I'll start believing if we win at West Ham. We've been Rs fans long enough to know a bite in the arse is just round the corner. Still, three clean sheets in a row and four games unbeaten is cause for optimism.
I was thinking recently that we just can't possibly be relegated, surely! Surely we're destined to stay up and see better things now. We have Harry as a manager. We already had good players with a few dickheads amongst them. We only needed to turn it around. I think if we can stay up and FINALLY get our **** together, we'll be a good EPL team. We have all the makings of it, the only thing we've been missing is the magic formula because of certain people being involved who either don't know what they're doing or they don't care enough.
I'm optimistic by nature, but it will take a long time for me to forget the trauma of the Liverpool game. Harold and his team have done outstanding work sorting out the defence since then, but we have to add some more threat up front, to get the opposition on the back foot more often. Remy may be the answer, here's hoping. But this is much more exciting than mid table obscurity (though I'd love to try this out for size, say next season) and as Clint says, the glory is ours for the taking. If we stay up we will be the story of the season, regardless of who ends up as Champions. Game most definitely on.
steady there awjm it was great last night but would have taken 3 points instead of a cup win, west ham first & see if we can carry on the momentum there & also hope the scum beat the saints tonight.
Great Stuff fans .............. 'The great Escape' ????????? ......... you better believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm a Southampton fan who posted on your board back before Christmas regarding Ranger's appointment of Harry Redknapp. My point then was the Harry had a chequered history of getting clubs to avoid relegation with the avoidance of relegation during his tenure at Portsmouth probably the greatest ever escape from near-cetain relegation from the PL. Of course, he was less successful with Saints but Rupert Lowe didn't quite give him the run off his leash that both Pompey and Spurs gave him and he was unable to make any expensive signings being limited to a collection of has-beens and journey-en. on top of that he also had to report to Sir Clive Woodward. The point I wanted to make was that Redknapp seems to be reverting to type at QPR. When I was small my cousin was a Rangers fan and growing up at a time Saints won the cup, QPR were something of a second team at the time as they included the likes of Gery Francis, Stan Bowles, etc. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Hoops but think that Redknapp looks like mortgaging your immediate PL safety against potentially hige costs in the future. We've seen the same happen on the South coast with Portsmouth signing a whole host of star players on incredible wages and when he started to see the castle of cards start to tumble down he cleared off to Spurs before a fall-out which probably had the doubts about his business dealings as a root of the decision to part company. I don't think even Redknapp would have predicted that Pompey's demise would be so absolute. I believe they only have two players directly employed by the club with the rest of the team consisting of loanees and players on a month-by-month contract. The balance of the squad is made up of teenagers. Although there is a supporter's trust to buy the club, this has yet to be resolved and Second Division football will be a certainty next year if they survive. As a Southampton supporter, I would have to say that what has happened at Fratton Park is one of the biggest trageties in the recent game and therefore it is diheartening to witness the kind of gamble that is happening at QPR. Reading the sports pages on the web today, it is fascinating to see the sums of money being splashed at Loftus Road as well as the wages being offered. In my opinion, QPR are best placed out of all the teams in the bottom 6 to escape the drop. Regardless of what i feel about Redknapp, he is a quality manager and not only do I think you will avoid relegation, I think you will eventually do this by a clear distance. The teams that will go down will not reach 40 points, in my opinion. However, I think survival this season will cause you future problems, eprhaps of a maginitude you will find hard to comprehend. Loftus Road is not capable of generating the income necessary to sustain the sort of money being spent and we have already seen that bigger clubs like Leeds Utd and Portsmouth can eventually fall foul of the need to eventually pay for these players of such high calibre. The level of expenditure Redknapp was allowed to lavish on the Portsmouth squad could never be sustained by a ground that held a little of 17,000. I would hate to see another club suffer Portsmouth's fate even though they are our rivals but from the persepctive of things down here in Hampshire, what is currently going on at your club feels remarkably familiar. Good luck in your fight to avoid the drop. Cheers Ian
You clearly don't know all the plans so please come back and enlighten us some more when you have checked all the facts. Good luck in your fight to avoid the drop. Cheers.
Col Thanks for the reply. I'm aware that QPR wish to build a new stadium - so did Portsouth and they even went so far as to publish an architect's impression in the regional newspaper. It's great having these pipedreams yet it took Saints about 25 years before we ended up with a new stadium, the latter part of this period being when everyone was convinced that we were going to move to Stoneham and deals had been tied up with several of the local councils being involved. I'm not trying to be controversial but Saints struggled through much of the 1990's with a 15,000 seat stadium too and were unable to survive in the top flight without the move to a bigger ground. This was necessary to finance the kind of wages and transfer fees necessary to compete at the top level. Portsmouth proceded to spend without the proper, 21st century infra-structure in place and it proved to be a castle made of sand. With Harry being so proflegate with everyone's money I wouldn't have thought that it would have been too difficult to appreciate that the sums will ultimately not add up.
