No I was on holiday. Anyway enough of all that. Seems Southampton want to learn the hard way. On another topic, I'm hoping that now we have a manager who will give youth a chance, The academy of football will start to produce again. We have learnt from the sales of Lampard/Rio/Cole/Johnson/Defoe that selling our best young players is no good in the long term. The likes of Oxford/Borg/Page/Poyet etc will form the core of our side for the next decade+ and we won't allow clubs like Liverpool to cherry pick whichever ones they want. Interesting times. Anyway. Time to do some work.
Spanners knew they were never going to win the Europa, and they also know that there is every chance that they will get relegated. Furthermore, Spanners know that they sorely lack the quality and depth of squad to run both a domestic and a European campaign. I think the choice the Spanners made, to sacrifice the Europa right from the very start was a said, but logical one for them. It all goes to demonstrate why we should scrap giving a Europa place on any criteria but merit. It was one massive piss-taking waste of time putting the Spanners in Europa. You can gift-wrap a turd, but it's still a turd.
And the young players will have learned from these sales that if you have the talent get the **** out of West Ham like Lampard, Rio, J.Cole etc did and you may have a chance to win many league titles, domestic cups and even the CL. Much as it pains me to say it this why Saints lose their best players every summer as we simply cannot offer the opportunity to challenge for these honours (except maybe the occasional FA/League cup), If you think that the West Ham youngsters will spurn the same opportunities for a chance of these glories to play to a half empty Olympic Stadium probably in the Championship, I can tell you from my many years experience supporting Southampton you are wrong.
Bit of a difference playing for a glamorous London club on the cusp of something big playing in an iconic new 60,000 seater stadium to playing for a recently in league one, seaside club in a small stadium surely? (with respect).
I am afraid we will have to agree to disagree on this one, unless the "something big" you are on the cusp of is an outside shout of promotion from the championship at the end of next year. Your views on West Ham's supposed "glamour" could well divide opinion also.
Glamorous is of course the word that immediately comes to mind when thinking of West Ham. Apart from being given a stadium, what makes you think you're on the cusp of anything? This morning the club was too poor to play its first team in Europe.
Yes, but what have Spurs and Portsmouth got to do with it? Having said that, even Pompey got to play Milan on their European run.
Trixters had it in for us since our championship season together when the newly promoted league 1 boys beat recently relegated 'glamour club' West Ham to automatic promotion. He's never liked us since then!! Fair play on the win on Sunday though, now that IS how you win away
Saints is already a far classier side than West Ham. The Spanners haven't been that good since their hey-day, in the 60s.
I don't have it in for Southampton atall JWPGC. You are such a nice, friendly, harmless little club its impossible to feel anything hostile towards you.
Do you ever wonder if it would benefit spurs to sacrifice Europe in order to try and close the gap on Arsenal a little HIAG? I'm quite willing to accept attempting a European campaign alongside a domestic one might have been a bit much for our squad - especially in such an important season for us. I'm genuinely interested to know if you think your squad is up to juggling both considering some of the results you had last season in your league fixtures which directly followed a european game.
TWHUFC I seem to get the impression from you that you think that the CL is a very real possibility for West Ham considering your dismissive attitude towards the EL and notions of "big things" on the horizon. Although West Ham have been fortunate in recent seasons in been given the chance to play in the EL ( for getting the fewest yellow cards ) and been handed a shiney new stadium free of charge. These are usually earned through a teams hard graft and intense financial sacrifice/planning. The only way West Ham will get a CL place is if it is handed to them which at this stage you probably expect.
It seems that our Spammer fan thinks that a rented (supposedly!) stadium in East London is the height of footballing chic!...
Not sure where you got that from SF08. I don't think we will be qualifying for the CL anytime soon. I think we are going in the right direction though and we are not too far from being a very good side playing in a big, new stadium. Oh and I don't think the Europa league is beneath us. I'm just not sure that a tournament that is held in such low regard by most is worth jeopardizing a good premier league season for. If you have the squad for it then great, go for it. But even spuds with all the money they've spent couldn't manage a domestic campaign alongside a European one. They ended up just flopping in both.
This may sound ludicrous and Trick may get a hard on, but once West Ham move to their rented stadium and if a billionaire buys the club, then they could end up being a champions league club by leap frogging us and other smaller clubs with ambition (like saints). Man City done it. West Ham London may well be in the champions league in the next 4 years.
