shurlock

Not to mention once in the prem gaining more points and picking up more acclaim and recognition than any of those five seasons.

The scrappy underdogs who did it on a shoestring - if only we could be a bit more like them...

A string of gritty, midtable finishes - no wonder this place has a problem talking about ambition

Alas a blind slug has more perspective than our Small Fry.

This. Trumps all the other crap and conjecture that parade as fact on here.

Looks like some strip-mall Pentacostal church. Grotesque.

As I say, you'd have to look at every year and not just the final point scores but when teams were effectively safe (as midtable teams often take their foot of the pedal while one team at the bottom will have a run, making final positions look closer than they were). Just look at the teams in the prem, there was a time when teams like Villa, Newcastle, Man City (before their riches) and even Stoke, Sunderland, Wham would always be decent bets for a relatively leisurely midtable finish (of course, none of them could ever be safe). Nowadays with perhaps the exception of Newcastle (ignoring the top 7), every team seems like fair game. It'll be the same next season too.

I am pretty sure if you plot the distribution of points across teams over the last ten to fifteen years, you'll find that it's much more bimodal than in the past. Just from experience, I remember the days when there was a genuine middle and in late Feb/early March you wouldn't have to look beyond 15th or so place to know which clubs would ultimately be going down. Can't put my finger on a date or turning point without looking at the data but something definitely changed while we were out of the prem -and perhaps it was even changing just before that.

Do explain what midtable means because it sure as f**k doesn't mean what it used to. With the gap between haves and have nots widening, a team finishing 10 or so will probably have relegation fears at the back of its mind till the last few weeks of the season. And there are no guarantees that it won't be sucked into a relegation dogfight the following season. It's a slippery slope. If you want 'midtable' safety, you have to be aiming higher - much like we did last season and which now appears to be in doubt. The days of the comfortable middle -doing a plucky Fulham or Boro- are as illusory and naive as the champions league talk you mock.

Glad you think so -and hopefully you recognise that there are far more people that fall into this camp than there are CL fantasists, though it doesn't always appear so from your comments.

There was and still is scope to improve on a sustainable budget without splurging millions. Hopefully the new board will build on the good work that's been done to date. In the meantime, keep rolling out your own brand of empty rhethoric. Its just as inane and clueless.

The proposed Lambert transfer was a strategic choice, that is, where we were in the driving seat. £7-8m or whatever was offered for Rickie was certainly food for thought.

Edit

Shaw might; but he has time on his side and his choices will only expand as long as he is with us. Worse comes to worse, he moves the following season. With Poch around, there is very little downside and only upside. Could we keep Lallana if we brought in 3 players. Quite possibly, though it would be harder. What I do know is without ambition, all this is moot.

Its fundamentally different.

Lallana is at a key stage in his career - its now or never. We offer guaranteed first team football in a side with top 6 aspirations and the opportunity to learn without fear of failure. The alternative is to go down the Rodwell, Sinclair, even Oxo route and risk stagnation by missing out on regular football. The irony with Shaw is that Man U are not his preferred choice - they are attractive because they are currently weaker than Man City and Chelsea and can offer first-team football. Of course, if Shaw wanted to go his preferred team -Chelsea- it would be easier with Southampton than Man U.

No they can't. On our current (and sustainable) spending path, we have a chance to challenge the top 6 after which further progress gets very difficult. That gives us a window of maybe one, two seasons in which we can make a legitimate case to our top players that we're a better option than others. Crucially most of our players are young -Lallana is the key exception which lessens the urgency of a move. Even the Man U fans I speak to can see the benefits for Shaw to hang around a little longer- good football, a familiar environment without fear of failure, international recognition. He's arguably got a better chance of a move to Chelsea with us. Nobody has said things will last forever, a subtlety lost on many; but getting the most out of our players would put us in a competitively and financially stronger position to kick on again. Contrast that with the current situation where there is uncertainty not only about our ambitions but also bread and butter issues like contracts of squad players.

A rather simplistic view. Yes it wasn't a very appropriate comment but the extent of the damage depends on the motivation behind it. If it's true and we're in financial difficulties, then revealing any kind of weakness is a huge error. If it was just a PR stunt or a misunderstanding which is the consensus on here, it will have negligible impact - clubs can try their luck all they and we can simply tell them to f**k off. They'll soon wise up.

Cork and Fonte's contracts really are the lowest of the low hanging fruit, whatever our ambitions are.

Precisely. The admission that we might only be able to keep some players for another couple of seasons is telling. The plan was never to keep players forever but to ensure they contributed as much as possible, sell them and then kick on again, hopefully from a stronger position. Incremental progress. There's no reason why several of our players, especially the younger ones, can't make progress with us for another season or two before parting ways. It's not unrealistic - just needs to be forcefully articulated.

Surely there's more than that. We were told how Cortese was going to throw the PR kitchen sink - how it was going to be more stage-managed than an Olympics opening ceremony at the height of the Cold War. Fortunately the mongboard voices of reason were all too wise to Nicky's dastardly tricks. Boo hoo to the mentalists who 'don't care' but really, really do care.

What a load of guff. You omitted the most important part.

The one that can be seen (in black)? Also looks a bit like Miguel D'Agostino.

Albrighton is going to Leicester I thought?