Wes Tender

Read what I had already written to Batman. It is written plainly enough and should be easy enough for even you to comprehend.

The thread is a hypothetical debate, so yes, it can only be concluded when either the season has finished, or it is mathematically impossible to catch Man City. In the meantime, for the benefit of the thread, a little bit of conjecture is permissable.

How on earth did you get the impression that I was not impressed with what the players and managers have achieved so far this season? Don't bother to explain, as I doubt anybody is interested.

I don't wish to get too premature on how we might fare in the CL if we are to make it this season, but I really don't see why we would be "slaughtered" by most teams. The league comprises the very best teams from each country's top flight, as well as some teams not as illustrious and also teams from lesser footballing power countries. We recently drew with Chelski and have fared pretty well against a couple of CL teams pre-season, indicating that on the day we should be able to give a good account of ourselves against most teams. OK, the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich are naturally a cut above most, but even Celtic beat Barcelona a couple of years ago (thanks to Wanyama). Would our defence be less effective than when they face the stars of the PL, who are generally as good as their counterparts in Europe?

As I suspect that you were indeed one of those who were adamant that it would be nigh on impossible for us to break into the top four without massive expenditure, it starts to look as if that was not necessarily the case after all. Now you are starting to place other caveats to the onward journey should we qualify and already indicating that the agenda for discussion will be along guidelines set by you. So we won't be paying £100 grand a week wages to players, but then again, we still appear to have a team of players being paid substantially less than that now, and yet still mixing it with the big boys. It just goes to show what many believe to be true, that you can have the most expensive individual players, who might not be better as a whole than a cheaper team of competent players who play well together as a team. And as I said, a really good manager could make a substantial difference.

Yes, of course they will try to buy our star players. But if we achieved CL status, several things would have changed. There would be less reason for players to leave, although higher wages and the glory name are still significant factors. But then again, a team squad can only comprise so many players and there remain top quality players elsewhere as well as those we have. On the other hand, our position would enable us to be far more attractive as a destination for players coming in to the club and our revenue would increase massively from European CL qualification. We will have proved to the likes of those players who left us last summer that not only are first team opportunities not guaranteed, but that they might have had as much chance of playing CL football had they remained here. And it also will be clear to those glory clubs that just perhaps it might be the case that a player of ours looks like the real thing only because of the players around him who make him look good. But I return to the point that many sage posters assured us that it would be impossible to achieve CL football without the expenditure on players of a couple of hundred million. Weren't you one of them, come to think of it?

Your post makes little sense logically at all. Our potential to finish in the top four relies not only on us picking up points from the main contenders for a top four place, but also on them taking points off each other. Beyond that, it is inevitable that there will be the odd upset caused by a lower down team beating one of the top teams. Arsenal have dropped two points against the likes of Leicester, Everton and Hull and lost to Swansea and Stoke. United have dropped two points against Sunderland, Burnley, West Brom, Spurs and Stoke and lost against Swansea and Leicester. Unless the likes of those two turn draws into wins and eradicate losses to the lower teams, then their places are threatened by us if we carry on in the same vein of form that we have shown so far. As The9 points out, it wasn't long ago that people were estimating that it would require expenditure of a couple of hundred million on players to have a team of enough quality to break through the glass ceiling into the exclusive preserve of the top four clubs. The general consensus was that beyond the top four, there were also other clubs against whom we couldn't possibly compete, so we could with luck be the best of the rest after Chelsea, City, United, Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and perhaps Everton. It is time to consider how much is down to the players and how much added value comes from having a really good manager, one who not only has great tactical nous, but is also able to get the most out of his players from increasing their self-belief and confidence as well as improving their ability. Maybe Koeman gives us an edge, much as Ferguson didn't have to have the most expensive players to be the most successful manager ever.

Interesting that if City are close enough to Chelsea on the final day, City at the very start of the season would have looked at their last game here as a banker for the three points. After all, Saints were favourites with most of the pundits to be struggling against relegation. Now increasingly they must be seeing it as a potential loss and hope that they have stitched up first place before the match.

See the thread earlier today....

Who cares what some sports journo in Toronto thinks about us? He's writing on behalf of loads of ex-pat plastics and plastics who even have no connection with this country at all. Like all sports journos everywhere, he is just pandering to what he feels is the majority readership of his rag. Like others, we can take the view that whatever they want to write about, or however much they ignore us, it doesn't alter our league position, which is currently above their beloved Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Spurs, Everton, etc. This doesn't stop any of us having a nice warm glow about what we have achieved and where we are currently, which is generally way above where most of even our most avid fans expected us to be. And long may it continue. Match by match, we are gradually starting to turn heads and get people to sit up and take notice of us. If we maintain this form to the end of the season and achieve a top four finish and there are some bone-headed journos who failed to notice our rise from left-field by then, more fool them. We can all laugh at their blinkered incompetence.

I love this guys passion and he clearly knows his stuff. However, just as the argument on here goes that if the handball Fonte "got away with" had gone against us from a team we were playing, we would be livid, methinks he doth protest too much. All very well to analyse it with the benefit of slow motion-replays and decide on the basis of the position of the arm, but it is that technology which actually gives the false outcome. The referee has to make a snap judgment based on his perception of what he say in real time. Graham Poll writes in the Mail that the failure to award a penalty was a travesty and he shows a picture of Fonte's arm raised to prove his point. But the photo also clearly shows that the ball hit Fonte on the chin and that he was positioned pretty close to the player when the ball was struck. What a photo or a slow-mo replay doesn't show, is the speed and weight of the shot in real time. That shows that the shot was hit with real venom, was headed towards Fonte's face and that it would be the most natural reaction in the world for him to have put his arm up to protect himself. I would love to see the Geordie fan or Poll have a ball kicked towards their face whilst they try and stand with their arms down by their sides.

Why can't they show the Cup match where we beat the Spuds 4-0? Oh yeah, the media wouldn't want to annoy their plastics. Well, here it is Some good memories there. Niemi scintillating. Beattie on fire. Killer and Anders. On the way to Wembley, beating Judas and helping get him the sack. Putting five goals past Dean Richards (RIP)

Is one of your wives cheating on one of you?

Surely that was a nightmare

Funny isn't it that anybody who makes reasonable points as to why it might be a bit strange for this to have been a done deal several months before the probable sale date and who points out that it could be more advantageous for Schneiderlin to wait and see whether Arsenal could offer CL, or indeed whether Saints might make more by selling him elsewhere, is labelled an oddball. Or is it that anybody who disagrees with you must be an oddball, regardless? But you obviously have a point because all of the journos who have picked up the story and ran with it also have their reputations to uphold too, so they must be confident that the mystery footballer's ITK credentials are worth backing. After all, they hardly ever get anything wrong about our club, it was being asset-stripped, firesale of players, owner wanting to sell, etc. etc.

Exactly. He is amongst the most in demand players by the wealthiest clubs. Unless we have promised Schneiderlin that he could go to Arsenal for that fee in return for him staying with us until the summer, I can't see us agreeing a fee now, when we have the whip-hand in negotiations and could squeeze another £5+ million from a deal

To which the response is "Yes, I'm an individual with a mind of my own, rather than a sheep"

I get weary, And sick of trying I'm tired of living, But scared of dying, That old Southampton, They just keep rolling along.

Funnily enough, I wasn't that convinced that we would ever go under completely, because we were too much a saleable commodity because of our assets and infrastructure. I just hoped that we would get decent owners instead of the sort of charlatans that were attracted to the skates like flies to sh*t. Let's list all the happenings from the admin to the current time when the sensible position was always to wait and see what happened despite a seemingly bad development. Administration The sad passing of Markus Liebherr Sacking of Pardew Sacking of Adkins Departure of Cortese Departure of Pochettino Sale of Lambert, Lallana, Shaw, Lovren, Chambers In each case, the wailing and gnashing of teeth resulted in a much better situation afterwards, but the most significant development that set the train of events in progress was the arrival of the Liebherr family as our owners. We are incredibly lucky.

Fair enough to have been concerned, just as we all were when the club went into administration. But as then, the sensible position was always to wait and see what happened next before passing judgement based on rumours and innuendo and accepting them as the truth.

Well, apart from the mass hysteria from some, I counted one reference to Katharina as a cow and another accusation that the board were liars and I hope that those posters in particular feel a bit sheepish following how it has all turned out. Thankfully though, Saint Richmond has had the decency to pipe down considerably since then, as he came across as the biggest idiot knee-jerker.

Ah, plastics. The lowest of the low. I should have realised that they probably weren't real scousers when you said that they were working. In return for them bigging up their glory team at our expense last summer, I presume that you now thank them profusely for over-paying us considerably, whilst at the same time weakening their team and allowing us to strengthen ours with the proceeds?

I had heard rumours that not all scousers were idle scroungers and that some of them worked for a living and here is confirmation of that. Is this just summer employment, or do they work all the year round?

With the benefit of hindsight in future the people on here, the neutrals and the media who got it so spectacularly wrong, will not be so hasty to ignore assurances from the people running the club that the owner not only wished to continue her ownership, but that the players who departed for vastly over-inflated fees would be replaced with others at least as good as them. If this last Summer's events are repeated, then the thickos will forecast an asset-strip, while those who learn the lessons of the past will assume that the club know exactly what they are doing and had already identified more than capable replacements either from outside or inside the club.

Much as it turned out to so crass, you're not going to tell us what a cracking gag it was without telling us it, are you?