Going to pieces at the first sign of adversity.? A spineless bunch? A childish sense of entitlement? What makes you such an expert to be calling people such names? I object to being called spineless because I express an opinion and I certainly haven't gone to pieces by expressing it. Like all who support Saints I pay good money to support them and yes I do adhere to the thought I like to see them have some success. I have seen no opinion to suggest we have Devine right to that success!! Only disappointment at not getting very much of late. Which is what fans usually discuss amongst other things.
Mmm Beddy - I didn't take Archer's comment as aimed at you (of course I can't speak for him), but at those fans out there who seem too quick to gripe. I think your post is valid, or rather will be valid once we see what happens this window.
Hmm ok.....I hope not.......but even so I thought it a bit strong.......although maybe I haven't read the same posts as he has.......
The same argument happens time and again on Internet forums. "Happy clappers v bed wetters". It gets pretty boring. Forums are for discussing the goings on at the club. It's not being 'spineless' or 'whining' to observe that something is very wrong this season. We pay thousands of pounds to watch the team, I'm sure we should be allowed to voice concern if it's being mismanaged.
I was merely expressing my opinion of the modern football fan., I didn't point the finger at any individuals, certainly not you (though we do have some big girls blouses on here) In reality btw, it's not the moaning on a forum that bothers me. It's the booing at matches.
It won't take much for us to get dragged into a relegation fight though, there are some seriously good teams below us which won't expect to be that low in the league come may. I am concerned with our current form but i do believe we should be good enough to finish at least 17th all though i am not going to take it as a given.
I totally agree about the booing and to be fair I have not seen anyone on here defending them. The disappointment for me is the way we have played this season. Saints made the mistake, in my view, of not listening to the fans going back to Lawrie Macs day. We have the usual Rhetoric of what the fans want to hear, "Going to be successful" "Get into Europe" "develop the squad" "5 year plans" "be a force to be reckoned with in the 1st/premier division" However for me the reality is quite different. If other small clubs can do it, why not us? Why have we always got to be the also rans? The answer it would seem is that we possibly lack the real ambition, we want to do things on the cheap. The other reality does seem it is the same ole same ole....lets just hang on in the premier division.......Anyway have had me moan...........
This hasn't been about that at all.. That fall back is what is boring and lazy. And just as a point of natural division.... you may well find that people with opposing views will debate/argue on a forum or in a pub or over the dinner table more than those who share the same views. I am not quite sure how else you'd expect it to work. Just imagine if posts were only made in agreement.... "yes" "this" "I agree" Be a great forum. So why don't we just leave the positive v negative bullshit as without it, there is no discussion or debate and then no forum. When someone replies to a post, they will either agree with it, disagree with it or maybe extend that view a bit. Not many other options.
I have read several times "They pay their money...." etc Oh and on the rest of your post.... we have got into Europe for the last two seasons, this one an advance on the last one. We have not been also rans for the last few seasons, we have been the "example club" progressing all the way and setting new records... Let's not forget, that this season just hasn't been as good so far as previous ones, yet we may still end up with a day out at Wembley.
Well, yeah. But we could have shown the real ambition of Leeds in the 90's, or Pompey the decade after. Where are they now? The last 8 years have been a fantastic time to be a Saints fan, easily the best since the McMenemy era. Now we're having a poor run of form (which we did last season also), but many of our fans seem to have forgotten that we have gone from League 1 to European football in record time.
Because fans never did that in the past? Never sung "what a load of rubbish" during a game, just when the team was losing. I can clearly recall that being sung even at the height of the Lawrie era. The slow hand clapping may have been targeted at away teams playing negative football, but there have always been "whinging" fans and always will be. I never get down because of losing games. I get down because of the funky groove... no, wait, I get down because of a crap style of football, played a team poorly organised and motivated. Add that to the club being pretty arrogant in the way it treats its supporters, and that's perhaps why many are hacked off right now, regardless of our league position.
Is Archers not allowed to say he doesn't like fans booing? Oh and there will always be happy fans too... For every flip there is a flop.
When you consider how many football teams there are in league and non-league, you can hardly call being in the EPL as also-rans.....and our position in one of the top leagues in Europe in our recent incarnation is 6-13th. My disappointment is last season having Leicester win. Not that I am sad about Leicester winning it, but that could have been us. All the usual suspects are at the top again....our best chance of top 4 was last season and the one before. We beat top clubs last season and lost points to Leicester....we actually won it for them.
For the record, if someone gave me a pound and told me it was my last one, I may not put it on us to go through... but that's for the predictions. Until then, I will hold some hope we can get the right outcome.
And the real irony of Leicester winning was the absolute zillions of pounds they spent that summer to back their ambitions .. oh wait
I knew Leicester wouldn't be as good this season as last, but have been surprised how they have struggled (and they kept their players). Let's hope for their sakes it isn't Blackburn Rovers all over again. Of course...our board don't want us to win the league in case we get relegated. Genius.
Ironic that we should be having this "lack of ambition" debate just when yet another thread pops about the Academy, and the Southampton Way, and producing the most well-rounded young footballers in the country. The lengths this club go to to develop the youth has for years set the bar for this aspect of the game, and continues to do so. It became a turning point in the club's relationship with Ronald Koeman and led to us letting him go last summer, with no real attempt to hold on to him. Another principle established by Markus Liebherr and Nicola Cortese, and continued by the current board under Katharina, is sustainable growth, and part of that principle is buying players who we can introduce to the Premier League and sell for a profit when their contracts begin to wind down. To my knowledge there have been very few, if any, exceptions to that principle. There does seem to be a bit of a herd mentality developing amongst some fans that we are in some sort of a crisis period at the moment, with the inability to sign a striker last summer leading to the absence of goals, poor results, relegation fodder, selling the club, and so on and so on. All these things may well be individually true in themselves but a conspiracy theory where the club have lost their way, or worse, are deliberately trying to undo all the good work of the last 7 years, has surely no evidence to support it. Yes, we should have signed another striker last summer but for reasons unknown to us fans we didn't. Let's wait and see where we are at the of January and then we will have a better idea whether the club are going down the tubes, or if they are actually attempting to address the current problems.
