It's another reason for people to not dismiss the loan market. To try and do what we need through permanent signings alone is likely to be very expensive - and potentially impossible.
It’s a group effort. We are definitely in the bottom tier of PL sides in terms of club size. Off the top of my head I’d have Bournemouth, Fulham and Brentford below us. Then a couple similar, so staying in the PL should always be our first target. When I talk to non Saints supporting mates they all have that opinion, we punch above our weight by just staying in the league and we aren’t one of those sides who will never go down. Just takes a bad season (like we are obviously having) and we’ll go down. A positive if we do is look at relegated teams in the last few years. In the main thanks to the parachute payments they do well in the Championship, so we should expect similar. Only negative is it might result in us coming back to a league we have no chance of being particularly competitive in
Sure is. I’m not sure if I want Saints to go down that route or not. It’s a very desperate and non-Saints thing to do. But desperate times call for desperate measures. We need a strong transfer window regardless of who the manager is and we don’t have a lot going for us right now (and you have to include NJ in that) to encourage quality players to join. Right, **** it, that’s enough thinking about Saints for one year… Happy New Year all
Some post match chat, with Dean Hammond (oh to have someone like him in our midfield) and Adam Leitch. I noticed from the stats that our passing accuracy was just 65%. Possibly because we’re not playing Chuckle Brothers, me to you, you to me, football between the CBs as much as we used to.
I think that letting our young talent play together and blossom in a lower league may turn out to be a blessing in disguise even if we don't return immediately. We might have a very exciting team in a couple of seasons a bit like Docherty's Man Utd in the 70's and Terry Venables' Palace in the 80's.
Reference the last paragraph, if we are relegated. If we go down without so much as a whimper, I think we will struggle to rebuild the confidence of the players in time to start next season on the front foot. Grow a spine, become more difficult to beat and start to play some football, then we could start next season in a more positive frame of mind and genuinely give ourselves a chance to return to the EPL.
It’s not the 70s or 80s though. If our young talent play well someone will just buy them. I’m personally not bothered if we go down as the PL is pretty boring to me as a Saints fan (and has been since the summer Poch left). I’m more bothered about the large bets I have on us finishing above Everton and Leeds.
You may have a point but Norwich are usually relegated by February and they bounce back. Watford and Burnley were both dreadful last season and are doing well, I don’t think it would be too hard to change the mentality over a pre season.
We managed to keep hold of Morgan and Adam for a few seasons after promotion, it's what they do in the PL that gets noticed by the big boys.
Whilst I love the idea of our young side dropping down to move forward, the only difference this time would be the likes of Livramento & Lavia have already proved themselves at PL level, whereas Adam & Morgan were signed when we were at a lower level already with no top level experience.
Agreed, they were just the 2 off the top of my head. If we go down, but manage to give more chances to the likes of Payne, Finnigan, Ballard & Dibling, plus whoever decent we can keep hold of and supplemented with some proper championship experience (unlike this year) ... happy days, though i feel I'm getting a bit ahead of myself there
I'm certainly not fearful of going down unlike in 2005, I think that we do have decent owners now even if they have gambled our place in the PL for the short term.
Its a strange situation, because, like you I'm not fearful of going down at all. In fact, I'd rather look forward to it should it happen. I don't wish for it to happen, but if it does, so what? And yet, I want to see us doing well in the PL and not have to sit through utter **** every week (hence the current frustrations!), or be sitting rock bottom of the table. Jury is out for me on SR. I've not been too convinced thus far, and a relegation would certainly be a black mark on their record. But it might be a case of taking a step back to move forward.
