The Kraken

Sadly, I don't believe it would. I would actually almost bet on the fact that the police are hoping for lower numbers, as it makes their job easier. And I doubt the clubs are all that bothered either. It strikes me that the clubs really wouldn't be fussed if the police "instructed" them that all future games had to be home-fans only. It would certainly save spending out on such a mammoth policing effort.

You're missing my point (again). I've said I think we would sell more tickets than capacity, especially against the top teams. What I don't know is by how much, whether it's tens, hundreds or thousands, and if so, how many thousands? And I simply don't believe there's any point in speculating how big a stadium we should build until we have a pretty reliable indicator as to how many people are going to come and actually fill it. So please understand that, unlike you, I don't believe we have this reliable figure yet. I've really got no idea what you're saying here. Stadium expansion at St. Mary's allows us a number of options which can all be implemented independently. So we could go to 36,000. We could go to 40,000. We could go to 44,000. Or we could go to 48,000. At any time; no need to do it all at once. It's the lowest-risk opportunity to build abigger stadium incrementally to satisfy any extra demand (rather than build a brand new one). St. Mary's wouldn't get knocked down to build a brand new 38K seater stadium; one stand would be added to, to either create a 36,000 stadium or 40,000 stadium (depending on which stand). I'm really confused what you mean there, so that's the best interpretation of it I can give. And I've answered the post about Wolves.

Disingenuous really; firstly, we're not Wolves. Secondly, as you say only phase 2 is guaranteed for now. And also, some of the stands that they are knocking down are undergoing a massive improvement so it's not being done just as a capcity increase, it's increasing the facilities on offer. In any case, who knows what evidence they've used? But I'd hope and expect that it would be along the lines of the evidence I've told you in this thread that I'd look for; namely: - what is their season ticket base, and how close to home capacity is it? In fact, do they have a season ticket waiting list? - how many games sell out? - how quickly do these games sell out? Is it hours before the game or is it more? - if certain high-demand home games went to a ballot, just how many fans would want to go? Whether they've done that, I don't know. But I'd certainly hope that they have, rather than just pluck a figure out of the air because it sounds nice. For what it's worth, my mate is a Wolves fan and often goes to their games, he thinks the potential of them actually getting on with the full implementation of the final phase is pie in the sky. But that's just his opinion.

I'm sorry, but I won't respond to it as there is no evidence. Read your last sentence; you're asking me to speculate if we could potentially sell more tickets, and by how much. I've already said I THINK we probably could sell more, but in the light of neither seeing no evidence nor being made aware of any, I have no idea to suggest if it would be by tens, hundreds or thousands. And I've already highlighted the manner in which I think this evidence can and will be gathered; so please don't continually question me on this, I have no wish to keep labouring the same point over and over again. Firstly, I'm not sure if I do agree that there's no point in only increasing to, say 38k, no. The Northam, Chapel and Kingsland stands can all be increased in size independently. Northam and Chapel by 4,000 seats each, Kingsland by 8,000. So it's obvious we have various options available to us. We could increase to 36,000 with a couple of different options, or we could increase to 40,000, again with a couple of different options. If you're asking for a prediction, I honestly have no idea. I do not have a clue what sort of maximum crowds we could get on a regular basis in the Premier League. I know I don't agree with you that a 50K stadium is realistic, as I don't think we'd even sell that many for even one league game per year unless we gave a huge amount to travelling supporters and discounted loads more, which really defeats the object. I would suggest what I would like to happen (if we do find that demand is there) would be for the Kingsland to be expanded, and so take capacity to 40K. Most of that is based upon aesthetics though, a ground with either just the Chapel/Northam expanded would look a bit weird.

I'm not sure if the whole MK "experiment" is all that viable. Huge stadium, yet last season their highest league crowd was just under 12,000 and their average for the season only 8,500. We, Leeds, Norwich etc have shown what sort of crowds can be achieved in that division. Unless MK's owners have got some brilliant ideas beyond football up their sleeves for the additional capacity, I can't see the stadium as becoming anything other than a huge white elephant.

This is the only bit I'm going to respond to, because the rest of your post is just speculative and you're trying to argue a point I'm just not going to waste my time discussing without any evidence, which you clearly don't have. Cortese made public the fact that he would not rule anything in or our with regard to either a new stadium or a bigger one. He also said that it was a long way off. Only you have turned that into a "promise" that we're going to start building soon, and that the evidence is there we need one. Cortese has never said that; ever. He's said that he would look to support it if the demand were there. Massive difference. If Cortese believed the demand were there for a huge 50K stadium (as I believe you've pushed for in the past) I just don't understand why we would not be building one now. Why he would not be talking about his grand plan, about the evidence he has to hand about our enormous supporter base, and how plans were being submitted/approved so that we have this new stadium in time for the PL. Why he would not be putting the marketing steps in right now to ensure that 50K stadium will be full up when we kick off in the PL. But then I'm pretty sure I know why that's not happening. And while i commend how optimistic you are about the situation, unfortunately I cannot see anywhere beyond the naievety of your belief, and I'm sorry but none of your lecturing is going to make me think otherwise.

It's a dreadful business plan. You don't build a bigger stadium to then have to rely upon the bigger clubs bringing a huge away contingent to fill it. You don't build a bigger stadium to give away free/cheap tickets just to fill it. How many of the other stadia in the PL that were expanded then decided to double their away allocation. It doesn't happen, and there's a very good business reason for it. You only build a bigger stadium because there is an obvious short term and long term demand for more home tickets.

And your memories seem to clash very much from others on here; others (including myself) who can't remember having too much difficulty getting to games when they wanted to. Again, without any clear evidence either way you're trying to enter into a debate based upon speculation. I think you're being a bit dim if you think I'm saying that demand for tickets will decrease if we go up. I've never said that, and I think you know that. Even in this thread you can read where I've agreed with David in Sweden that gates of 35K - 40K against the top sides are potentially within our reach, in time. What I have consistently maintained however, and it is a point that you have continually argued against, is that there is no evidence that we could sustain such a 40,000 seater stadium. We would likely sell some tickets above 32,000, I don't think that's ever been in doubt for the bigger games. What is a massive doubt is just how many over 32,000 we could sell. And the only way for the current owners to start figuring that out is to get back to the Premier League and put some proper checks and balances in place. Such as: - what is our season ticket base, and how close to home capacity is it? - how many games sell out? - how quickly do these games sell out? Is it hours before the game (such as our recent game against West Ham) or is it more? - if certain high-demand home games went to a ballot, just how many fans would want to go? Only some of these answers can be found using empirical evidence; maybe the club has access to it, maybe they don't. Other questions, particularly the last one, can only be ascertained as and when we get to the PL. And I feel for certain that Mr. Cortese will adopt this policy rather than your one of "we don't need to wait and see". which is why expansion of capacity is still massively premature.

Here we go yet again. You have absolutely no evidence whatsoever but continue to come out with "factual" lines such as "a lot of games sold out long in advance of matchday". How many games? How long in advance of matchday? Without that evidence all of your posturing and speculation is baseless and therefore just idle gossip. As for your "If the club is promoted it will return to this straight away, no need to wait and see". The lack of evidence clearly lies in the fact that we're not expanding already; thank God that Cortese seemingly has a sounder business mind than you.

Yep, a fair assessment, though I think we'll need to see sustained sell-outs over a number of seasons and a higher season ticket base than we've ever seen before it actually happens. This is the issue that gets so overlooked in the whole debate; at the time of building St. Mary's it was estimated that stadium expansion would cost £3,000 per extra seat. Given that was nearly ten years ago now, and with staff and material costs only having increased in that time, you're talking at least £4,000 to £5,000 per additional seat, potentially even higher than that. So to take the capacity of St. Mary's up to 40,000, that's a potential additional cost of £30M - £40M (minimum). More than the cost to build the original stadium. That money isn't just going to present itself, there's going to have to be a very real potential for earning that outlay back from increased revenues within a relatively short timeframe. For as long as the FA have got the financial millstone of Wemblet Stadium around their neck, international football will be going nowhere else. Even if it did, the FA are all about maximising revenues which means the likes of Old Trafford, Emirates, St. James Park, Stadium of Light etc etc would be in the queue way before us.

Don't think there's anything stopping you from going to watch? I assume you mean the scheduling, weekdays at 2pm doesn't do everyone a massive favour...

It may well have changed since, I'm not 100% sure; but I lived in a flat in central town during the design/build and at the time there were loads of discussions about crowds, noise etc whereby the club had to satisfy a certain number of conditions. One of those was that the club wanted to maximise revenues from the stadium but there was a lot of opposition to having regular football plus regular concerts etc, which was why the 1 per year limit was put on it.

A condition of getting planning permission for the stadium was that it would only host a maximum of one concert per year, no more. We are therefore extremely limited in what else we could use the ground for; no local rugby club to host, minimal concerts, aside from the hospitality side there's not a great deal of other uses for it. Which makes the decision whether to spend another £30M just to bring the capacity up to 40K an extremely important one, and one that should not under any circumstances be rushed into.

No reason they couldn't sign as a partner for Lambert, or just a completely different option. I'm sure Nigel Adkins would love a proper opportunity to rest RL once in a while for games, or certainly to bring him off after an hour or so as he has done with Connolly. To be fair to Guly though, since being moved up front he seems to be on a mission to prove he can do the striker's job himself. Also credit in that department to Chalow for his stints at RM (and LM against Reading) which have been superb. Agree about a keeper; you just have to look at Ali Al Habsi at Wigan to see the level of goalkeeping that is now required at even a lower-ranked Premier League team. The standards that Niemi set while with us need to be the benchmark, and as decent as Kelvin has been for us I don't quite hold him up in that bracket.

I think he's the victim of not being good enough, really. Despite some important goals he's never really looked like he could make a lasting impact for us in the league; as has been said he was probably bought with "impact sub" in mind, but having been overtaken by de Ridder, Forte has really gone backwards and probably isn't doing himself any favours at all by missing out on so much game time. I of course wish him no ill will and, if he does leave, I hope he can push on and pick his career back up again. But he unfortunately will go down as a signing for us that just didn't work out.

Came second in the mascot race; too tired to mascot since. Great late burst to beat the daffodil though.

The best reason I can see so far is so that the majority of our fans can work out that it's called the Premier League, and not the Premiership.

I only remember it as a Leeds song; can't remember us ever singing it before.

Exactly this. The sheer scale of our attractiveness could have been our undoing; ownership of Jacksons Farm, training ground, city centre ground plus countless other assets, all extremely attractive opportunities for developers to come in and make a quick buck potentially to the detriment of the football team. As I said earlier the administrator has a duty to extract the best deal for the creditors. The needs and desires of the football club come a distant second to that, thereby putting us at the mercy of the whims of the highest bidder. Add in the fact that our adminsistrator was led a merry dance by a bunch of chancers, you'd also have to question his ability to recognise what was or wasn't a decent future for the club. We got very lucky with the owners we got.

Wes, don't get me wrong I'm with you, I always thought it was more likely than not that we'd emerge from administration in better shape than before; and given the massively concerted efforts of a very significant portion of the fanbase in previously trying to get rid of Lowe, then a lot of supporters couldn't really try to claim the higher ground if it did go t*ts up. But even despite that, while I of course fully accepted that administration was the only realistic avenue for us to take, I'd be lying if I said I saw it as anything but a huge gamble with who we'd end up with in charge. And like you say, thank God we avoided the chancers and charlatans and emerged with the real deal.

You make it sound as if it were a simple option we had up our sleeve; that's not quite how administration worked for us. We were placed into administration at the behest of the bank when they deemed we could no longer sustain paying back our overdraft facility. Given that you recognise how much worse off we would/could have been with SISU, does it not highlight the potential pitfalls of administration, and who your club can end up being owned by? as you say, we got extremely lucky with the owners we ended up with; but I really wouldn't care to speculate just how bad it could have been instead. Administration was always going to be a massive gamble. Yes, we were very attractive to a well-intentioned investor; but we were also very attractive to any old punter looking for a quick way to make money. And the job of the administrator is to find the best deal for the creditors, not for the football club and it's future endeavours. History does tell us that, in many cases, clubs have entered administration and (after the initial setbacks) come out much stronger. But there are also clubs that have actually come off worse from adminsitration too; that could have happened to us too. The likelihood was that administration was going to be the best option to us, but I don't think I'd have massive issue with anyone who didn't just assume everything would be fine and approached the whole scenario with a good deal of trepidation.

I'm not saying it would at all; I've never suggested that. But claiming that we'd hold on to our top players should top 4 clubs come sniffing around is just a bit naive IMO.

Cortese says we will live within our means, rater than be financially bankrolled. Which means that no, we cannot compete in the wages department; certainly not with the top 4 or 5 clubs, not even close. We will always be a selling club; there's no great shame to it. Even Manchester United lost Cristiano Ronaldo when a bigger and more attractive club came knocking. Liverpool lost Torres for the same reason. Competing with that while still living within our means is just impossible.

If the big clubs like Arsenal, Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea come calling for our top young stars then we're not going to be any more successful in holding on to them as we have done in the past.

It's splitting hairs but I don't consider tying Hooiveld to a contract to be a new signing. Aside from that, I think if we do do go up we would take a similar approach to this year's window by making another 3 or 4 additions in the summer; with a striker in the window, to be fair it's not far away from 6 or 7 like you suggest.