http://www.southampton.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=394717 Vital Football talking about Daily Mail table of English teams ranked by fanbase, income etc. What pulls us down is average crowd...not too much we can do about that...and our past trophies. I haven't a problem with most teams above us, but do disagree with Leeds and Wolves...we are better than those on most factors, and I think they have given too much weight to historic factors, so I think 13th would be more realistic.
Bollocks to that, we are currently the 6th best team and hoping to soon be the fourth best *I know, I know, they're taking other things into consideration*
If i judge it by gut feel rather than metrics my feeling is leeds are a very big club and wolves and wba not so much. We are somewhere within a large bunch of decent size clubs in decent sized cities i feel we are bigger than wolves but Leeds as much as i dislike them are a genuine big club going through a bad era. I feel we are one of the top 15; that sounds fair to me
Wolves. Surely some success in the early 1950s cannot still be considered relevant. I can understand pompey clinging on to trophies won before the second world war as it must read better than the league 2 standings.
I would say our potential is high too. I remember when we were not selling out at the dell people laughing heartily at the thought of us trying to fill a 32th seater stadium and yet here we are. I reckon we could comfortably fill a 40th one for many games - we have great potential.
Average league finish since 1889/1890? Seeeeriously? And highly measurable objective stats such as 'player quality'. Clearly a well thought out project.
Just a quick look and it appears to be complete bollocks. Eg; Liverpool are 10th for "crowd" behind both Sunderland and Villa. Couldn't be bothered to read on after that.
But Villa Park and the Stadium of Light have regular big attendances, despite not being so successful recently..
Always difficult to select criteria...crowds, league positions etc are all reasonable, but how much weight do you give to each. Trophies are also valid, but have to have a cut off point....the past decades must mean more than pre-war....and I say that even if they discount the seventies Can't remember where, but read the following recently: History is what people resort to when other arguments have been exhausted.
We're in top 8 clubs at the moment (us, regulars and Everton), but if you're looking historically, then the list is probably ok. Some clubs had good spells ages ago, we have a good spell now. If you're taking that historical approach, there's no reason why our current good spell should weight more than, say, Wolves' 50 years ago.
Portsmouth only 35th? That cannot be right, their fans have been telling us for years they are better than us!
Anyone villa are ranked better than us on player quality, I'm assumino this is current playing squad in which case this is ridiculous. Also they are ranked higher for income, thought that may have changed of late?
