The Kraken

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.

This is of course correct. Turkish's response is I'm sure aimed at the likes of MLG and co who have consistently stated the need for a much bigger stadium, right now. MLG himself has previously stated that now is the right time to get building a new super stadium, and even that it should have been built to coincide with the start of our first season in the Premier League. Most people recognise the need to prove demand first and get a really good idea on what the level of demand actually is. And most people won't rule out a bigger stadium in the next few years if the level of support justifies it; they're just loathe to doing it right now and relying either on spurious figures that are 10 years old as evidence, or a leap of faith that "build it and they will come".

Yep, agree very much with this. The bottom half of the Premier League has been filled with mediocrity for a number of years; that Swansea and Norwich have done so well is testament to the fact that they actually gave it a go and went for victories instead of the typical park the bus approach. There's really not a great deal between 10th place and 20th place in the Premier League. I think we need to strengthen quite a bit this summer to be good enough, but I also think we will do that, and as a consequence should be aiming for mid-table as a form of consolidation.

And you're stuck in seeing what you want to see. I'm all for ambition and growing as big as we can, which IMO will (perhaps within 5 years) include increasing the size of stadium to around 40K. Which should see us comfortably mid-table Premier League level and upwards. I just have a limit on how far on from there I see us going, and while I hope that the sky is the limit logic dictates to me otherwise. So, well done for taking a completely incorrect assumption about me and trying to use it to suit your argument.

Ta. Remember it now. Its a bit of a "what if" statement rather than a statement of intent, to be fair. I'm sure many will disagree and use it as evidence of the CL 5 year plan though. Not exactly definitive though, is it? If you were in the Champions League, would you pay the necessary wages to the players to keep you there? I might consider it. So not a "hell yes, if that's what it takes, that's what we'll spend". Not a "we owuld have to, if we have those sorts of ambitions". Just an "I might think about it".

I don't think you understand. He turned down £50K p/w plus a bonus payment of £500K from West Ham. I'm going to go out on a limb here and presume he's on a bit more than that at Newcastle.

Demba Ba turned down £50K a week plus a £500K bonus from West Ham in order to join Newcastle. But that probably isn't really a lot for Saints either.

Just so that we can clarify here. I can (kind of) remember Cortese alluding to challenging at the top of the table. But what did he ACTUALLY say about it. What are there quotes actually attributed to him about becoming a Champions League side? Not "it was along these lines", what did he actually say, and to whom? I'm not denying he said it, its just we've had nearly 17 pages attributed to some quotes which may say one thing and may say another.

Which ones though?

We should put it in the 5 year plan to be one of the top 4 clubs in the country to be willing to try out footballing technology.

What apparatus? A pitch and a goal? We're being used because we're the closest appropriate stadium to where the Hawkeye system is being developed.

The thing in the goal looks more useful than Tommy Forecast. Sign it up.

Possible, but I'd suggest pushing it. Certainly a decent aim to have of a 5 year plan starting from now though.

As I said; I think we'll sell out a lot of games. Especially the early season games, and due to the fact there's a feel-good factor at the moment that is unprecedented for some of the younger generation. I am interested to see how attendances hold up throughout the whole season; particularly against the sides such as Wigan, Fulham, West Brom, Stoke etc against the likes of which we often didn't sell out when in the PL last time round. Its a different league now, with a different economic situation. I also think ticket prices could have a significant effect, so we'll see what happens.