How long has it been?

[S-Clarke]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

Good read that. Of course the main difference between us and them is they've had a period of great success, winning the league champions league football, whereas we have a history of heroic failure even in our glory periods. Much as we hate Pompey and how they go on about their trophies like they're Real Madrid in their golden eras they've won stuff too. Does any one of their fans really care that their 2008 FA Cup win was by signing players they couldnt afford? We've always been happy just to exist in the Premier League or Old First division, aside from that late 70s and early 80s period under Lawrie. The games gone, been ruined by money and greed, but even before that we've always been a massively underachieving club for a club of our size but the owners always seemed happy with that and thats not just SR it's been everyone who's ever owned us. People will bang on about Corteses ambition but even then the stated aim of the owners were for us to become a self sustaining Premier league club. SR are just the latest incarnation of this, player trading club is just another way of labelling what we've always done, survive and sell anyone half decent to the biggest offer. 

That's the frustrating thing for me, in the 'modern times' we genuinely had a once in a generation 'purple patch' during 2010-2016 where we were in a bit of a successful bubble, good players, good managers, good team, European football - it all lined up. But we have nothing to show for it. Not even League Titles in L1 or the Championship FFS.

Blackburn had the league, Leicester had the league and FA Cup wins, Skates had the FA Cup, Swansea had the league cup, so did Bolton, Palace got an FA Cup, Birmingham won a league cup, Newcastle won a league cup etc etc.

It's just so infuriating why we couldn't. We had better teams during that period than a lot of the above as well, but this is how we role isn't it. The perennial also-ran, outsider, continuing to celebrate, and profit, off of a cup win from 50 years ago rather than striving or trying to do it again.

'Happy to just exist' sums us up so well. Martin Semmens somewhat hammered that into the fans when he started saying we should be grateful to be in the Premier League - and as soon as that chat starts, standards slip, ambition drains and mediocrity reigns.

Edited 17 hours ago by S-Clarke

[saintant]

2 hours ago, Tom & Gerry said:

Let 's face it us fans are never truly happy.  In the short term we are happy when we win and not when we lose, but even the best managers suffer heavy and embarrassing defeats, there is always at least one player in the team that if he wasn't there we'd be so much better, and no one is happy in July when the squad is looking threadbare and we haven't signed the players yet for a successful season.  When I started watching Saints a very long time ago my dream as a fan was to see them play in the 1st Division and my dream of dreams was to see them lift the FA cup. In 1966 and 1976 we achieved those dreams so I guess that was when I was happiest and everything since then has been a bonus. I think where Saints were when you started watching has a bearing on how content or not you are. I started watching in Division 3 (South) so I see the team as predominantly a bottom half Premier league / top half of the Championship club. I'm reasonably content between those parameters and happier or sadder either side of them. Let's hope the present situation is just a blip in  an ever fluctuating picture.

I agree with a lot of what you say especially about us being predominantly a bottom half Premier league/top half Championship club. Unlike you I am not reasonably content because SR, the coaches and players rarely give us reasons to feel hopeful and proud about the football club we support. Since SR took over they have presided over a complete mess and show no signs that they are capable of learning lessons or getting their overinflated egos out of the way and allowing someone into the club to run things who has the benefit of a wealth of genuine football knowledge. I am rapidly losing any affinity to the club because, along with everyone else, I've been worn down by these clowns running my club. Time they were gone but I'm not sure how that happens because it's a weird set-up and the ambition seems to be more about player trading than building a football team worth watching and supporting. The game has changed so much and mostly not for the better now that the money men have got their claws into it. 

[Tom & Gerry]

1 hour ago, saintant said:

I agree with a lot of what you say especially about us being predominantly a bottom half Premier league/top half Championship club. Unlike you I am not reasonably content because SR, the coaches and players rarely give us reasons to feel hopeful and proud about the football club we support. Since SR took over they have presided over a complete mess and show no signs that they are capable of learning lessons or getting their overinflated egos out of the way and allowing someone into the club to run things who has the benefit of a wealth of genuine football knowledge. I am rapidly losing any affinity to the club because, along with everyone else, I've been worn down by these clowns running my club. Time they were gone but I'm not sure how that happens because it's a weird set-up and the ambition seems to be more about player trading than building a football team worth watching and supporting. The game has changed so much and mostly not for the better now that the money men have got their claws into it. 

Well we are not in the top half of the Championship so I am not content. I've tried to look at the wider picture of supporting the club for nearly 70 years rather than the current situation. I agree that football has changed, not for the better but the play off final less than 2 years ago shows what it can still be like.

[LiberalCommunist]

I don't know how long its been. But during Russell Martin's time here I noticed defeats didn't sting much, and the enjoyment was diluted from wins (its the wins which made me take notice in case you are wondering why I didn't name Pelligrino ect). It goes back further, but that is when I started to notice I was not the same Saints fan as I used to be. Christ, I remember back when a defeat would effect me terribly, and also the elation of an important win would have me buzzin' for days! 

I actually don't think I'm capable of those emotional swings anymore. Life can be somewhat, difficult without sport throwing a Molotov spanner in the works. 

[Gloucester Saint]

7 hours ago, Turkish said:

Spot on, horrendous window in hindsight

I do wonder if there was something in it when people said we'd signed a team then for the championship to get promoted the following season. There was no way those players where anywhere near the level to keep us up

It was Farmer that kept saying it - but even that has turned out to be over-optimistic (!) as the names who have stayed like Archer have been absolute turd this season. The people responsible for the summer 2024 window deserve to be put in stocks outside the Bargate and have the ingredients from all of the city centre takeaways which are on the turn thrown at them. Martin got shown for what he is at Rangers (although we knew) but how Ankerson still gets Solak’s ear is astonishing.

[pimpin4rizeal]

On 12/01/2026 at 11:55, S-Clarke said:

I think all clubs go through cycles like this, certainly at our level. We dined at the 'top table' in the European convo for 2 seasons which for us is somewhat unique, so we were performing outside of our norms!

Certainly the last time it felt aligned from the top down to the manager was during those Adkins > Poch > Koeman years, but in the 2nd Koeman year it started to go a bit sour as that alignment started to drift I felt. The club started to get a bit too big for it's boots, thought it had cracked football, took it's foot off the gas and therein lies the drift we see ourselves in today.

What happened then isn't directly correlated to where we are today, as we have gone through 2 entirely different ownership models - but I think it just stresses how important it is to have alignment down from the ownership, management, players and fans - then the whole club pulls through. When that slips, everything erodes and it's not always immediate. Man Utd are a 'larger' example of that.

That good period was muchdown to cortese his decisions his appointments, when the club is run well from the top the rest follows .. even the Koeman period which some tend to discredit cortese with cos we improved, a hell of a lot of carry over was obviously still there the likes of Mitchell’s  scouting combined with Koeman, les reed a great squad and decent assets all remained. 
Yes we did a goodjob replacing the likes of lallana lambert and pochettino. But its  at least oartly  still down to the cortese men left standing making those decisions  I wouldn’t give much credit to kat and Krueger at all and since that we have just had one bunch of unambitious jokers after the other 

Edited 7 hours ago by pimpin4rizeal