Rasiak-9-

He actually doesn't have to be that breathtakingly brilliant to add a fairly significant string to our bow; a left-footed left-winger.

Lets not go nuts. Any player can get overlapped (which is basically all it was). Liverpool's fault for the goal was the lack of cover which left him two-on-one.

Lets not go nuts. Any player can get overlapped (which is basically all it was). Liverpool's fault for the goal was the lack of cover which left him two-on-one.

Agreed. Lone striker in an away game with your team having ~40% odd possession is very difficult. Jury still out.

Agreed. Lone striker in an away game with your team having ~40% odd possession is very difficult. Jury still out.

Ha! Thanks...I suppose its a cynical way of looking at it but I've got no clue precisely how anything is going to change. I suppose all you can do is take the friends, companionship and connections you get from going to the football and thoroughly enjoy it whilst ignoring all else. For me the main thing will always be getting lashed with my mates and having a laugh on a Saturday. If Saints can keep their heads above water there'll always be moments and memories to cherish. Just a shame that there's not really any sort of competitive sport. I can't for the life of me see how last season isn't as good as it gets

Job: Newsletter Editor Industry: Publishing/Business Intelligence Approx Annual salary before tax without bonus: £17,000 p/a Typical bonus: £0 Approx take home after tax: ~£1200 p/m Approximate location: London, Old Street Years of working experience directly relevant to your job: Been there about 6 months now. Level of education: Graduated from Southampton University with a 2:1 in Philosophy. BBC at A-Levels and 10 GCSEs all A-B. Additional job perks e.g. company car/shares: Nothing Typical hours worked per week: 9-5.30. Hour lunch, two 15 minute breaks Living at home with parents. Soon to hit 24. Sucks but hey, that's our generation.

Thanks buddy, and yeah I can't help but feel cynical about the whole thing. Half the time I just want Man City to dominate the league so that the rest of them feel the same way we do! Re. Spurs/Everton I think part of it is plain old denial. Football fans tend to be internalised optimists insofar as they haven't ruled out the idea that they could crash the top four and actually permanently displace Arsenal or Liverpool, when if they were able to do so they'd simply lose the players responsible for getting there whilst the clubs below them would strengthen, meaning that (as happened with both), if they do somehow make it they just drop straight back out again and its nothing more than a flash in the pan.

Hey Ladies and gents, little blog of mine if you're interested. I've not really been blogging in ages but thought I ought to try and get back into it. Hopefully it strikes a bit of a chord and makes for an entertaining read at least. I'm an opinionated jizzbag but hey? aren't we all to some extent! Enjoy! Beyond the Southampton Fire-sale, Football's Brave New World "Much like the corporate culture that we must all resign ourselves to reluctantly contributing to (if indeed we're partial to food and shelter), the structural corruption that has ingrained itself within modern football has become impossible to either extract, withdraw from or rebel against without active self-harm, no matter how many other disaffected fans feel the same way. What makes the almost universal grunt of discontent that 'there's too much money in the game' so striking however, is not merely the unanimity of the complaint, but the fact that unlike vague, disjointed political movements often united only by a common enemy, an overall consensus on the practical policies that it would take to solve the inequality, injustice and lack of mobility in football is actually, fairly well-established. Don't get too excited though. The introduction of a salary cap, even spread of television money in La Liga, a Champions League spot for the FA Cup winners in England, a carrot-and-stick approach to rewarding academies for developing home-grown talent, and finally, a total reform of the game's governing bodies from the FA to FIFA, are impossible to implement because, just as in the world of banal consumerism we inhabit, the institutions with the greatest influence both feed, and are fed by, the very people they repeatedly exploit. Football; like music, art and every other expression of culture and community in a globalised society, has been successfully commodified as a bland, stale entertainment product; and quite simply, it does not suit the owners of such a profitable commodity to have things any other way. This is it. Football's Brave New World..."

When did you take these buddy?

Both good ones. (insofar as I agree/have agreed with both but know they're unpopular)

Seems like a fairly staple timekiller from many other forums so here goes, I'll get us started... Alpine is not a troll or an intentional attention seeker and genuinely does want the best for the club, he's just insanely pessimistic.

Daily Mail, double-page feature article, Sunday November 30th. "WHERE HAS IT GONE WRONG FOR SOUTHAMPTON'S OLD STARS?"

Who knows? If we had sung his name more often perhaps we could have convinced him that he was loved here and convinced him to stay. But y'know. The old-timers couldn't be arsed and so now we're blaming him for a lack of loyalty when we ourselves have shown no concerted appreciation for his services.

This is the trouble; far too many people on here are taking a completely child-like view on the issue. Personifying the bigger clubs as the bullies on the school playground who've threatened to steal our marbles, and that all we need to do to repel them is to ball up our fists and shout "no!". We you actually look at the facts of the matter and the causal chain that I've described in the first post; coupled with the hard facts that 1) your average Premiership footballer nowadays does not feel the same way about your club 2) he really serves the same role as just a well-paid employee of a company 3) He's being offered more money for more fame and a better lifestyle. You realise the utter, utter hopelessness not just of our situation but of any other club you could put in our position outside the top cartel.

Twaddle. Lescott, Rodwell, Fellaini... If someone actually came in for Baines they'd have sold him too. If, and when one of the big boys makes serious bid for Barkley he'll go as well. Besides which, Everton are a bigger club than us and its delusional to think otherwise. They do occupy a fairly anomalous position in their 'station' of 7th but that doesn't mean that they aren't at the mercy of their 'superiors' in the hierarchy that football has become.

Really? Put the case that our players, manager, results and final league position last year were instead, those of either Hull, Stoke, West Ham or Sunderland and tell me precisely what they'd have been able to do in our position? Following on from that scenario; put YOURSELF in the shoes of one of the players who are leaving, except that you play for one of the above (I'm presuming none of us could really care less about Sunderland or Hull for example). A more famous club, offering Champions League football comes in and makes you an offer to play for their first XI and on top of that, double your wages. Tell me you'd honestly turn that down if you played for Hull, who had just finished 8th and who had just lost the chairman and manager who gave any sliver of hope to the audacious and unrealistic hope of building a Champions League-level club from a mid-table (at best) starting position, in this day and age of football. Now I realise that many of you who agree with Baird's point of view will do everything you can to find a quick one-liner to avoid the question, or perhaps paint the hypothetical scenario I've thrown up as somehow illegitimate, or maybe even ignore it altogether and try and derail the thread. Rest assured, any of the above will be seen by those of sound mind as little more than a stomp, a pout and a sulk that lets face it, of course our stupid board can't do anything. The problem is with the state of the game as a whole and if its any consolation, I don't think its impossible that fans will look back on the dismantling of our Southampton team as a point which marked the beginning of the end of English football being any realistic sort of competition. The problem is with the state of money in football and its certainly not unique to us. Could have happened to anyone. Give yourself a break and try not to panic; its not enjoyable but there's no point desperately looking for someone to blame (P.S Sorry to pick on you Baird but I'm just using your post as an example of the general consensus I'm arguing against)

What do you expect him to do? He's just got offered more money to play for a bigger club whilst the club he was previously playing for was in the process of a fire sale. All of the above are stone cold facts. Move the **** on ffs. You're embarrassing.

1) Define "Controlled fashion". Our players are going for an absolute fortune and you'd be complaining no matter how it was they were sold. 2) They have to keep their cards close to their chest. Communication with the fans is communication with the entire football world 3) See above. 4) Would you have preferred they came out and told the world we were happy to sell them all? At least this way we were able to get a lot of £ for them.

Lovren is simply a better player than we are a club. No arguments; he'll go right to the very top (and quite probably beyond even Liverpool's level). Shake hands and move on. Its illogical to start a bank run. Its completely logical to join one.

Thats a straw-man argument grandad. No-one ever said we're doomed if we don't win the league. I'm saying that we're most certainly doomed if we don't maintain at least a level of aspiration that inspires a degree of support from a generation of kids that really, really, really don't give a flying **** about where they're from; and for whom a feeling of loyalty develops after having begun going to see Saints after an initial attraction to the club because of the football we play (rather than supporting your local team by default and having a group of mates who go regularly because it only costs you a morning's paper-round wages. But if you look at the fanbases of Leeds, Forest, Sheff Wednesday etc. (which have genuinely taken serious damage after years of mediocrity) or perhaps those of Wigan (who played attractive football and had many backs-to-the-wall relegation scraps; yet never managed to expand their fanbase over a decade of Premiership football) and then think that we could sustain that because we're super-duper Saints, you're the one who thinks we're somehow special. You're seeing more and more Saints shirts around Southampton precisely because people bought into the dream Cortese plugged coupled with the fact that we achieved back-to-back promotions, played attractive football and (like Swansea before us) were the next big thing. The idea that we're going to have a steady stream of pseudo-hooligans (wearing designer clobber of course!) perfectly treading the tightrope between hooliganism and being 'loud-n-proud', making a half-decent racket supporting Saints week-in-week-out if we don't at least maintain a bit of identity (which for a club of our size, needs Premiership football and an aspiration of winning something) is truly delusional. Footballs changed. The identity of the club in the present, and preserving the memory of the club in the past, requires some success/aspiration.

Odd? Its like the most mainstream viewpoint ever among the young men of today. Look at the attendances for Leeds/Sheff Wednesday/Forest etc. Clubs who've taken genuine 'damage' to the fanbase which they'll struggle to ever recover from. The old timers who've grown up seeing Saints 'have their moments' winning a trophy and occasionally competing in the top half of the table (as well as scrapping around at the bottom or boxing above their weight from a 15k stadium) is going and slowly being replaced by a bunch of teenagers for whom football is a paid entertainment product. Who identify as supporting "Southampton and Arsenal" and "Man United and sometimes go watch Saints" etc.etc.

Dellhurst park. Aged 8. Perfect baptism. Pretty much born into it via my father, standard stuff. Got more and more into it following us in the lower leagues throughout my teenage when I started going with mates. Thoroughly enjoy it and couldn't imagine anything different. ...but this is the thing Turkish, thats just me, and myself and my Saints supporting mates ARE outnumbered very heavily. More and more you look at every piece of modern football media from GiveMeSport, Bleacher Report, The Sport Bible, Football365 etc.etc. (and we haven't even got to the mainstream Beeb/Sky/BT triopoly) and they're all doing everything they can to preserve and strengthen the cartel at the top of the leagues. I'll always be proud of Saints and the club we are, but in a footballing world where the idea of supporting your local team is becoming less and less 'noble' (as well as less and less exciting if the chance to break into even the top six out of reach/winning a trophy is only a possibility because the big clubs don't care about them) you're going to find that we gradually lose fans, let alone maintain our gates. Especially as, with the money involved, fans aren't needed any longer.

A crowd getting older and older and older, with gates dwindling and dwindling and dwindling.

Yes, yes, yes we get that its true, but assuming you're right; why convince any young children to follow Saints? Why should we continue paying our hefty Season Ticket prices to watch a club for which immobility is the best we can hope for? Where's the fun in it? Why not just go with the flow and get an armchair and a Sky subscription? You might have memories and nostalgia for the 'good old days' to fall back on but there's an increasingly large number of Saints supporters who don't. Its one thing accepting it, its another thing learning to enjoy it.