angelman

Not sure any revisionism is going on. Me, I've said it is a shame that the academy was ignored and that is it. It's not tragic if he goes. That is melodramatic beyond belief. He was going to go at some stage. All managers do. Sure if would have been nice if he had stayed (and got the academy going again). I supported Saints before he came and will do so after he has gone. It is but a stage of the club. And thinking he loved it at Saints is somewhat naive. The only people who love it at Saints are the supporters. Everyone else is doing it for the money.

Think Poch and his entourage was £6m wasn't it?

QSF?

I find this "ambition" a little distasteful. It seems to be all about how much money the chairman/owner is prepared to throw at the thing. Whether that be in spending £100m on players on vastly over inflated wages, or vastly over inflating the wages of existing players. Is that really all it is? Me, I want more balance than that. I want the academy players to come through. Maybe sell one or two to fund new players and do things that way. It's funny though, this money lark. Blackburn were accused of buying the title. Then Chelsea were continually accused of doing it. By accused, I mean a criticism and derision that it was almost akin to cheating. But now everyone is at it and no one accuses anyone any more of buying the title. Players on upwards of £15m a year. Managers not too far behind. Ticket prices through the roof. Sky charging up to £80 a month. BT increasing their prices across the board. Now if you went to a school playground in Toxteth and said to the wee boys kicking a ball around that they were going to be professional football players, but that the maximum wage they would earn would be half a million a year, how many do you think would say that that wasn't enough and they would rather sit at home and claim the dole? Football finance is hugely unattractive. Don't get me wrong, Saints are just as bad as everyone else, it's just a question of degrees, and to me it has killed the sport. But then I guess it gave up any pretence of being a sport quite some years ago. So, when we have these stupid little kids from Everton coming on giving it the Billy Big Bullocks, I really don't care. If their club wants to spend hundreds of millions then so be it. I am more than happy that our club is trying to stick to some sort of plan and is fiscally not too badly run (even though we have a debt of £48m) and of course our tickets are overpriced. But I am very glad that we didn't match the £7m to keep Koeman. In fact it seems rather strange that EFC have to pay that much to get him if it was the transfer budget that attracted him. As I have said before and mentioned above, there is one aspect of the past 2 years that I have really missed. Poch was brilliant at it, and that was bringing through the academy players. One game we had (I think) 7 that featured. With Koeman it is usually 1 if that - Matty. Maybe the others weren't good enough, but it is a little strange how from Poch's time we go from a good few to nothing. I hope the new manager will bring through the academy players, rather than just go out and buy in players. But having said that, the results of the past 2 seasons have been good. So thank you RK and good bye. Time to move on. I never had any interest in Everton before this, and RK going there doesn't change it. Like all our opponents, I want them all to lose all the time (which of course isn't possible), and us to finish above them all. PS - reading the post above and Guan's post contained in it, it seems that I am in tune with the club re the academy.

FdB bit is very strange. He leaves Ajax and says he wants PL with someone like Everton, and then the bookies install him as favourite.

Are you spending an inordinate amount of time on Everton forums????

Don't know anything about him, but his stats at Roma are OK. P118: W61 (51.69%) D34 L23 Seems he had a bad run of one win in 10 (like we did!!) and got the chop from Roma.

Once or twice: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/search.php?searchid=3396094

I particularly like the quote at the end re pessimist/optimist/realist. Might have to use that once in a while.

I fear it is the latter.

Pluto, your post is reassuring in that it is clear that some can see things using their head and not their heart. The sooner some realise that we are not able to compete financially the better. Life's not fair. We all know that yet some don't apply it to football.

PB, I totally agree. Maybe you are the same as me and are desperately trying to find someone / something good in football although we all know what is what and that money has corrupted all.

I think one could say Bournemouth spent a lot more than us.

Currently we are the biggest job in PL going, that is if you presume Arsenal are sticking with Arsene. Liverpool x2, Manchester x2, all London are accounted for.

Personally, I thank the managers for their work here but do not wish them any success in the future. Firstly they are our competitors and secondly I am not really too bothered how any team apart from Saints do. There is one exception though - Nigel Adkins.

You forgot to mention his non-dom status. (And I have views on them!!)

Maybe you have never negotiated in business before. Maybe the talks went well and then another player entered offering things that we couldn't/wouldn't match. Just because we couldn't/wouldn't does NOT mean talks went badly.

I'm just waiting until he signs a contract (wherever that maybe)....Then we can judge things.

So what about Leicester? It will be interesting to see what happens but it looks like Vardy is going to be off within the next day or two along with Mahrez and Kante. And they won the PL and have CL football. There. That puts things into perspective. IF (and I suppose as it hasn't happened yet it might not) that happens then that beats us losing all of those players and personnel. Maybe if does happen to LCFC, then the scales will fall from peoples' eyes and they will see football finance for what it is.

I see one negative. Because of the Euros, there might be limited pre season time for a new manager to get the best from the squad. But looking forward to the new season.

Batman et al, you have lost total perspective on the issue. It would be best for you and others to regain it.

And why do you think that is? Are people so blind to reality that they cannot work it out???? Southampton is a small/mid sized provincial football club, which in comparison to other clubs in the league is relatively poor. Those that are richer than us in the league this season..... Arsenal, Spurs, Man C, Man U, West Ham, Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton, Sunderland, Newcastle, Aston Villa. We might be on a par with Leicester, Stoke and some others. Maybe richness is subjective but I think that the above list is pretty spot on as to who is richer than us - would you agree with that? Now let's look at some of those that have left inc RK. RK - he may come out with all sorts of reasons (no doubt ambition will be one, but as our ambition is to get top 4, I don't see how that is different from Everton), there is the fact that he was offered more money by a richer club Clyne - now he was in his last year of a contract and a richer club offered to massively increase his wages, which we could not compete with. He wasn't going to renew, so common business practice is to cash in rather than let the contract run down to let him go on a free. Wanyama is the same. Schneiderlin - he had 2 years left, but was unhappy and didn't want to play as he wanted to go to a club that could massively increase his wages. Lovren and Lallana were similar in not wanting to play for us any more, but instead going to a team they thought could offer them CL and much bigger wages. Chambers - a youngster who didn't see his future at SFC (ironic if he comes back), went to a much richer club who knock around the CL every year and who massively increased his wages. So what's the common theme? It seems to be two things. One is people going to much bigger clubs and being remunerated at a level we cannot compete with. I know that everyone realises this, but when people do actually leave, this seems to be forgotten, which is really rather curious. Southampton is what it is - if we want to be a well run club, then we cannot throw millions and millions at everyone. Sure the commercial side of the club could bring in more, but that is being addressed after being wholly abandoned by Cortese. The second thing is ambition. A lot of those leaving state European football (or Champions League) as being the reason for leaving. Well if you ask the hierarchy at SFC what their ambition is, what do you think you will be told? That they'll be happy with 17th??? FFS we have just recently returned to the PL finishing 14th, 8th, 7th and 6th. We really have no right to have expected 3 top 8 finishes. In fact we would now be viewed as having a poor season if we finished bottom half. Why is that? We have waltzed in to the PL and established ourselves in the top half (that is if you can take 3 seasons as establishing yourself). People just need to think about that. Take out the big 6 or 7 teams and really think where we are. Or do people expect us to be able to financially compete with Liverpool and Man Utd, or even Everton for that matter? Then there is a third thing. The prestige of the clubs that they move to. History is history and we can't change that. We have ours and it isn't littered with honours. The prestige of playing for certain clubs is bigger than others, but as a provincial club such as ours, we are what we are. The board can't change that, so no point criticising them for that. MX5 vs Ferrari. I know that football supporters have unrealistic expectations of their club - it's the nature of being a fan. But really, look at the club and the position it is in and realise what a good job the board has done. I hate to use the term "punching above our weight" but we are. And when that happens, those that you are punching with can and will punch you harder than you can cope with and you will not be able to defend yourself against them. Too many people on here need to get things back into perspective.

You seem to not understand that while we are a very attractive proposition, there are bigger clubs out there that can offer more money, which seems to be the driving factor with most people and therefore makes those clubs even more attractive than us. How many of those listed have gone to Crystal Palace or WBA for example? Actually I am sure you do understand but are just being obtuse.

Yes, let's hope so. The management of the club (ie boardroom) has created a very attractive club to work at. We tend to forget that.

So you have no idea how they went.