SaintBobby

I do wonder about these SISA people. Was that a success? Viva la revolution.

Hilarious coverage on Sky Sports News. Desperately looking for a people involved in the massive, brilliantly clever "hankie waving mass protest". I think they found four. Two of whom just wanted to blow their nose. It's so sad, it's almost cute.

Great article. Which surprised me...as the opening line "The reaction to Nigel Adkins being replaced as Southampton manager has been such that the phrase “widespread disbelief” has almost become a cliché." is one of the worst I've ever read.... The phrase is already a cliche.

Always favoured Fonte for the armband. But seems very unlikely this is on the cards. Love Lallana and Lambert to bits, but don't really see either of them as captains. So, guess I'd go for Morgan again.

I'm now much more reconciled to the sacking of Adkins. I'm willing to give Cortese the balance of the doubt on this. It will be hard/impossible to compare with any counterfactual of "how would we have done under Adkins" - but as long as we stay up and other "stuff" starts coming good (transfers, player morale etc etc), I'll be content. My worries about Cortese run rather deeper, however. There have been a series of decisions and rumours that seem to suggest he's a bit fruity - disgruntled staff, the weird decision to dispense with programme sellers, the falling out with the Sun, a lot of dysfunctional stuff behind the scenes (useless ticket office performance, screwed up loyalty points scheme, truly odd decisions in the corporate lounge area, that bloke who was apparently denied a season ticket, the poor communication with fans, high turnover of staff). If things are going great on the pitch, this is all flotsam and jetsam. But if things start going wrong, you risk getting into a truly grim downward spiral.

4 points would be a pretty good return from the next 4 games. You've got to assume we'll lose to Man City and Man Utd. I'd probably even accept 3 points - as long as these were taken against Wigan. We need to average about a point a game - but not over a spread of four games which includes the best two teams in the league....

Can we have a totally separate thread for every poster's individual opinions. It would make things so much easier.

Don't totally agree with this. There were other options available. We could have kept Ramirez in the central position. And should have done IMHO.

I'm a bit more sanguine about the whole thing after a couple of days to reflect. Maybe 15th was the highest NA could ever get us to...

According to the Mirror, tensions over transfers were a big reason behind the sacking. Just saying. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/tensions-over-transfers-saw-nigel-1546179

Widespread growth of the fan ownership model is a pipedream, I fear. What's the value of Southampton Football Club? £50m - £100m? There may be twice as many Saints fans as Pompey fans, but look at the laughable attempts by the Pompey Trust to scrape together a truly pitiful £1m. (and this at a time when the alternative could well be liquidation, other clubs would be seeking to raise money from fans on the basis that it would be "nice" to have fan ownership). If there are 10,000 Saints fans willing to stump up £5,000 - £10,000 each, then fan ownership becomes feasible. But there aren't. So it isn't. It pains me to say that Saints can't even get their fan representation sorted out. SISA are a tiny, trivial joke.

If evidence emerges that the Liebherr investment is on the same scale as the Chelsea and Man City investment, I will reappraise. There isn't much evidence of this. (Additionally, the vague information about a big loan from the British Virgin Islands or whatever at least raises an eyebrow rather than underscoring the theory of an enormous war chest We are not really spending on the levels you suggest - yes, we've spent a lot on transfers, but that's only one element. What do you think we're spending on payroll? Absolutely nowhere near the amount spent by the big clubs. Of course we have spent a lot on renewing the squad, Man City and Man Utd etc don't have to. They are already established at the top of the division. We needed to replace players who may have been good in the Championship, but incapable of cutting it in the top flight. I'm guessing on payroll, but I'd be confident in suggesting we are nowhere near the top 4-6 clubs. That's a major reason why we're 15th and still at 7/4 to be relegated.

Correct. We don't have the resources. We've spent £30m on transfers so far. A huge amount for us - but hardly competing with the top 4. Does Cortese have an additional £300m in a war chest? I doubt it, but, as I've said, I'd reappraise if it became clear we were competing with Chelsea/Man Utd etc on spending. I can safely say our matchday attendances and revenues are less than Man Utd and Arsenal. And we're receiving millions less in TV rights compared to the Champions League teams. I'm also sort of assuming that Man Utd/Arsenal etc replcia shirt and merchandising sales are rather bigger than ours. Happy to been proven wrong, but seems a reasonable prediction.

Get in, Baggies! 2-2

I think that's pretty significant that even Neil Allen is willing to float the phoenix option.

Anyone see any value in these odds? http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/premier-league/relegation Reading to stay up (strange they're 2/7 to go down even when they are out of the bottom 3) and Villa to go down at 11/10 seem good bets to me.

MLG, You asked for someone to provide an argument as to why Saints can't realistically challenge for a top 4 slot. I did so (post #77 at 3.05pm), but you have not deigned to reply.

If Newcastle lose today, it will be 2 wins, 1 draw and 10 defeats for them in 13 games. Dropping like a stone. Getting about 0.5 points per game.

Oh my. Reading winning.

All looking okay-ish with ten minutes to go. West Ham winner would be nice, but I can definitely live with a draw....

Thank God for that. I was wondering when someone would start a new thread on how we should react to our new manager. It's amazing that it's taken so long for one to appear. Look at me! Look at me!

It doesn't follow that we need a bigger stadium just because we will sell out some games this season. I'd say that our present attendances - about 92% of seats sold, suggests that we're about right in terms of size. Also, of course, even if we felt that in a larger stadium, we'd get average attendances of 36,000, it doesn't mean you should necessarily expand to, say, a 40,000 capacity. Relative scarcity of seating means relatively higher prices. So, if you can sell 32,000 at £30 each (£960,000), it might be that you could only sell 36,000 seats at £29 each (£1,044,000). Not, on the face of it a brilliant revenue raiser - you've expanded your stadium by 25%, but have only increased your ticket revenue by 8.75%. You'd want to look very long and hard at the numbers before embarking on such an expansion. It might not pay for itself for many, many years - even many decades. Are you still of the view that Wolves have done the right thing with their stadium expansion? How's that working out for them?

Yes. I do. We might put the prices up a fraction, but there won't be much more interest in Saints being 8th or 9th than there is in us being 14th or 15th. A 9th-placed Saints v Man Utd is not obviously a much more attractive game than a 15th-placed Saints v Man Utd. Similarly, matches against Wigan, West Brom, Norwich etc don't become enormously more exciting.

I will tell you why we won't qualify for the top 4: 1. We have nowhere near the resources of Man C, Man Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal. Over a 38 game season, it is simply inconceivable that we will have a better record than ANY of these four teams. I will only reappraise this if (a) one of these four clubs goes into total financial meltdown and (b) Southampton start spending utterly massive sums of money on new players 2. Even if something very weird happened to one of these top 4, it's supremely unlikely that we would have the resources to compete over a season with Spurs or Liverpool. The latter have had a tough time of late, but are still probably going to finish in the top 6 or 7 and are much better equipped than Saints for the forseeable future. 3. This leaves 7th position as the highest realistic attainable target - but even that would involve us overcoming a whole swathe of clubs of similar or greater size to Southampton - Sunderland, West Ham, Villa, Stoke, West Brom etc. I can easily imagine us finishing higher than any given one of these clubs - but to imagine a season in which we finish in a higher slot than ALL of them is on the extremely optimistic side, to put it mildly. So even if, say, Spurs, Arsenal or Liverpool have a truly disastrous season, it's unlikely that we will manage to finish ahead of all the other middle-ish clubs. 4. Everton are an extreme, over-performing outlier. Even then, their average finishing position since the 2000/2001 is still only 9th place. In the last five seasons, they have performed very well -always finishing between 5th and 8th place. This sounds like it's pretty close to the Champions League places, but - in fact - they have always missed the top 4 by at least nine points (and by an average of over 11 points). They did once secure 4th place, with a remarkably low points total of just 61 points (a total that would almost certainly never secure 4th place ever again). Under today's rules, this would not have been sufficient to qualify (Liverpool would have qualified instead in 5th place as holders). So, even if we can replicate the incredible success Moyes has had at Everton, which it is very hard to imagine we ever will, it is supremely unlikely that we would ever make it into the top 4 anyway. 5. Once the realisation dawns that a serious effort to get into the top 4 is beyond us, there are big risks in having a business plan predicated on a serious bid to secure Champions League qualification. We would presumably have to spend an absolute fortune on players - but would end up with the derisory crumbs of Europa League qualification at best. This runs the serious risk of starting a cycle of massive overspend that eventually leads to the sort of total financial meltdown we have seen before. Far better to have a strategy of stabilising in the Premiership, always steering a fair way clear of the bottom three and typically finishing 9th-14th. Perhaps very, very occasionally securing a trip to Wembley for a Cup Final. HTH.

Agreed. I, for one, have been hoping and praying for relegation ever since the car parking charges were introduced...