Legod Third Coming

What a circular argument?!! Everton have a bigger stadium so their average can be bigger. MLG is right - in the Premiership we sold out nearly every game. Everton don't. We might have been able to sell more tickets but couldn't. They can but don't. Of course, this does not mean we WOULD have, but they simply don't. End of. (And before you ask, no I do not consider us as 'big' a club as Everton... yet...)

I don't need another business thanks - I barely have time to post on here running the two I've got!

Good point, never thought about it that way...

If you want a business opportunity, open a cafe or two - wine bar, sweet shop in that row of cracking looking but completely boarded up shops from the King Alfred back up whatever that street is called into town...! I know your market is 30,000 every fortnight only for the football season, but still, you must be able to make it pay...

It is, in fact, in a great location if they just build a fecking platform outside - how irritating is it to watch the stadium go sailing by as you approach by train!?!!! - and either introduced a new bridge or widened the existing one back onto Northam Road!

22,000 actually. My mate is 4800th!

They did go to Reading DD! Reading attracted wavering Southampton/Glory fans during their meteoric rise - fans who had previously travelled to and 'supported Southampton' because their local club wasn't big enough. Look at my local team, Walton and Hersham. Would I go and watch them? Rarely. If they rose to the Premiership would I? Yes (when not watching Saints), and even if the Championship or League One it would give me a good day out when we're not playing... Now, that is not to say we can regularly attract 50k fans. But we did twice. Wembley and Cardiff. Those were hard core and glory fans. What would you say the split is? 20k proper every weekers? 10-12k Premiership fans? And what 10k glory day-outers? So it's converting them isn't it. Which, given the above, you can only do by winning. But put it this way. Spin the clock back to my formative years. You're a young lad growing up in Petersfield. If you're going to support a local club now, who is it?

On the one hand there is a great example of how not to run a football club... On the other, there is the evidence of how simple these plans can be. 1. Find a good manager. 2. Give him the budget to buy and pay the best players available. It took Pompey from nowhere to Europe and a Cup. (They couldn't afford it, but that is not the point). Turkish seems to want revolution in football but we don't need it. The recipe is old and proven. It's never been changed. Chelsea - Mourinho plus cash equals win the league. United - Ferguson plus cash equals win the league. Citeh - Mancini plus cash equals win the league.... I could go on but I think you get the point... What HAS changed dramatically is one thing. The source of the money. And that is what a changing world (yes HTC and all) has done to football and will keep on doing, in ways we cannot predict or imagine.

And me.

Are they Smashy and Nicey by any chance...

I bought a Spurs subbutteo team and painted them in that blue strip. I know we're red and white stripes and all that, but that was/is my favourite kit of all time.

Hmm, worth reading this then... See link to Daily Mail further up - doesn't paste! By the way, when did Villa last produce a game changer like Chamberlain or Bale? And please don't quote me Gabby Agbonlognahore

No but when you couple it with other things that come out of the club, like "Aiming to match Barcelona is a big ambition but you need to strive for that to be successful,’ says Reed Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2060821/After-Walcott-Bale-Oxlade-Chamberlain-Southampton-aiming-create-new-golden-generation-England.html#ixzz1uU5V4Awo Then you know that things are not just set up to trundle along in mid-table...

"Would I pay a player £100,000 or even £200,000 a week? "Not if we were in the Premier League with a 32,000 capacity stadium. "But if we were in the Champions League and had re-developed the ground to 50,000 then I might consider it."

The difference DD is that many are dreamers and few have demonstrated such swift and decisive actions. Firing the first manager to win silverware in 35 years? Cancelling payment schemes, introducing £3 tax on tickets, bankrolling the most expensive squad in League One... He may fail but he doesn't like doing that. And he's no mug.

Listen to your Chairman! I am only reading what he is saying and judging on the guy's attitude to life. He is mercenary, driven, ambitious, intelligent - in short a WINNER. I know this is hard for Saints fans to omprehend. Tell me, what do you think his ambition is for this club?

No, you're being too simplistic. Look, think about how this club was bought and what your Chairman has told you. Nicola encouraged Markus to buy the club and together they were going to fulfil a dream (one I believe was Nicola's dream all along). So if he has an ambition to be a CL contender - which he has talked about openly (however fleetingly) - then he most likely has a plan of how this could be achieved, no? This is most likely to be that he sells the club (with him in situ) or encourages new investment from, say, China, or from the Liebherr family - the latter might have been likely if Markus was alive, but now, less so is my guess... You get it now?

Ok. Let's just stop being a bunch of w a nkers eh chaps?? 1. Not a single poster has talkd about challenging for 4th next year. This thread is about a FIVE year plan. 2. Most people, like me, who have said it is possible. Have said it is only possible with changes either to the way football is funded or to our funding. All the other guff about size and fans is a sideshow. Two days before Man Citeh were taken over by Mansour, their fans would be laughing about them winning the league inside three years... Our priority next year is to win as many games of football as possible. But if you think Nicola is telling Nigel his ambition is 17th, you're deluded, not me.

Have you been drinking? Apple are well set because they write the zeitgeist and deliver it. We play football. We could be the next Apple apart from we cannot change the core product, Apple can because they create it... Apple changed the world by revolutionising music and mobile communication. We can't change the football product so the rules are set for us. But the rules are pretty simple. 1. Employ the best football manager you can afford. 2. Give him as much money as you can afford. Imagine. Mourinho leading out Southampton to the CL Final in 2017... In fact, favourite this post as a little motivator and so I don't have to say 'told you so'...

No club can keep it's players. None! It doesn't mean they all leave. But they cannot be made to stay. Imagine a front line at United of Ronaldo, Rooney and Forlan...

No, we can be a CL club because NO ONE knows what the future holds. Apart from men like Jobs and Arthur C Clarke. And that's because THEY WROTE the future... This is football. Things will change but the core product won't.

Depends what salary is being offered and other factors. We kept Kelvin from going to West Ham, for example... I suspect this guy has been offered double his wages. To move from the Bigg Market to the King's Road - tough call! Not!

Hmm would be quite difficult to follow that model... "Mr customer. Here is a phone. It's primary function (you think) is to make calls but guess what... this phone is shyte for making calls. But it's great for surfing the net, watching youtube, has a million apps that do to tenths of diddly squat and some that are revolutionary. For example, Email your French friends in perfect French, find your nearest screening of the Avengers... and owning it will give you a feeling of self-worth and membership of a club the defines you as 'in touch'..." "Ok, but that first bit, it's shyte at making calls?" "Yes terrible. But it will change your life." "Go on then, I'm sold..." Imagine the equivalent in football....

Jees, I actually watched X File the Movie on Monday night *****il 2am - paying for it now). Are there bees involved?

Hey, everyone needs a break!