The Kraken

Cortese's stated ambition was to win League 1, and also the Championship. He stated the club was not just looking for promotion, he wanted to win the league. Even in his first season when we started with -10, and finished 7th, Cortese had said that he wanted us to win the league.

Well there is. For the reasons I listed. Unless you can guarantee that block 3 is indeed fully sold out with sales of season tickets?

Darren Powell. Far too injured to make any sort of impact for us, but I reckon if we'd have had him consistently fit we could have done much better than we did, I always liked the steel he gave to our backline.

I've been on the website to look for an update of that tweet but couldn't see one. As I (and others) commented at the time, we'll have to see just how accurate that list is. Block 3 is showing as sold out completely but I'm pretty sure others said it was just unavailable. Potentially blocks 6 and 7 too. Quite where the 17K figure comes from is a mystery, and I'd suggest a mistake. I've clearly missed the 22K mark posts that others have said. I think my prediction was that it would be around 24K - 25K. I know the club have previously not released ST levels before at time of sale (I think in the marketing brochure just out that's the first time under this administration). So we may have to speculate about what the final figure is.

You'll be more surprised if we DON'T win the league than if we do? Wowsers.

Link?

I would probably have congratulated them on being able to perfect the art of time travel.

Did they? Who said that?

Indeed. But we can continue to dream about it, which seems to be what Big Nige is suggesting. Although very very few of my dreams are actually Saints related.

Well that would be pretty poor, if true.

I'm terrified at the thought this hasn't happened yet. It's keeping me up at nights.

But we'll need to agree a fee or it will go to tribunal.

Ooh, don't say that. Not on here.

Around 2/5 of our games will be on TV this year (and many more of them streamed on the internet) so by that rationale quite a few people are going to get put off by going quite often.

Well being as it seems to be completely his decision I don't think we're really in a position to criticise. He can wear what he wants.

I've previously been to away games at Arsenal (Highbury), Tottenham, QPR, Palace, Wimbledon, Villa, Chelsea, all in the PL and all bought on general sale (or membership), so we'll have to consistently step up our game for that to be the case. Our away following does seem to have significantly increased since our last stint in this league though, so we'll soon see how many people really want to pay the huge ticket prices that some of the London clubs are charging.

Premier League rules state you have to give a minimum of 10% capacity or 3,000 tickets, whichever figure is lower. Saints have trditionally given up to 3,200 due to the peculiarities of St. Mary's. Back in Lowe's day there were occasions when we didn't take as many away fans as we could have, as beyond the initial allocation they were not on sale or return (i.e. if we took 2,000 and only sold 1,500 the club was out of pocket for 500 tickets).

So if applied exactly to St. Mary's, 26,282 possible season tickets.

My argument would not so much be that its arrogant (it is), but that its a chant that was nicked from Manchester United. In which case, its not unique, and therefore certainly not striving for the "best in class both on and off the pitch" mantra that the club keeps aspiring to. if we're truly going to top that summit then we'll need a chant that is all our own and better than all others, rather than some cheap gimmicky rip-off from another club.

As it always has been at St. Mary's.

Yep, there is, and its been in place for quite some time.

If you're going to quote me (or others) then I'd appreciate it if you either get it right or post a link. I have said before that the most we got under Lowe was around 23,000 season tickets. Lowe's and Andrew Cowan's benchmark for a bigger ground (as told to Steve Grant by AC, I believe) was a few continuous years of season ticket sales above 25,000. No, I don't believe that for one minute. Away fans are given 3,200, cup games are not included in the ST price so there is no guarantee of getting your seat for cup games (plenty in the Northam had to move for big away cup allocations). All restrictions are pretty muh the same as when Lowe/Cowan set their benchmark, while its possible there have been minor fluctuations in this number I certainly don't believe its now impossible to sell 25,000 season tickets.

That's a huge "provided" right there.

Away kit hasn't been formally launched yet, so probably holding it back for that. Although it is a little tip that the club are holding onto the third strip and not binning it all just yet. Edit: What he said above.....

I do find it incredible that there are still a few poor folk who are so sheltered and so unbelievably sensitive that any slight questioning of just how we'll measure up on our march into European football is met with such alarmed cries and accusations of negativity. As you say, it's quite a thing to behold and thankfully a lot of posters on here do recognise that next year will indeed be a huge challenge that simply can't be taken for granted, especially with just the current squad.