Without wishing to come across rude Rimsey and wanting to keep the good debate going, your first couple of lines appear lifted from a PR spiel. No substance. What is "breaking the mould"? I can't recall many deals that were 'under the radar' from the championship season onwards. We certainly evolved a playing style, it's changed under each coach and will alter again i am sure. What is the way we went about running our club?
forgive me Romsey, but that really reads like someone who swallowed the dream speech. Each one of ghose is a sound bite. I only hope Liverpool don't come in for you too
No - don't do PR spiel - too long in the tooth for that...
I do sincerely believe we had a great thing going - I loved the way we always over-achieved (maybe our curse?) through the Championship. Its not a dream speech what I wrote earlier; I have a complicated job and I have learnt about what gets teams of people to work together, basically the hard way because I was total crap at managing people 10 years ago. I have, however, watched, with detached objectivity with what has gone on at Saints and in particular how the players reacted as we progressed on and off the pitch - what they were reported to have said. Not so much the words but have looked at the motivation that was behind the statements.
However, and this is where you comment is to the point, we judge people by our own standards; and what motivates others maybe not the same as others.
What I will write is that from a business prospective, not just the business plan but the apparent culture, instilled by NC (myself as a business person) was very interesting. It was not about buying players; it was firstly about the internal infrastructure of the club - not just training facilities, but about people brought into the business to function as not only coaches, but about education for those that stayed or might not make it, scouting/recruitment etc. The club had been run on good commercial lines focussing on the internals rather than buying success. Agreed, there are those, like Ricky, you brought in to add immediate quality, but it was also about generating internally the quality to carry that forward.
If you look at the top clubs, their business model is about purchasing power only; its the cancer that corrupts our EPL - that is reflected when the England Team playing in tournaments. Did you know that in Germany- only one club in their top division did not show a profit last year (and reporting has to be in strict accordance with accountancy laws similar laws to the UK - nothing to do with Fair Play Euro laws)?
Its not about swallowing do dream spoof - behind it all was a terribly sensible format that NC and ML brought to our club. My underlying concern is that we will follow now a business model that has been shown to fail. If we had a gate of 40K for each home match, with world wide merchandising, then we might have a future.
Earlier, I mentioned leadership, at all levels within the club - do we still have this? This is where my reservations sit. I do not wish to appear rude, but its 2.00am in Dubai - so I will sign off now. At least tomorrow is the start of the weekend in the UAE - Ramadan Kareem to all Saints fans!!
