I think the secret at home is that we don't let the opposition use our warm-up bikes. Not sure what we do away, but it must be equally demoralising for the home team.
It's not the bikes. but the little sign that says only for the home team. The opposition never knew they wanted to...until they saw the sign. Their desperation must be unbearable.
This may not be news, but an article in The Daily Telegraph (last Thursday, 6th November) described The Black Box as "A small room with a phone, a desk and a row of chairs that faces a giant screen....With just a few clicks, (Ronald) Koeman, (Les) Reed and head of recruitment Paul Mitchell can be watching any player, team or target anywhere in the world" This does sound like Dr Strangelove megalomania, but if it gives us the edge, what's not to like?
I have a much better idea of how Southampton FC achieves it's measure of excellence than I have of our Not 606 member Fran obtaining a post level of 32,372 and counting..!
I think that the club is set up well and the long term investment in the academy is providing great results. However, I think the real key to our success this year is our defence. Few teams seem capable of defending in the Premier League this year. Those who are solid know that they can score against fragile defences and therefore if they keep a clean sheet they will win. It surely is not a coincidence that West Ham and Swansea, who have also been relatively solid are up there too.
If I told you I would have to kill you as someone famously once said. (Could have been in a Conan Doyle novel but I can't think of anyone who would know)
Your question has been answered within this thread, but the short answer is that there is an overall Southampton Way philosophy and a type of player that Saints want to employ to fully embody that philosophy. Which means that if we're short of a player position we don't buy just anyone hugely expensive if he doesn't fit the requirements. A cheaper player may be a much better fit. Saints have an excellent system for finding them, throughout the world. That bit Saints themselves won't even tell us fans the details of for fear that the secret might get out. Put basically our recruitment department is second to none and has the research facilities to be so.
I believe it is officially now 32,683. Let me just get on my soapbox for a moment... Although this is nothing to do with the above [so ignore any seriousness here SJ], if I didn't mention it before, there was a thread on the forum that wandered into talking about stadium expansion and that we never fill St Marys, so there's no point expanding [that's the gist of the anti-expanding argument] Well, we sold out again, this time against Leicester City, and the official crowd was 31,297. Over a 1000 down on what we could have got into the stadium. So for those people who say we never fill StMarys, the answer is, we never can. Doesn't mean to say that expansion shouldn't be a priority though. Off the soapbox.
(Thread hijack alert) The match against Leicester was officially sold out, so that ought to mean that every seat that was available to be purchased, had been purchased. By any measure of success, that's as good as it can currently get. If you accept that people in the ground weren't just there to marvel at Leicester (which could be used as a reason for sell out crowds against Chelsea, or anyone else above us - just Chelsea, then), then it would appear that Saints are attracting fans who want to watch Saints. One full house does not make a cast-iron case for expansion, but if this level of support is maintained for the rest of the season (and why wouldn't it be?), then the case for expansion becomes fairly solid. Still, someone has to stump up the money, so it might take a couple more seasons of similar success to convince investors that they'll get a good return. Meanwhile, we'll keep filling the ground, and the team will keep giving us very good reasons to continue to do so
I would be surprised if expansion wasn't being seriously considered, but not in the immediate future as we haven't even finished the Academy yet. Any surplus would be better spent on strengthening the side. I believe that owners can put money into structural things under the new financial rules, but think we should let Katharina recover from the shock of a 40 million training ground first. She may be unaware that fans needs are infinite and football is a bottomless pit...let her lie on her chaise longue with smelling salts for a bit longer.
Just had the image of Katharina turning up for a match and saying to Ralph, 'I may be being silly, but the stadium looks bigger than last season.'
Surely the question of selling out SMS also depends upon the number of seats allocated to the away fans and the amount of segregation between them and the home fans? You know that certain games this season (Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, etc.) are guaranteed to be sell outs but I bet the final attendances will vary by around 1000 or so. If you look at other stadia which have a higher percentage attendance than St Mary's there is less variation, presumably because they have a more inflexible way of accommodating away fans. I think this problem needs to be taken into account, and if there is ever an expansion or a new build, it needs to be addressed.
Oh, I am very troubled by this thread. We are about to start the most difficult run of fixtures and have so far been very lucky with injuries and even the odd refs decision. This thread has bump written all over it, so..... my answer is I have no idea, ask me after Christmas.
£40M..? She'd be able to light a bonfire on a picnic in the Swiss countryside with the cheque and not notice. In case you'd forgotten, she's a rather comfortably well off lady in terms the vast majority of us can't even imagine [and I can imagine a lot]
