SaintBobby

I guess that one of the problems is "having moved to the next level" (again!), we are now in a sort of safe, but rather boring, no-man's land. We are several steps ahead of those in the relegation scrap, but a very measurable way behind those with serious Champions League aspirations. I'm not persuaded that we will be able to take the next leap forward and become a top 4 or 6 team, but the upside is that we probably have enough in the tank to avoid a major threat of relegation for a fair few years. Not taking the cups at all seriosuly this year still grates though...

Good to see him come good. Maybe he will cut it. Disappointing that we have spent c.£47m on massive signings (Osvaldo, Ramirez, Wanyama and even Lovren) who haven't delivered anything like the outlay. In fairness, Lovren looks great - but as a whole our "high end" transfers haven't been worth it. On the upside - depsite today's disappointing result - we look very good without them!

It's a shame how the Cup has fallen in affections. Credit to the 800+ who went. I thought about it, then decided "nah, I'll watch it in the pub". We took more to Hull in the league, right?

We weren't very big at all between c1910 and c1966. Middle sized clubs could win a lot of stuff in those c56 years. Sadly, us getting biggish (c.1981?) and us rising from the grave, coincided with other bigger teams getting massive. That = we don't get silverware.

One thing I do agree with MLG on... If Lambert had scored a hatrick, then I'm sure Rob Lee's wife would have asked him to get a pint of milk and insist he slept on the sofa. Hard to argue with, really.

He's a fair minded bloke, not just because he talked about how good Saints were. Really hope Hull stay up. Think they will, and that's good news for that part of the world. Premiership support.

Only 1 point needed for safety. Just watched the game on Sky match choice, we were v v v good. Massive hat tip to the travelling fans - loud, clear and awesome. Tip top stuff.

1st half was awful. 2nd was amazing. Cork was superb.

He's speaking under embargo. Whatever he has told the newspaper journalists can not be made public until 11pm. Presume it is either a signing or Osvaldo's departure. Or both.

Southampton FC @SouthamptonFC Mauricio Pochettino is now speaking under embargo to the written press. Read more on saintsfc.co.uk at 11pm GMT. #saintsfc

Not too upset by that. If we win, we'll be the 3rd or 4th best team left in the competition.

Brighton at SMS, no question.

They are clearly spectacularly different people, with wildly different backgrounds, styles, careers, professional approaches, personalities, ambitions etc. Redknapp is basically felt to be a shoot-from-the-hip, provide comment off the cuff, chit chatty sort of manager with a "geezer" personality having spent his whole career in football (and as a media personality). Cortese is a pretty inscrutable, somewhat understated, rather controlling Swiss banker. I don't think it's too much of a leap to suggest that they may well handle their interactions with the British media rather differently.

I'm still chuckling from the suggestion that believing Harry Redknapp and Nicola Cortese are "ever so different" is somehow a strange or odd belief.

You've seen Harry Redknapp lean out of his car window on Sky Sports on transfer deadline day, so Adam Blackmore must be phoning Cortese at home on Sunday. What planet are you on? (or what computer games do you play?) You really have made a complete fool of yourself on this thread.

I'd say it's unlikely that Blackmore would have telephone chats of the type suggested above with Cortese. It's not completely impossible that a journalist such as Ashton or Blackmore would have Cortese's number, but it's extremely unlikely that Cortese would field media calls in the way suggested. CEOs/Chairmen of high profile organisations typically employ media relations people to deal with these sort of things. Cortese himself also seems like a fairly controlled, almost private character. He almost certainly isn't spinning a line to a pack of journos who are hitting redial to get through to his home number.

Bit scpetical about this Wang rumour to be honest. Very Paul Allenesque and all a bit 2 + 2 = £175m. That said, if some billionaire does want to buy a PL club, we are surely a very attractive prospect.

Worthy cause. Donated.

On their present points per game tally, the bottom three will finish the season on 31 points each. I think 32 or 33 will probably be enought to stay up.

To answer the OP's question, I think the answer would be "no". Isn't the broad estimate that being promoted from the Championship to the Premier League is worth about £100m+, even if you go straight back down? At a wild guess, it's worth maybe £10m to be in the Championship rather than League 1. So, it would be a fairly rational, sane business plan for a L1 club to spend £100m or more if they were confident this would catapult them to the top flight. If you had a sane manager and a fairly good infrastructure (and could access the cash), splashing £100m in this way would be a good move. Given the vast majority (all?) of posters on this forum have absolutely zero experience of running or managing a remotely credible football club, I doubt giving any of us an extra £50m to play with would be sufficient to execute such a plan.

Surprised Clyne dropped for Chambers. Maybe because the former couldn't cross a ball at all well v WBA?

Worrying news. Under Cortese, the performance on the pitch has just been sensational. And that's what counts, basically. Whether Saints have been "well run" is a bit more doubtful though tbh.

Wtf? We ARE way too good to go down. Even if we suddenly became utterly crap overnight, we probably only need 4 or 5 points from the remaining 17 games to avoid relegation. If we make good progress in the cup, I'd hope (expect?) us to potentially rest players from largely irrelevant league games. I fear that Cortese and Poch just don't rate cup competitions though.

So, what? Loan him out and recoup, say, £3K per week.

It's encouraging, but dull. To stay up - reasonably comfortably - in our first season back in the premier league was good, the next leap is to secure a top half finish. I'm still agnostic as to whether we will really ever have the resources to seriously aim for the top four. All that points to a need (and ability) to take the Cups more seriously.