Part of it is to give the Madrid Government the two-fingered salute. We should give the Westminster lot the same.
Funny, but I genuinely seem to have forgotten that we ever had Osdildo on our squad. Each time I'm reminded, I'm mildly surprised. It's silly of me as he's such a perfect example of the kind of signing most fans seem to want. Vin
Think that's more to do with geography. They have Man Utd, Man City and at a push Liverpool so why would the glory hunters in Lancashire go for a London club?
Fair enough we did struggle for years.......If trying to stay in the premier is treading water then I stand corrected. Although I would point out in the early years of the premier, there was probably two dominant teams but they were beatable, so the league seemed to be more even. Chelski really started the big money spend followed by City. If you want to be up there consistently with the top six then Saints will have to do much the same. Can I draw your attention to the later part of my post. "If their owners don't keep up with the game then they suffer the same as we did. So a lot of any troubles are caused by owners not reinvesting enough. " Which was exactly our problem......Plus a lack of extra promised, significant , investment. I believe that was what was behind RK's recent comments. It is also my view why Poch left. Through building the new stadium we have nigh on doubled our attendance, which was one of the better decisions made by Lowe and he deserves credit for that. He just did not get the promised investment to take us to the next stage. Our recent sale and buy policy would suggest we seem to be making the same mistakes as we did previously. Saintmagic is right though in another way we are never going to be a "force" unless we invest and invest heavily as was promised when the new owners took over. The only ones that had the right ambition were Cortese and Katrina's father. Sadly since her fathers death the same ambition does not seem to be there and in that Sainmagic is right also, as we do seem to be treading water, currently. That is becoming more and more obvious to me and that is probably why we will never be able to keep the decent ambitious managers.
I don't see what people expect to happen,. In my honest opinion this is what happens when expectations are set too high, we had a great year last year and were close to the 2 above us (Spurs n Pool) but a lot of fans seemed to expect this season to be similar and I keep reading here how we are on their 'level' now. When in reality we've got a lot of catching up to do before we can consider that, not just one season finishing close to them. I'm of the opinion that in the next 5years or so there's gonna be a gap open up in the Prem and by that I mean that roughly around 12 teams or so are gonna form a gap from the rest, the most important thing for us is to make sure we're part of that group when it happens.
We didn't lose Pochettino because he felt the club lacked ambition. We lost him because spurs are, much as it pains me to say it, a far bigger club than Saints in the here and now. He'll have heard of them growing up in Argentina. And they have the resources in the short term that we couldn't possibly match. Nothing to do with ambition; Pochettino is in a hurry, and clearly wasn't prepared to wait for Saints to catch up with the clubs above us. As supporters however, we can allow ourselves the luxury of patience. And show a bit of faith.
I believe this as well and have said so before. There's 7 teams that will 9 times out of 10 make the top up the top 7 every season. The rest are in a constant battle to stay in the league, that doesn't mean a relegation battle every season, but that it could happen at any time. No matter how close one of the smaller clubs get to the top 4, squad wise you will still be closer to relegation than the top 4 places. Villa & Newcastle as examples. Villa finished 6th in 2010, 9th in '11 and been in a relegation battle every season since. Similar to Newcastle, finished 5th in 2012 - relegation battle every year since. Might not be the best examples as they're not the best run clubs but it shows that bar probably the top 6 no one is safe from relegation.
Does anyone know for a fact that ML was prepared to pour in his own money, say £200M a year on top of our £120M or so income to get us to top four levels? It's all very well stating that we need ambition but where does the money to fulfil that come from? I run a business that serves Southampton. I genuinely want it to cover the southern half of the country. So I have the necessary ambition. It's not going to happen in the short term as I don't have the several million pounds it would cost. So I'm doing it step by step in a sustainable way. Does that make me less ambitious? No, just realistic (along with unwilling to go bankrupt). Talk of ambition and wanting quick results is very cheap indeed. Money to do it is not. "Where does the money come from?" should be a standard follow up to "ambition" demands. Vin
This is what Markus said when he took over: He said: "I believe we have a superb opportunity to rebuild this great Club. Clearly, this will require resources, planning, hard work and patience. We will assemble a strong management team at every level of the Club. We will act rapidly, but also plan for the long term, because I am here for the long term. "I also look forward to the Club re-engaging with the fans and the local community. We cannot succeed with out their backing. We should not expect instant success, but our fans, employees and other stakeholders can expect 100 per cent commitment from me and my team." Where in this statement has Katharina not delivered? Cortese (not Markus) said lots of things which I thought at the time were not realistic, when you looked at the wealth of the clubs we would need to compete with. We did not have the depth of squad, quality or the millions it would take. Yes I would love to be top 4 and maybe we will be one day but to expect us to be able to do it short term without bankrupting ourselves is I believe unrealistic. Markus wanted to rebuild the club well that's been done - League 1 back to Premier. I for one do not want to support a club again which may go out of business due to bad management. Look at the mess Bolton are in.
Vin, while I agree that it's ridiculous crying out "lack of ambition" it will be interesting to see what our spending is like this Summer in terms of net spend. This Summer is a MASSIVE one for Southampton Football Club and where we go from here. Like you and others have said, we could have been building a war chest to use at exactly the right time, we simply don't know at this stage but as I say it will be interesting to see our approach next Summer.
Beddy I have to take issue with the piece I have highlighted. Markus died a year after he bought the club, so everything we have achieved since then has been done under Katharina's ownership. That's 2 promotions, and two years in succession getting our best positions and points totals in the Premier League. I suspect what you really mean, like Godders, is that since Cortese was shown the door the ambition has diminished. If that's the case why did Les Reed appoint a manager of the calibre of Ronald Koeman? The meltdown of the summer before last wasn't due to the club's lack of ambition, but a succession of people, Pochettino, Lallana, Lovren, and Shaw, realising they could vastly increase their pay packets elsewhere. That's always happened to clubs our size, and will happen until we can grow the club to the size where we can compete financially with those who keep poaching from us. As Vin points out in his excellent post, you can't do that overnight. Apart from the fact that Katharina hasn't got a bottomless pit of cash, under the FFP rules nowadays the money put into a club has to be proportionate to the commercial income, and without a sponsor like Etihad Airlines or General Motors or a stadium the size of the Emirates or Old Trafford we can't do that... yet. So what can the club do to compete? Well, they are taking steps to raise the profile of Southampton FC overseas, notably in America, which is a huge, largely untapped source of commercial income. Having the Academy in Baltimore as a centre of excellence, and the rumoured sponsorship deal with Under Armour, are potentially massive for us. I am sure other initatives along these lines will follow, because make no mistake, the club want to compete with the big boys, but it will take time.
I don't see it as lack of ambition either...as Chilco said,,,,our problem is down to buying good players, making them look better in the PL and then watching them leave for richer clubs. We may be in a minor doldrum this season, but that happens to every club. A couple of purchases may not have worked out....but that has happened every season as well. Lack of ambition would be buying players that no one else coveted.
One final thought. If something's going to take (maybe) fifteen years then a year's blip is irrelevant and a run of three or four bad games is invisible. Vin
I suppose it could be argued that When the Russian got involved with Chelski he actually bought the club for much more than Katrina's father paid for us. Then he poured a couple of hundred million into it afterwards. I am not saying we should do that but without that kind of investment, even over a period of time, we are not going to be able to compete on a regular basis with the top clubs. City did much the same albeit over a slightly longer period. Sorry I just do not see her fathers ambition or where with all in Katrina. The likes of Newcastle and Aston villa or even Sunderland are struggling because of the lack of proper investment. Are we not doing much the same in some ways by seeing our top players allowed to leave, are we not showing lack of ambition?
The thing I have been saying for a few seasons... one year taking a step back (lower league position) does not mean lack of progress. Life is not a straight line graph.
Beddytare, I don't like this highlighted statement. We don't have buy and sell policy. We have a buy good players policy. The reality is when we strike gold the bigger clubs come along and dangle stacks of dosh in front of players and so we 'have' to sell them, or lose them for nothing. We are not in a position to change that without changing the whole ethos, ownership and feel of the club. The question is (and probably a harder question for older ones - my age ish and upwards) is this: Do you want the club to be sold to a mega rich person and become the new City/Chelsea, or do you want us to continue our progress as best we can with our current model and keep the identity of our club? Me? I don't know.
OK, on just one of your points: Man City lease the City of Machester Stadium from the City Council, who built it for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. They are allowed to call it the Etihad Stadium because of the sponsorship deal, which also paid for the expansion from the original 36,000 seats to the current 55,000. If the people of Southampton want their club to compete with the likes of Man City, Chelsea etc., then where is the ambition from Southampton City Council to provide a stadium they can do it in? The club are building steadily, albeit slowly, because the owner is carrying on her father's ambition. And her name is Katharina, not Katrina.
I want Saints to remain in Leihberr hands...there are a lot of crooks out there. All teams buy success to a certain extent, but I don't want us owned by someone of dubious character (Chelsea) or by a consortium that has loaded us with debt in order to buy us (United). I would sacrifice titles rather than go that way.
One point Chilco and I may be wrong, however I thought City bought the stadium from the Council. It was original leased (hence nickname back then of 'The Council Flat').
