.. now they are colluding with others to tear us apart. Once upon a time newspapers reported the sports news now they are doing their utmost to create it.
We will be again Godders. They are just getting used to the idea that we are actually a decent club that has the potential to do things a different way. They are also a little worried that we may unsettle some of those footballing giants from London and the Northwest.
You need to pay a little more attention. Earlier in the season we were being held up as an example of how a club should be run with our highly successful academy and production line of good English players. As for your memory you need to take that in hand and do some memory training exercises. There are no excuses although there may be a reason.
Amazing how we have been reported in the media over the last few years. From the "South Coast Club" and general dislike of Cortese. To never ending plaudits from them at the beginning of this season. Articles every other day about how well we are run and "The Southampton Way". Then suddenly as soon as Cortese goes, we are in meltdown and the whole 1st team squad and manager are going. If we really were the media darlings then they wouldn't be all over us trying to pick us apart, they would be echoing the only concrete statements we have had from anyone..... Our board, who have said that we do not need to sell and no one will leave unless Poch wants them to. If I was being cynical, the whole media spin has surrounded Cortese and his departure. All positive from around the time he would have submitted his resignation to the opposite since he has left. I seem to remember someone saying that his PR company are very pally with the Red Tops and Mail.
Our academy and early-season form were newsworthy, now the fact other clubs are trying to buy our players is newsworthy as well. They report the news. They don't have any duty to do right by our club or anyone else's. There is no grand conspiracy to build us up and then knock us down.
The media are being manipulated and they don't mind one bit as it is helping them to sell papers. They are joining in with the conspiracy for their own grubby ends and to think otherwise is a little naïve and surprising coming from someone like you who is usually a little more savvy.
I don't doubt it. But like you say it's driven by sales (or web page impressions for advertising revenue purposes), not by some anti-Saints agenda. People want to read stories about Shaw and Lallana, us included, and if the only information they can get about it is, directly or indirectly, from the Liverpool propaganda department, then that's what they'll use and you can hardly blame them for that.
I am so cynical I don't believe anything I read anymore, if they were praising us up, I suspect an ulterior motive, I am so used to the papers undermining us at every opportunity I tend to miss the positives. Sad World is it not?
Think about it, if the Press have got it totally wrong, how disappointed will they be? I suggest not a jot, they couldn't give a monkeys.
Can't expect the press not to report news or rumours that are published in other papers...I don't think they necessarily care whether our manager/player stays or go...they just report it.
Look, fact is, the papers report what will sell copies. the biggest clubs have the most fans, plastic and real, so they write what they want to hear.
This isn't much to do with it being Saints. It's been media culture for decades. Build them up and them knock them down. The thing is we will hopefully not be knocked down and prove them wrong.
I can guarantee that if Saints sell absolutely nobody in this window, and spend £50 million on 4 players, the media will not pause for one moment in peddling the same garbage about our academy boys being targets for all and sundry, and how everyone wants to leave for bigger clubs. It's not about facts, it's about making up tasty stories that will grab people's attention. The best thing is, as we have said a million times before on this forum, just ignore everything you hear until something is posted on the OS.
As I don't believe 99% of it, it is not really a problem! The problem is that people read some of it, read between the lines of a lot of it, and make the rest up, which leads to other people getting anxious and even paranoic, this quickly spreads despondancy and despair and we then have a lot of unhappy people, for no good reason, always look on the bright side, if you can find it. "KEEP CALM and support SOUTHAMPTON FC".
Well Michu is still at Swansea and they bought Bony. We've just taken over as the 'small club done well' vulture pot this season.
