SaintBobby

When did Saints last fail to convert a penalty at St Mary's? Who fluffed it?

I think you need to declare a winner for the last round, Turkish.

Aye. Maybe I'm imagining things. Wouldn't be the first time...

Nah, he's 24 - nearly 25. Too old :-)

Wasn't Grobbelar also a former waiter? Or maybe a barman.

So, who won that then? Dowie/Bennett/Lambert Am I the first to get all three? :-)

Must be a fair few former waiters who have played for Saints?

That was Lambert..the otehr two, hmmm.....

was brighton I think, but Turkish got there first.

Do overall decent signings always leave a bitter taste? How bad does the taste get if we make an average or mediocre signing? Utterly mental.

Kanchelskis

I like our recruitment policy - but can't really explain why. Is the idea we keep these players for 8-10 years or that we always have players in the early to mid 20s?

Agree there's a big IF as to whether an expansion is a white elephant, but putting that big IF to one side, expanding because of business reasons makes sense. Sure, a sugar daddy and TV revenues are the big income streams, but that's not a reason to overlook ticket/merchandising/hospitality revenues. I mean it's not as if they don't give a damn what the ticket prices are...they do...they're trying to make money.... Similarly IF they could make additional cash, by expanding the stadium, building a hotel, having a monkey petting zoo or whatever, they'd do so!

If you have a rich benefactor, it's a capital outlay. You don't need to worry about the "immediate budget". It also doesn't have a "minimal long term effect on turnover". If (HUGE if!), you spend c£150m now as a capital outlay now for an extra c.£15m per annum, it neither "drains your immediate budget" nor is the long term effect "minimal"

Very true. But it's not an either/or situation

The club will expand the stadium, I think. But they aren't going to jump the chasm in two leaps. Basically, a small-ish expansion is very expensive (per extra seat) and a big expansion is only quite expensive (but much less so, per extra seat)

We're useless. We would have had more time to gel if we'd signed Lovren a week ago. I'm furious. And think i could run the club better myself. From a PC. In the Swiss Alps.

Are we spending our transfer budget too early. I mean, what's the hurry? :-)

Good point. This sort of comparison has never been discussed at all. Sigh.....

Probably. Sad face....

It's not bad at all at Saints. But, generally, it's very poor at customer service and acts rather arbitarily on occasions. 5* boutique hotels are basically the opposite of this (their actual product is pretty good, but their competitive advantage is staggeringly superb customer service...making a 8/10 product feel and look like an 11/10 product). So, no. The answer to the OP's question is "no". (Although that might be a good thing)

He's done very well on 8/10 things. Very well. Very poorly on the other 20%.

Aren't Arsenal in the same country as Saints? Maybe even the same division? Just asking.... Would you be against English teams buying feeder teams in, say, Tunisia or Indonesia?

It's a great idea. We could have even more hialrious "Skacel signs" threads. Win-win.

This. I have some annual leave to sue up so wouldn't mind taking in any pre-season games abroad. I've heard that the foreign part of the trip won#t be Switzerland, but will be somewhere nearby (possibly Austria?)