Legod Third Coming

No, but what Cortese talked about will require that sort of spending, so don't get carried away. He talked about paying people £200k and having crowds of 50k being in the Champion's League. I don't think he was talking about being knocked out in a qualifying game by Bucharest or Bahsle... Listen, I have NOTHING against ambition. Not one thing. But you also have to be sensible and measured in your assessment of where we are as a club and where we might be.

Didn't they actually end up in the UEFA cup?? Sure, we could come fifth. In a shocking season we might come fourth... What I think, though, that you're missing is how much those clubs are spending on players and their wage bills. The team who most people thought would come fourth in the PL this year spent £35m on a striker who doesn't get in the side. The question I'm asking is, will SFC ever be that club?? Can you ever see us spending that sort of money in the short-medium term?? We might be owned by a billionnaire family but have you seen that kind of spending being signalled?? And bear in mind that a team we haven't even talked about is owned by the world's richest man!!

The reading age of the FT is 12 - and that, as they say, is a fact.

And which, despite my love of marquee players, is actually probably the way football will have to move if the current financial turmoil results in a reduction in global debt. If it doesn't and debt continues to proliferate, we will never be able to challenge the three big clubs in this country. I have watched more premiership football this year (subconsciously I think becuase we're top of the league) and apart from the three big teams, the rest are a variety of inconsistent mediocrity. Sometimes good, sometimes terrible. If we can be promoted and can be consistently good, while the Champion's League might be beyond us there is no doubt mid-table, possible UEFA cup and a domestic trophy are well within our grasp.

I agree I do find it incredible that a bloke who encouraged a billionnaire to buy us and which has directly resulted in us being top of the Championship is not given more credit.

Really? Southampton have the resources to oust: United, Chelsea, Citeh, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs from those top four spots?? Look at the money actually spent by those clubs. If we spend that sort of money, we might have a chance. If it happens in my lifetime, I will be genuinely amazed. But I won't be handing over much of my hard earned cash to Ladbrokes this afternoon on the likelihood...

On those who say that LM and MLT (especially the latter) should accept that they're no more entitled to freebies than the next man, I think the next time you question a player's or manager's loyalty, you should take a long hard look in the mirror...

I don't either like or dislike Cortese and anyone who thinks this was some sort of random interview obviously came up the Clyde on a bike.... But then I despair of two thirds of this country not understanding how the media works... What I do think is that there is a lot of hypocricy on this forum. If Rupert Lowe had given this interview and expressed these views, people would have slated him. I for one, thought Lowe was totally bonkers when he suggested (on the resignation of WGS) that he wanted a manager who could come to places like Old Trafford and win... What's the difference between that and an ambition to be in the Champions' League???? Conversely, I love ambition and am a great believer in aiming for the top. Man's failure is not to set his targets too high and fail to reach them, but to set them too low and achieve them... But I mainly agree with those who say there's no need to hear from a Chairman. Football is a game best talked about by fans and managers. We could be quietly ambitious, go about our business with dignity, professionalism and ruthlessness if we really must. I admire Cortese and I'm glad he's at our club, but these media soundbites are just that and they are as bad for any club as they are good. If he wants to talk ambition with the fans, we have a programme for that.

Post of the day.

Really, how many Sunday league games have a fourth official and all in touch via microphone and headphones? I find this idea that a game played in a park for fun and the same game played for international recognition and billions of pounds should be the same a bit bizarre, if I'm honest. Does Formula One make someone racing a second-hand go-kart somehow less fun or less of a sport?? I must admit I am at the opposite end of the spectrum. Such is the technology these days that you can bring much greater clarity to every sport. I haven't seen a single person desert tennis, rugby or cricket because of their use of technology. And anyone who says they have ruined the sport as a spectacle is kidding themselves. The Out/Not Out decisions have added a fantastic extra dimension to cricket and one of my best memories of rugby is standing in the South Stand and waiting for a try to be given or not in the 78th minute against the Aussies. The roar when that try was given was twice the roar when the ball was grounded or not... If technology can lead to a more accurate result more of the time, the only argument against can be one of tradition. I love tradition - truly - but traditionally people died from common colds, so you have to ask first what is the benefit of the tradition??

Leeds are shyte.

Has this bloke mugged a fan or something?

Nice article. I always clap an ex player when they come back, unless they were a complete tool. And he wasn't. The pantomime booing I think people should just chill out over. Shane Warne and KP give each other ludicrous verbals on the pitch. It doesn't stop them being best men for one another. Anyone who doesn't think football is a pantomime has clearly been away from the game for some time...

King Kenny will be there for a few years yet. Long enough for us to be above them in the table

Thank God - for a moment reading all the other garbage on this thread I thought I had crashed last night and been in a coma until right now... Last night was too easy for us, that was the only issue and we must guard against complacency. It felt like a training game because no-one sung a bloody song all night - Northam where were you? At home watching Location Location...? Reeves looks a right gem - had quiet spells of course, he is only 12 for feck's sake!! Jos the Boss looked the part. Swept up well and had the confidence to run half the field and have a crack. Absolutely good enough for the Championship. Look, some of you miserable bankers need to wake up and appreciate that this was our reserve team (youth and 3rd reserve in some cases) handing out a footballing lesson. I have watched some right old b o ll o x football over the past 30 years. Last night we played some great football and only lacked an end product because most of the guys last kicked a ball in anger a month ago!! If this is a bad as it gets, give me 30 more years of this and not watching committed cloggers create an occasional upset. The bottom third of the Premiership would struggle to defend against us right now. We have so much confidence on the ball. I love it.

What's more impressive than any stats is that there is still ample room for improvement! We still go to sleep at times and our closing down of opposition players is sometimes lazy (resulting in two goals for Forest, for example). So the great news is we're good, but not as good we could be. And that's not negative before people complain, that's called always striving for excellence!

I have on better authority that he's thinking of Ormerod too...

No, since most likely he was a Jewish fundamentalist!

Is it not what the Chairman aspires to?? I thought that's where this thing started so we were trying to find evidence that it's feasible for a club of our size. Only we have now established that our only hope (to emulate Porto) is impossible thanks to your assessment...

I've been to Barcelona, Munich, Milan, Liverpool and Manchester and none of them are close to Southampton, so which Champions' League club should we compare ourselves to??!!!

I would strongly advise against this, since on that basis Wiki also believes Portsmouth and Southampton constitute ONE metropolitan area... Which makes Pompey our 'Everton' by your reckoning...

Was that after you found her waiting for you with a cold beer, dressed in a police uniform with feather handcuffs, 6 inch heels and a pair of Swedish twins smotherd in honey... oh, you were dreaming...

Then if it doesn't happen and you have jinxed it, I blame you for costing me a couple of grand!!!

I always refuse to sing this line. It is utterly farcical. Better than Brazil of 1970 with Pele and Jarzinho for example? Better than Cruyff's Holland? Better than the Busby Babes? Better than the current Barca? It's a ludicrous suggestion and one which I simply will not sing.

And Southampton has 234,600 This makes Porto de facto the closest club to SFC in size anywhere in the world. FACT