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Can Saints or West Ham manage to gate crash the top 4 at man Citys expense?

Saint IQ

By Saint IQ,
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The9

The9

Posted
Posted
What like this little sarcastic beauty on the 'Is Cortese's top 4 ambition achievable?' thread?

 

"We are almost there already. We already have arugably as many match going fans as Everton, we have Corteses ambition and investment and a champions league standard training ground not finished. We have champions league standard posters around the stadium and champions league standard season ticket DVD packaging. We have a mad scramble for tickets for every home game and as we can see from the recent non sell outs, it's already back to the stage where people dont think they'll get a ticket so dont even bother trying, it seems like Cheslea we too have magiced up 20,000 extra fans from somewhere, we just need the stadium expand to fit them all in now. With our huge catchment area which covers something like 3/4's of the globe now the only thing that remains is a Yank to sign and sit on the bench for a few months and Southampton will be truely global.So much off the pitch is already champions league ready as we can see. Couple this with the undeniable evidence that man certainly did climb Everest AND walk on the moon, despite people saying they wouldn't and some might say that not only is the champions league achievable, our unstoppable march to it is on the home straight."

 

You don't appear to have read it. It doesn't at any point say it's not achievable, it is clearly just taking the p155 out of people who thought we'd already done more than enough to be guaranteed it.

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L_O_Z

L_O_Z

Posted
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Out of curiosity at what point do we stop referring to ourselves as a top 10 club? If we finish 8th or above that will be 3 seasons in the top 8? How many seasons in the top 8 before we stop seeing ourselves as just a top half club.

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aintforever

aintforever

Posted
Posted
You don't appear to have read it. It doesn't at any point say it's not achievable, it is clearly just taking the p155 out of people who thought we'd already done more than enough to be guaranteed it.

 

Yeah that makes sense, we all thought were were guaranteed Champions League football in Jan 2013 just after we sacked Adkins.

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The9

The9

Posted
Posted
I remember people had a right pop a Cortese (on here) for apparently telling players the club were aiming for a CL spot.

 

People had a right pop after he'd gone for telling players that, without doing many of the things needed to support it - e.g. build the squad depth or get the investment needed from the person who actually paid the bills to keep up a challenge. No-one knew about any of that stuff at the time it was going on.

 

There's nothing wrong with ambition, but don't go around telling people they're going to get to the Champions League when if more than 2 of them are unavailable at one time we're digging into the U21s and Championship-level players.

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CB Fry

CB Fry

Posted
Posted
What like this little sarcastic beauty on the 'Is Cortese's top 4 ambition achievable?' thread?

 

"We are almost there already. We already have arugably as many match going fans as Everton, we have Corteses ambition and investment and a champions league standard training ground not finished. We have champions league standard posters around the stadium and champions league standard season ticket DVD packaging. We have a mad scramble for tickets for every home game and as we can see from the recent non sell outs, it's already back to the stage where people dont think they'll get a ticket so dont even bother trying, it seems like Cheslea we too have magiced up 20,000 extra fans from somewhere, we just need the stadium expand to fit them all in now. With our huge catchment area which covers something like 3/4's of the globe now the only thing that remains is a Yank to sign and sit on the bench for a few months and Southampton will be truely global.So much off the pitch is already champions league ready as we can see. Couple this with the undeniable evidence that man certainly did climb Everest AND walk on the moon, despite people saying they wouldn't and some might say that not only is the champions league achievable, our unstoppable march to it is on the home straight."

I'm not sure you ever read anything Turkish writes.

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ALWAYS_SFC

ALWAYS_SFC

Posted
Posted
based on the fact had we won 2 in 8 or something like that...that form would not continue till the end of the season...

 

we have enough tough games to lose and bound to have a surprise result against us

 

But surely by the same reasoning we could be surprise in the tough games.

We also have enough games to win

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CB Fry

CB Fry

Posted
Posted
we will, no doubt but this form in the last 6 games wont last all season. Much like the form we had the 6 before that, as you would say

If it does, we'll be unbeaten for 18 straight Premier League games, we'll finish on 72 points, probably finishing third and qualifying for the group stages of the Champions League.

 

Not really sure that suggesting we won't do that is particularly controversial but you gotta love this forum.

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The9

The9

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Posted
If it does, we'll be unbeaten for 18 straight Premier League games, we'll finish on 72 points, probably finishing third and qualifying for the group stages of the Champions League.

 

Not really sure that suggesting we won't do that is particularly controversial but you gotta love this forum.

 

Pretty much what I was saying - don't forget that all-time clean sheet record. :D

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Jonnyboy

Jonnyboy

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Posted
People had a right pop after he'd gone for telling players that, without doing many of the things needed to support it - e.g. build the squad depth or get the investment needed from the person who actually paid the bills to keep up a challenge. No-one knew about any of that stuff at the time it was going on.

 

There's nothing wrong with ambition, but don't go around telling people they're going to get to the Champions League when if more than 2 of them are unavailable at one time we're digging into the U21s and Championship-level players.

 

There's a difference between telling people Marcus was aiming for CL and telling people that's where we'd be certain to get.

 

As an aside I expect Leicesters chairman would've been ridiculed if he'd said the same last summer.

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The9

The9

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Posted
There's a difference between telling people Marcus was aiming for CL and telling people that's where we'd be certain to get.

 

As an aside I expect Leicesters chairman would've been ridiculed if he'd said the same last summer.

 

Markus had been dead for more than a year by then, this would have been Cortese selling the players on the club's imagined future success and in doing so sowing the seeds of them all leaving when the supposed foundation of it left, followed by the manager, (and then half the team). You only have to look at the Season Ticket video with the illustration of the updated ground to see the kind of baseless fantasy he was peddling to anyone who'd listen and wanted to believe.

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Jonnyboy

Jonnyboy

Posted
Posted
Markus had been dead for more than a year by then, this would have been Cortese selling the players on the club's imagined future success and in doing so sowing the seeds of them all leaving when the supposed foundation of it left, followed by the manager, (and then half the team). You only have to look at the Season Ticket video with the illustration of the updated ground to see the kind of baseless fantasy he was peddling to anyone who'd listen and wanted to believe.

 

And yet were still knocking on the door.

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Batman

Batman

Posted
Posted
Markus had been dead for more than a year by then, this would have been Cortese selling the players on the club's imagined future success and in doing so sowing the seeds of them all leaving when the supposed foundation of it left, followed by the manager, (and then half the team). You only have to look at the Season Ticket video with the illustration of the updated ground to see the kind of baseless fantasy he was peddling to anyone who'd listen and wanted to believe.

 

Yet here we are knocking on the CL door for the 2nd season running. Regardless of pictures of new grounds etc

 

We still have players and staff (just like when cortese was here) talking up champions league ambitions at least a handful of times a season

 

Maybe les and co should stop peddling this fantasy. Dunno though

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CB Fry

CB Fry

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Posted
Yet here we are knocking on the CL door for the 2nd season running. Regardless of pictures of new grounds etc

 

We still have players and staff (just like when cortese was here) talking up champions league ambitions at least a handful of times a season

 

Maybe les and co should stop peddling this fantasy. Dunno though

Les Reed doesn't peddle a fantasy. One just needs to listen to what he says every single time he talks about the subject. Every single time. Every single time.

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Batman

Batman

Posted
Posted
Les Reed doesn't peddle a fantasy. One just needs to listen to what he says every single time he talks about the subject. Every single time. Every single time.

 

Fonte and Ralph have said more than once this season alone that we are aiming for champions league football.

 

 

Pure fantasists

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The9

The9

Posted
Posted (edited)
And yet were still knocking on the door.

 

Not in 2013/14 we weren't. We came 8th, and were 8th for about 3 months before the end of the season. We were nowhere near the top 4 team Cortese claimed we were - and we definitely weren't there in 2012/13 when we finished bottom half either.

 

It took 2014's "meltdown", Koeman coming in and the re-investment of the money from selling the Cortese Cultists allied to a sensible recruitment policy to get us to the position where we're able to consider challenging the top 4. Last season showed what happens when your principles are sound, the infrastructure has good resilience built in, and it underpins everything you do. And even then we dropped off for a month near the end of the season almost inexplicably and ended up only 7th.

 

You've only got to look at Gaston and Osvaldo for how off-piste the former Chairman could go compared to our widely-known recruitment principles to see how his ego was never going to work with the communal goals which became established (ironically of course he did help put that infrastructure in place). The margins are too slim to go wasting money on two players who don't contribute much over a season.

 

As for "aiming for Champions League", well that's fine as a target now, when we've got players who can come in without an obvious drop off in ability, it wasn't viable under Cortese (or in the 6 months after he left) - but you always try and aim as high as you can possibly get, the difference is whether it's likely to be achievable.

Edited by The9
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Shance

Shance

Posted
Posted
Not in 2013/14 we weren't. We came 8th, and were 8th for about 3 months before the end of the season. We were nowhere near the top 4 team Cortese claimed we were - and we definitely weren't there in 2012/13 when we finished bottom half either.

 

It took 2014's "meltdown", Koeman coming in and the re-investment of the money from selling the Cortese Cultists allied to a sensible recruitment policy to get us to the position where we're able to consider challenging the top 4. Last season showed what happens when your principles are sound, the infrastructure has good resilience built in, and it underpins everything you do. And even then we dropped off for a month near the end of the season almost inexplicably and ended up only 7th.

 

You've only got to look at Gaston and Osvaldo for how off-piste the former Chairman could go compared to our widely-known recruitment principles to see how his ego was never going to work with the communal goals which became established (ironically of course he did help put that infrastructure in place). The margins are too slim to go wasting money on two players who don't contribute much over a season.

 

As for "aiming for Champions League", well that's fine as a target now, when we've got players who can come in without an obvious drop off in ability, it wasn't viable under Cortese (or in the 6 months after he left) - but you always try and aim as high as you can possibly get, the difference is whether it's likely to be achievable.

 

Spot on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* If I keep agreeing with you, will you sell me Fonte's yellow shirt? :lol:

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Dark Munster

Dark Munster

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Posted
Not in 2013/14 we weren't. We came 8th, and were 8th for about 3 months before the end of the season. We were nowhere near the top 4 team Cortese claimed we were - and we definitely weren't there in 2012/13 when we finished bottom half either.

 

It took 2014's "meltdown", Koeman coming in and the re-investment of the money from selling the Cortese Cultists allied to a sensible recruitment policy to get us to the position where we're able to consider challenging the top 4. Last season showed what happens when your principles are sound, the infrastructure has good resilience built in, and it underpins everything you do. And even then we dropped off for a month near the end of the season almost inexplicably and ended up only 7th.

 

You've only got to look at Gaston and Osvaldo for how off-piste the former Chairman could go compared to our widely-known recruitment principles to see how his ego was never going to work with the communal goals which became established (ironically of course he did help put that infrastructure in place). The margins are too slim to go wasting money on two players who don't contribute much over a season.

 

As for "aiming for Champions League", well that's fine as a target now, when we've got players who can come in without an obvious drop off in ability, it wasn't viable under Cortese (or in the 6 months after he left) - but you always try and aim as high as you can possibly get, the difference is whether it's likely to be achievable.

Kelvin_Davis_1883376a.jpg

West-Bromwich-Albion-v-Southampton--Premier-League.jpg

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The9

The9

Posted
Posted

Yeah, but it was still the number of shots they had to face due to not having both Wanyama and Schneiderlin available at the same time that was the problem as much as Forster being out.

 

The Hull game 11 April was the last time we fielded Schneiderlin and Wanyama together, Forster missed 2 wins home to Burnley and Hull and a defeat at Everton before that (if you count the game he was injured early in), which didn't impact on our form much.

 

After Schneiderlin's injury our best result by far was beating Villa 6-1 at home, and we drew home to Spurs 2-2, but we lost at Stoke 2-1, at Sunderland 2-1, at Leicester 2-0 and at Man City 2-0.

 

To be honest the only way to really check this is to look at number of shots faced for the keepers, and then shot percentage saved, but even so we've been down this road before and the difficulty of the shot faced is still the key factor which makes it very difficult to compare.

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Redslo

Redslo

Posted
Posted
Not in 2013/14 we weren't. We came 8th, and were 8th for about 3 months before the end of the season. We were nowhere near the top 4 team Cortese claimed we were - and we definitely weren't there in 2012/13 when we finished bottom half either.

 

It took 2014's "meltdown", Koeman coming in and the re-investment of the money from selling the Cortese Cultists allied to a sensible recruitment policy to get us to the position where we're able to consider challenging the top 4. Last season showed what happens when your principles are sound, the infrastructure has good resilience built in, and it underpins everything you do. And even then we dropped off for a month near the end of the season almost inexplicably and ended up only 7th.

 

You've only got to look at Gaston and Osvaldo for how off-piste the former Chairman could go compared to our widely-known recruitment principles to see how his ego was never going to work with the communal goals which became established (ironically of course he did help put that infrastructure in place). The margins are too slim to go wasting money on two players who don't contribute much over a season.

 

As for "aiming for Champions League", well that's fine as a target now, when we've got players who can come in without an obvious drop off in ability, it wasn't viable under Cortese (or in the 6 months after he left) - but you always try and aim as high as you can possibly get, the difference is whether it's likely to be achievable.

 

Generally, I agree, but the drop off wasn't inexplicable. We had lost our two most important players.

 

You could make an argument that there are only two significant differences between us last year and Leicester this year: they have someone who is playing like a top level striker (so far) and they have remained healthy (so far).

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The9

The9

Posted
Posted
Generally, I agree, but the drop off wasn't inexplicable. We had lost our two most important players.

 

You could make an argument that there are only two significant differences between us last year and Leicester this year: they have someone who is playing like a top level striker (so far) and they have remained healthy (so far).

 

Seems reasonable, we'll see if Leicester fall off a cliff like we did in April.

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The9

The9

Posted
Posted
They will if Vardy and Mahrez get injured and miss a month.

 

I think losing one of Drinkwater or Kante, plus Schmeichel would be a closer comparison. They are overdue some injuries to key players:

 

Schmeichel, Vardy and Wes Morgan have played every league match.

 

Huth missed one (they conceded two away to Everton but scored 3 with Wasilewski making his only start).

Albrighton has missed one.

Drinkwater has missed two League matches all season (outscored Everton and lost to Liverpool).

Mahrez was sub twice in October (inc away to Saints) and has started every League match other than that.

Simpson wasn't first choice at the start of the season but hadn't missed a match since his first start (they dropped De Laet and Schlupp after losing 5-2 to Arsenal).

Kante has played every League match since missing 4 of the first 5.

 

They have Inler, Dyer, Andy King and either Okazaki or Ulloa on the bench and pretty much nothing else. Three injuries or suspensions out of that lot and they're midtable fodder, which is what happens to most good teams which don't have a big squad.

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CB Fry

CB Fry

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I think losing one of Drinkwater or Kante, plus Schmeichel would be a closer comparison. They are overdue some injuries to key players:

 

Schmeichel, Vardy and Wes Morgan have played every league match.

 

Huth missed one (they conceded two away to Everton but scored 3 with Wasilewski making his only start).

Albrighton has missed one.

Drinkwater has missed two League matches all season (outscored Everton and lost to Liverpool).

Mahrez was sub twice in October (inc away to Saints) and has started every League match other than that.

Simpson wasn't first choice at the start of the season but hadn't missed a match since his first start (they dropped De Laet and Schlupp after losing 5-2 to Arsenal).

Kante has played every League match since missing 4 of the first 5.

 

They have Inler, Dyer, Andy King and either Okazaki or Ulloa on the bench and pretty much nothing else. Three injuries or suspensions out of that lot and they're midtable fodder, which is what happens to most good teams which don't have a big squad.

Pretty breathtaking good fortune for Leicester this season.

 

If we'd had that level of consistency in the first team last year, then we'd probably have been two places higher, if not better.

 

Leicester won't be quite that fortunate next season. Or ever.

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The Cat

The Cat

Posted
Posted
Kompany back. Were very good indeed against Kiev tonight.

Could well end up as Champions if they can play like tonight in the PL, and injured players come back.

 

Kiev haven't played competitively for a couple of months or so. I doubt City will have a game that easy in the Premier League unless they still have Villa to play.

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