Given all the debate over the importance of history, fans etc I decided to have a look at some data. Very flimsy I know, but thought it might help our friends from the north deal with their chips (with mayonnaise) on their shoulders. Based on trophies being League; FA cup; League Cup; Champions League (European Cup); Europa League (UEFA Cup and Cup winners cup), but not add ons as a result of winning one of the above, the Premier last season would look like the table below. The table below is based on ground size next season. The bottom line is that Everton should have finished 8th based on history and 10th based on ground capacity. Not exactly a massive club! What did I learn from this? History and ground capacity counted for nothing last season, performance on the pitch did. I predict it will be the same next season too. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather!
I only looked at premier league clubs from season just finished - if I get the chance when I get bored marking exam papers I may go down through the divisions, although won't worry about the Wanderers or Royal Engineers, even though historically they would probably be near the top!
To be honest I meant that people need to stop going on about "you're not a big club anymore." At the end of the day we are where we are for a year (at least) We will take decades to grow as big as some of these clubs whether they are doing well or not. They just are big clubs.
As I keep saying, history and tradition count for nothing anymore. There was a time it did, when respect for achievements lasted. They don't anymore. You're only as good as last season, maybe a couple before that if you're lucky. Stadium capacities mean far less than they did. Now as long as the PR profile of the club is substantial, rising and good, that's the biggest plus. Yes, I'd like a bigger stadium personally because I still retain some traditional values for football, but as long as the ground isn't absolutely tiny, it means not a lot unless the ground is massive and a real spectacle when full.
Indeed, but that last part is the real clincher - "when full", we don't yet consistently fill up SMS, nor the slightest hint of a Season ticket waiting list. It really isn't worth expanding until we near those situations. A giant but mostly empty stadium looks atrocious.
I think that the decision for Koeman to switch to Everton was a disgrace. The comments regarding which club is biggest is a bit ridiculous. Everton were founder members of the football league and I think that are probably quite correct to claim a greater status and heritage than Southampton. However, in 2016, the decision looks perverse to say the least. Southampton are the epitome of a modern, progressive football club. There are a few things that I will say in favour of Everton. I still think that their team in the 1980s was one of the very best that I have seen and you get a measure of just how good if you consider how they turned us over on our home turf at a time when we were also more than half-decent. I think it was the 84/85 season when their team came to The Dell and pulled apart a very good Saints team. If I am honest, that team and the one Dalglish assembled at Liverpool several years later remains one of the best teams that I have seen play at Southampton. The other question that I think is intriguing is that the Everton youth set up is supposed to be full of potential whereas the Saints academy seems to have tried up. I think Koeman has been mercenary but you wonder just how good Everton's youth system is? Their system of scouting established by Moyes is supposedly extremely polished with potential players for each position being ear-marked with replacement already identified in advance. I suppose this is a bit like the system employed by Lyon in the early 2000's but at least the fabric is there for Koeman to build upon. I think that Everton will be in for a major resurgence under Koeman and would expect them to eclipse Liverpool who I think will disappoint again next year.Koeman was alleged not to be too impressed with the next generation of players emerging from the academy with only JWP and Targett managing to get a foot in the door. The interesting thing about football at the moment is that the old hierarchies are being challenged It is interesting to argue notional lists of importance and good fun too. As stated above, it does get skewered by history with some teams being weighted after long-passed glories .I am fascinated by the idea of improved and new tactics revolutionising football and how coaches have employed scientific techniques to improve the performances of teams. This has happened since Sottish teams developed passing techniques in the 1880s which were imported to teams on the NW of England, through to international teams like Austria under Hugo Miesel in the 1920s being one of the first truly modern exponents of the game. Later on you have the likes of Wenger looking at issues like player's diets and then the long ball theorists of the 1980s who looked at the statistical impact of getting the ball quickly in to the opposition's half and calculating the minimium number of passes to create a goal. I think that the whole Moneyball thing in the 1990s has radically changed the game and the use of computer software has seen all aspects of the game take on statistical importance. I can see a point in the not-so-distant future where team's stature and the perceived idea of one club being bigger or having more heritage than another being replaced by teams being recognised where the clubs have a better grasp of sports science. I understand that the demise of Liverpool in the 1990s has been attributed tyo the inability to embrace sports science but ascribing sports science to modernity could be an interesting way of ranking football teams in the 21st century.
Everton: Turnover £126m, Matchday income £18m Saints : Turnover £114m, Matchday income £18m Crowd size can be misleading Sunderland have attendances higher than Chelsea, but make a small fraction of Chelsea's matchday income (Sun £10m, Chel £71m), they also make less than us. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ue-finances-club-by-club-breakdown-david-conn
IMO Manchester City must be getting quite a lot of fans from West Yorkshire now with their attendances up to over 54,000, while some of the home attendances at Leeds slumped below 20,000 on several occasions. Big club, maybe, massive no!!!!
What is wrong with people in Hampshire when they have to go supporting Manchester United and Chelsea for their glory hunting kicks when there is a wonderful club on the doorstep that is a simple train ride from Fareham or Basingstoke?
