VIDEO: Sunday Supplement praise Cortese and Pochettino, and tip club for big things

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/8994201/praise-for-southampton

Good to see, interesting to see them criticising the perception of clubs getting above their station, as it were.


DTLW

 

DLTW, thanks for posting this. Great stuff.

 

I've always agreed with the very last thing that was said.

Fans always complain about the 'predictability' of the Premier League, claiming that it is always the same top 4 every season, but as soon as any 'smaller' club attempts to challenge, they get shot down by any and every fan, and told that they could never challenge the bigger teams. Not sure why this is, maybe because of jealousy from other fans. It is surprising given how the under-dogs are always well supported when it comes to the likes of the FA Cup.

 

It wasn't that long ago Tottenham were languishing at the bottom of the league, before that thing gave it some expensive direction. Now they're thought of as clear top four contenders. If they can do it.....well.....why the hell not?

 

Since you ask, they have a huge budget and an enormous fan base

 

Sure, but the budget wasn't that high when they went up the league. There's nothing but perception to stop us doing this in the next couple of years imho.

We're now 125-1 to be relegated and 18-1 to finish top 4. That's a nice way of looking at the change!

 

Some of our fans are enormous.

 

Cheers DTLW, a great watch!

 

And some even have enormous bases.

 

"...we've had Southampton, absolutely blowing our minds, with the football they're playing," I'm so glad Jean Luc Piccard is a fan.

 

It was only a few months since they were top 6 though. They have always been a massively well supported club. You could argue we had the better of things through the eighties though. Very similar pat to us promotoed from the the second tier and middling until the formation of the Prem seperated the 'have money' teams from the 'don't have' teams. That when we went downward while they went upward.

Still got my fingers crossed on the 150/1 I got for top4

 

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not talking necessarily in an historical sense, I mean recently under Ramos etc when they were seriously struggling before He Who Shall Not Be Named got hold of them. There's a decent precedent for how a team can go from near bottom to near top without a dramatic change in personnel.

 

I was just meaning that the opposite is also true. i.e. the team Jol had finished top 9th, 5th, 5th. Then they sacked him and Ramos failed so they were only away from that 'successful' period for a few months before ***** took over and got them back to where they were.

What should also be said is that pre the season that Jol was sacked the board spent loads on players that Jol 'apparently' didn't want. I say apparently because one of them was Berbatov and he seems to be Jols favourite nowadays

The caveat for us is if we get this team into those top positions that our board/committee don't make that same mistake. I have faith though and am sure that Pochettino has a reasonably high input into the players he wants with the committee then doing the groundwork on getting the deals done.

 

White Hart Lane has less than 4000 capacity than St Mary's, so most of thier income is generated by TV monies. Thier wage bill must be something scary yet they seem a well run club. Getting 90 million for Bale helps alot though. Maybe they can become big boys if they get thier proposed 56000 stadium

 

http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/28/south...-adulation-but-prepare-for-treachery-4164713/

Article commenting on the change in reaction towards Cortese. Anybody else remember Martin Samuel's stinging critique? I'd like to hear his reaciton now...

 

Moved on from there to a review of the Fulham game...loved the comment: This was designated a Family Fun Day...if torturing a beaten timid animal in the presence of your loved ones is fun...yes, it is

 

Hahaha Family Fun with a ruthless, slightly twisted edge!

 

They've not always found it easy to fill White Hart Lane in recent years. They've certainly never had anything like the support of their North London rivals. So they're actually quite a good example of a well run club taking on the established order without an oil rich oligarch emptying his own pockets.

 

Yup, precisely this. As Mauricio says, the sky's the limit.

What a nice feeling it is too!

 

What I find intense is how hard it seems to be to stay up in top four or five. Everyone around us wins every week, more or less, so a couple of draws and losses, and we would drop out of those positions quite quickly. That undoubtedly drives us on to get results, but it is seriously intense - no bad weeks allowed.