The Kraken

True enough. But I believe the break even point last year on a one person match by match basis compared to ST was 20 games, maybe even 21, whatever it was pretty high. Whether its true or not, the booking fee has been marketed as being cost-neutral, so not sure if that can be factored in (I don't actually believe it is mind). As you say though, its impossible to predict, and even if it were I don't think I could be bothered as we're only talking about potentially a small amount of extra season tickets anyway, most people who want one get one in the window.

I totally agree. The policy they are taking makes no financial sense, unless it is to minimise season ticket sales and maximise match ticket sales. But that only works when the home matchday tickets are completely sold out, which they haven't been relatively often so far. Its a policy which MAY work better for the Premier League. In any case, I don't believe the club are missing out on a huge amount of tickets. But I do agree that its not a very fan-friendly approach. Although I believe there will be a new installment plan this season, so details of that will be interesting.

In that respect, no different to with the previous book system. So you should be fine (just don't advertise it!!) I still don't think you'll a problem though, apart from Reading, Arsenal, Chelsea. Northern teams I reckon even if they do sell out it won't be immediate, watching Saints away at Man United or Man City is a very different draw to watching them at home.

To answer the question of can you transfer your ST: Officially, no. The club will tell you its non-transferrable. Unofficially, yes, it should be fine so long as its an adult ticket and another adult uses it.

I'd be pretty surprised if we sell out a lot of our away allocations. Our away attendances have gotten better over the years but they're still not amazing. Getting an ST seems a potentially very expensive way to guarantee away tickets that probably won't be all that tough to get hold of (perhaps Reading and some London clubs aside).

They'll now be doing a credit card system with a swipe on the turnstiles. So all you will need to do is take your card, no need for the paper books previously used.

Interesting. Personally I'd have thought a longer window would encourage more who are sitting on the fence to actually go for it. There will always be the last week or two of the sales window which will put people under pressure. Having them on sale for longer means a longer marketing campaign and a longer opportunity to make sales. To date it can be argued that the current method has not worked in comparison to a longer window for (potentially) more sales; we had an average of 6000 empty seats last season, so often weren't selling out. I doubt there are many if any people who didn't buy a season ticket yet went to 20 or more home games, which is around the break-even point. Premier League, with the majority of home games selling out, maybe it will make more financial sense. Especially when you factor in the booking fee (althoughthis has previously been promoted as cost-neutral, so not a revenue spinner allegedly), so perhaps not a factor after all!

I don't think anyone is saying its a "problem"; because it's certainly not a major one. There are certain details that it would be beneficial to know in advance of course, but nothing that won't eventually be revealed. Its just a little mystifying that the club goes so very quiet on season tickets during the off-season (when there's not much else to talk about or get distracted by). Especially so when you see the likes of Reading promoting their STs from before the season ended and through the off-season. It trades off the feelgood factor of promotion and gets fans on board early, and from that point of view must surely maximise sales. We on the other hand have a two week window for sales which is usually announced a few days beforehand, and other than that no news whatsoever. Sure, pretty much everyone who wants a season ticket will have the opportunity to get one, and we can all guess and speculate on how much it will cost. Its just that some find it a bit odd that we choose to "advertise" and sell season tickets in such a closed, low key fashion.

On that note, some rather poignant quotes from Pardew about Newcastle that he made before he knew whether Newcastle were going to play Champions league or not. Kind of indicates the gap even between 5th and top 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18042729 To summarise the choice quotes: "We have players who are not on the salaries these top clubs can offer." Demba's release clause has been widely publicised, there is some truth to it, and some untruth," said Pardew. "There is a clause there. There is a situation with his contract and we are in talks with him and his agent. It is not a foregone conclusion that he will stay..." "The one security I have is that [owner] Mike Ashley is a difficult seller. He is not going to let someone go for £7m, he is going to want top, top money. But if Yohan Cabaye gets a call from Manchester United and they tell him he is going to be the next Paul Scholes I am not going to be able to stop him. It is going to cost Manchester United a shedload of money, but until we have Champions League football, and we might have that by this weekend, we can not compete with that."

As least it wasn't bolded, italicised and underlined this time round. Just daft and a bit pointless for this board.

Yes, I accept the cashflow argument. Certainly for the "early bird" renewals. But even still, and perhaps its a different argument, I don't understand why the window for renewals is now so short. As I recall last year its was around 2 weeks! Just about enough time to get it done (assuming you're not on holiday abroad for those 2 weeks), but not enough time surely to promote it, get the word out there, and completely maximise ST sales. I agree with Dune that we're not bothered about ST sales and more interested in matchday sales. But having just seen an average attendance of 26K in what has surely been one of the most exciting seasons in a generation, there's an argument that this approach let quite a few potential sales through the net.

If last year is anything to go by, I think the answer will be "at the last possible moment". Quite why that is, I don't know.

Just because its the Southampton way it doesn't necessarily make it the right way. I find it odd that we did away with the early bird discounts etc we used to see in previous years (and which many other clubs still adopt). Its all well and good saying that we're chasing the profits of matchday sales over ST sales, but with an average attendance for the season of 26K there were obviously a few potential customers that fell through the net. If that's the business plan for Premier League life then so be it. Hopefully there will be a decent payment plan this year, indications are that there is so it will be good to see the details of it.

He really must be the least self-aware footballer there is. He's upset almost every manager he's worked for and consistently shown a poor attitude; yet his answer every time is to get away from one club to another, rather than staying, changing his attitude and actually putting in a decent shift. I really can't see him getting any sort of opportunity with us at PL level, so hopefully now it is time to just bin him out and get him off the books.

Make your mind up Les; just one page ago you were lamenting about how sad it was that this thread couldn't reach intelligent debate without abuse from both sides; now you're abusing a fellow poster by calling him "thick".

As has been pointed out before..... There has always been a 5 year plan in place from the time NC came in to the club. He expected us to be in the Premier League within 5 years. Not hoped, expected it. That we've doen it in 3 years has been impressive, but nonetheless all we have done is satisfy the expectations of the CEO to date. Bearing in mind that this plan has always been in place, I'm minded to ask (once again): if the club were as sure as some of the posters on here as to what our crowds will be this season and beyond, why is there not a ready made 40-45K stadium for us to move into? We've had 3 years since they took over, yet there are not even any plans in the public domain, nor any talk from the CEO other than previous non-committal "we'll explore all options" statements (made more than a year or two ago). Maybe, just maybe, Cortese considers "good planning and growth strategy" is best determined by analysing the actual attendance trends once in the top division, and then making a decision from that. At present most people would estimate we could attract larger crowds. However nobody, including the CEO, can accurately determin just what those attendances might be. Give it a season or two of analysing all current sales trends and we'll be a lot closer to that, and alot closer to determining whether we need a 32K stadium, 36K, 40K or even 45K and above. We may have billionaire backers but, as we have been constantly told, we don't have an endless supply of cash to bankroll us. If the owners choose to incur stadium debt and convert it into equity then that will of course be a great thing, and a huge benefit. That said, I still find it a bit surprising that so many people want to spend the owners' money for them on a whim and a hunch, and get a bit uppity about the fact that a 26K average attendance last year is not evidence that we need a stadium 20K seats bigger.

Wow. Just, wow.

Alan Ball for me. Took over from Branfoot when we looked nailed on certainties for relegation and turned it around. Finished the next season in tenth, got MLT playing like an absolute genius and made a team of other complete nobodies look decent. Would have been good to see what we could have achieved if he'd had some backing to properly build a team around MLT. Next in line, WGS and Hoddle.

There was a post a while ago that showed the number of players the three promoted sides signed last summer. I was quite surprised, Norwich and Swansea both signed around 9 or 10 players. QPR more. With that in mind, assuming we do the same, we're going to have to leave a lot of the current squad out of the list of 25 we submit. As we can have as many U21s as we want, I'd suggest the following will be replaced: Bart Forecast Seaborne Jaidi Harding Holmes Puncheon Connolly Barnard Forte Dickson I think, despite their efforts to date, Chaplow and Hammond may also be under a bit of pressure. Wouldn't be surprised either way if they got kept on or released.

Had this discussion the other day, with some Saints fans and neutrals. The neutral opinion was that it would be massively harsh to not have Davis as the no. 1 keeper for the Prem. The Saints fans (including me), while recognising his contribution were of the opinion that we need a really top keeper from the start of the season, and someone who is more accomplished than Davis at command of the area and distribution. I equated it to when we signed Niemi. Jones was a decent keeper and gave us good service, but Niemi came in a took us onto a whole new level with some of his brilliance.

Yep, agreed. I even found the white socks in our away kit this year to be a monstrosity, and a rather cheap looking Brazil rip off. Yellow shirt, blue shorts, yellow socks please.

To be fair, I'd be massively surprised if he hasn't at least looked at what is feasibile in terms of stadium expansion and just how big the stadium could be allowed to go under current planning regulations (especially so as St Mary's was designed with potential future expansion in mind).

I'm having some t-shirts printed so we can broadcast our stupidity to all and sundry. I'll be wearing mine to our first Premier League game of the season, and taking a banner saying "Everton, we're bigger than you".

And as I say, that's the point. Right now, knowing what we know at this point in time, it would be madness to expand the stadium. Could we get more people into the ground on matchdays? Probably. Do we have any accurate idea right now as to how many more we would consistently attract? No, unless you use numbers from 10 years ago as facts. All we do know is that we were 6,000 short of capacity last year and that the lure of the Premier League will likely take that number upwards, potentially towards the levels perviously seen in that division, potentially more, potentially less. Unfortunately that has been rather difficult to accept for some who have clung to the belief that a vague statement or two from the CEO is evidence of the fact that the builders are on their way without performing any form of due diligence.