Supporting a football club is a question of belief. You can either stick to your own beliefs or you can go with the flow of those around you or you can listen to pundits or you can listen to your own club. We get an overall picture from that. Whatever anyone else says, if the club says, we want to stay in the PL, you know what their stated ambition is. Survival. But Saints don't. They have stated that they want to be regular members of the CL, and they've said it many times. Now, I don't know how they will do it, but I have a few ideas. The pundits obviously don't know how they will do it because they only see one way, which is to throw money at it, and besides, they never see past their noses anyway. YOU don't know how they will do it, but there's no harm in having a little belief. What is it going to cost you anyway.?
Depends on the person, I believe the high expectations have cost some people their sanity or prespective, a quick glance at the Watford match thread will show this. I like to have ambition but am realistic with it. I would love to see us in the CL, same as I would love to see England win the Euros next year! Neither is going to happen though and I'm not gonna get myself up for it so much that I start to almost expect it, as then when it doesn't happen I will be disappointed and won't be making fair judgements on Ron/the team. Out of interest, what would you class as success this year? and the minimum requirement?
Saints can state all they like that their ambition is CL. The fact is that they cannot compete with the other clubs trying for it. This is firmly evidenced in the fact that there are at least 5 teams who can take our players whenever they want. The players can see this as well as the fans. I am not slating saints. I am happy to be a top 10 team - but let's not kid ourselves. Our ambition has not been matched by spending or player retention. Therefore, our ambition is not -ahem- highly credible. Many teams finish 7th in the Prem. I hope we can continue to finish top 10. However, we are no more a CL team than Stoke or Swansea or Newcastle.
This is one thing I think people forget when talking about how we are going to overtake the clubs ahead of us. That there is other clubs below us who have similar ambitions. Also others with **** owners at present but with much bigger revenues/resources - Sunderland/Newcastle/Villa for example. Plus it's alright stating it but how many clubs of our size have actually managed it in the past 15 years. 2? 3? wait no 1? Oh right... zero.
I suspect if we were in the Bundesligue we would be in a similar position .. top 10 but not top 4 although the German League, one team apart, seems more meritocratic as their leading 4 are nowhere near as familiar as ours. One season it could be Borussia MG and Schalke, the next Bayer L and Wolfsburg. We don't get as much variation. Wish some of our regular top 4, Chelsea and Manchester United, could have a Dortmund season this time round.
A few of them gave it a good go! Maybe not those two, but certainly Liverpool, and Spurs - if we had taken six points off both of them, they'd be well off the pace. Wish we had.
I do think we'll all be happier when we remember that regular top ten finishes in th EPL IS ambitious. The odd cup run. A few flirtations with Europa. Bingo. Happy fans. And all Cortese's signings will go and the newer batch will be more realistic in their long term future and we all live happily ever after.
... and if we are going to achieve more then it will take time and in the meantime ...let's be happy. Mrs Spiderman is always happy watching Saints. If we aren't playing well then she just stares at Grazziano and hopes Jose will remove his shirt at the end of the game.
