it being The Best League In The World (copyright Sky circa 1992) football was just better then. My best mates now, the best part of 30 years on still come from that time. We grew up together on the Milton, then the archers and the terraces of grounds round the country. Yeah there were problems but if you had common sense you could avoid them, and besides the unknown was part of excitement when you were going to away games. Also the support was more local, from all clubs, and most had their own culture still. I tend to think too that the obsession with stats, fan base size/stadiums etc is a new thing. The fault of sky, badiel and skinner, and computer games. Back then a sense of humour and terrace wit was more important than a replica shirt and as someone else mentioned that smell of stale smoke and wet woollen scarves stays with you, and is one I love to this day. I really do find it sad what football has become, we've sold out out clubs heart and souls for perceived quality. We attack players for not meeting bizarrely unrealistic standards, and swallow propaganda wholesale.

When i was about 13/14 we'd go in a group of a good 10 - 15 of us, decide on the day, pay £3.50 on the gate, stand on a terrace as a group and have a great laugh. No way you could do that now, most normal people are priced out and good luck getting a space where you and your mates can all stand together and have a laugh. It's no wonder the atmosphere is getting worse to be honest, since it was those little pockets of lads that would grow up together, start songs and go on the **** as they got older.

80s will always be favourite, my formative years. Saints playing mental attacking football and the atmosphere was ten times what it is now. 90s (though only till about 97), Matty at his peak, still cheap and away days were affordable. This decade. Lower leagues, taking over grounds and having a great laugh along the way. The trip up the leagues made it fun too. Other than the Cup final and wins over the skates the noughties weren't that great. By the time we went down i was bored of the premier leauge and st mary's seemed (and still does) soulless compared to the Dell. Also the noughties saw the rise of the statto fans, the final death knell of terrace culture and the sky generation taking the game over (prices, atmosphere, hype etc.). I guess that unless we get europe or go down the next decade will be fairly dull and what soul we built up in the lower leagues will be diluted again until we're just another quiet premier league side, where rich people go for a "entertainment"

Sounds very realistic to me, and what i predicted too. 10th - 14th, exciting times. It's happening!

I predict Wanyama as our whipping boy by the end of next season personally, he has all the traits - big transfer, plays in the position of a more popular player, is foreign and black. Wanyama as a whipping boy. It's happening!

0 - 0 against west ham. It's happening!

It's just a dignity thing for me. I'm sick of the Americanisation of the game that says we have to make grandiose claims all the time. I'd much rather we handled ourselves in the traditional Southampton way and didnt play up to this hype and idiocy. Instead id rather we built a club around the community, with actions on the pitch being just that. And the big statements reserved for how we were trying to be different to the clubs that sell their soul out as a brand.

I'd rather he just said something along the lines of the fact that we've just stayed up, and are looking to improve. Rather than feed this, currently stupid, speculation, about us making the champions league. We're not anywhere near that, so lets stop shouting about it in public, there's no need and we can achieve success with far more dignity. Plus if we stopped entertaining these questions they'd stop being asked, and we could just improve on our own terms.

To be honest i tend to agree, i think being humble and achieving small successes under the radar is a far better way of going about things - and let's be honest far more of the Southampton Way - than this ridiculous hyperbole that all our players seem to say. Mind you i suppose we're not in the Ted Bates or even Lawrie Mac days anymore, and everything now has to be BIGGER, FASTER, BETTER. Which is just an indictment of what football has become. Hence the need for people on here to get so over excited and selling out the soul of the club for a marketing ploy, i'm looking at you Matt Le Rainman, instead of just enjoying what we have and trying to improve, slowly but surely under the radar.

£40 is the top level for me too. I actually find it offensive what people charge now. The £22 for kids is sickening when I consider that it used to cost me £3.50 on the gate, regardless of who we played, in the late 80s. At some point we have to do something. It's gone too far now. Though I know I'm part of the problem in paying for my season ticket

Cole is definitely world class and arguably the best left back in the world.

Um not sure what's so bad about putting up a song that used to get sung at the dell in the 80s. But cheers for the advice

Always used to be P O M P E Y Pompey fans can fuc.king die With a nic knack paddy wack give the dog a bone Pompey fans go running home. When it was sung in the 80s

It's interesting actually since the likelihood is that our "worth" will plateaux at some point. In league one we were very good value for money since we had the infrastructure in place, an academy that was already good and were relatively large for the lower leagues. In the premier league the return of investment is likely to be far lower, since we're already pushing up against how far we can reach without serious money being pumped in, just look at liverpool/spurs etc, but that means investment is as attractive since the spend/write off would have to be significantly higher than the purchase value of the club. Especially when you consider that spend doesn't in the slightest guarantee you success (which equals profit). So arguably now is the best time to sell for the family, since we're unlikely to break the 40,000 gate and european slots without serious financial backing - and neither of those are definite - that'd eat into any profit they've achieved so far.

To be fair it's clearly not all people, but i do find the link between those that haven't played the sport but do play FM and those that have very little understanding of the game/insanely high expectations is incredibly strong.

Yup which is the point i was making, people more grounded in the reality of what we are don't go so nuts. Those that think we're going to win the champions league cause they did it on a computer spreadsheet once tend to be the once that go crazy when we invariably lose a game.

Funny thing is that the people who get tarred with the WUM merchant tag aren't normally the ones who go batshi.t if we lose a game. It tends to be the football manager types who seriously believe a smallish provincial club will be challenging for champions league in five years, in a 50,000 stadium, because they can do it on FM and the club has put out propaganda saying it's possible, that do. But then if you've watched the game for a while (or better still played it rather than playing computer games), then you tend to be more grounded and less surprised when a team loses a game. It's just obvious that if you set your standards too high - MP is the best manager in the premier league, Osvaldo & Lambert are the best strike force in the league etc - then you're going to come down with an all mighty thud when reality kicks in. And that's exactly why The Ugly is a better board on the whole, because people on there can remember the days of the Dell and are far more grounded in where we stand in football. Give me a Turkish or even Alpine any day over some of the "we'll be winning the league in front of 90m fans" brigade - who then go batsh.it and say we should sack everyone.