Not quite true! Chelsea raided Stoke for Begovic, while many moons ago a certain Louis Zaha went to Manchester United from Palace. And down the years Palace have supplied bigger clubs with their prize assets such as Sansom and Ian Wright.
Raided as in lots of players leaving. One or two leaving is fine. They have been able to build on a group of players season after season, we haven't
If Saints had a huge and expanding fanbase then it would be worth taking the punt but the support is largely confined to Hampshire, Dorset and West Sussex. Added to that Saints have to compete in the area with Chelsea, Manchester United and Barcelona for the affections of footballing affecionados.
We were deemed one of the fastest-growing football brands outside the UK a year ago...last season made us a pretty trendy pick for people (particularly in the US) who were 'adopting' teams but didn't want to jump on a top four club.
Wouldn't hurt financially, though I'm not sure that the tours really make as much difference in terms of exposure as they once did...the people who care get to see us with some regularity on TV, as the overseas coverage is pretty comprehensive. Now, if that attention wasn't a flash in the pan (I have no idea), we'd be well-positioned to look for North American sponsors, however. Big companies are just starting to catch on to how popular the PL is becoming in Canada and the US, and we might be a good opportunity...the other hipster-loved mid-sized clubs (Leicester, increasingly Stoke) already having their branding through their ownership. Now, having typed positively about the concept of branding, I must spend an hour in the shower with a wire brush to feel clean again.
A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and inform the other if there was sex after death. Their biggest fear was that there was no afterlife at all. After a long life together the husband was the first to die. True to his word he made the first contact "Marion .... Marion" "Is that you Bob?" "Yes, I've come back like we agreed." "That's wonderful, what's it like?" "Well, I get up in the morning - I have sex. I have breakfast then it's off to the golf course. I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple more times. Then I have lunch (you'd be proud, plenty of greens). Another romp around the golf course then pretty much have sex for the rest of the afternoon. After supper it's back to the golf course again. Then it's more sex until late at night, I catch some much needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again." "Oh, Bob, are you in heaven?" "No, I'm a rabbit in Arizona!"
No one in the US adopted us, man. I wish they had, but I am still the only Southampton Saints fan I know.
Not saying it is many, but I posted a blog from an American Saints fan recently talking about why he chose Saints. He talked about other fans as well. It had been retweeted by Saints.
I don't disagree with that assessment, but I am okay with it. Schneiderlin was not only an extremely talented player, but he had the benefit of getting first team football at an early age, and progressing in his ability as the team progressed. And not only that, but all those years on Saints also made him extremely comfortable with the club set-up, tactics, players, etc. It would be nearly impossible for someone to come in and replace Schneiderlin right away. For that matter, Clyne improved tremendously during the time we had him as well. I think the club's model is generally correct. Rather than pay 35m pounds to replace exiting players, we pay a third or less than that and bring in younger players who will eventually grow into 35m players. It's the only way a club like Saints can operate. Now, within that general strategy, could we spend a few more bucks to bring in one more expensive, big-name, already at-peak player or to hand out a bigger contract to a player that might convince them to stay? Yeah, there's room for that. But pretty much until the club can start generating much greater revenues, we are in a holding pattern. We are going to have up and down years, hopefully never to the extent of relegations. We will bounce between maybe 7th and 15th and perhaps once a decade get into a European spot.
As I am here in Eastern Canada, but they're out there. It's the reason we got that fastest-growing brand distinction, why NBC ran that little puff-piece documentary about our academy and progress, and why we were the featured game with considerable regularity here in Canada.
I don't want them to throw big bucks at big-name players; I want them to target more of those younger players, but of a higher calibre. Fill the squad out to meet its needs, rather than trying to divide 35m seven ways. Not all will work out, but I don't think that it's coincidental that our signings this year, most of whom were considerably cheaper than those the players brought in a year previous, haven't shown the same quality.
http://www.southampton.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=426099 Vitalfootball's look at Talksports predictions. Latest predictions are a 10th place finish for us...we were predicted to be 7th in November. Now if it can vary by that much after a few games, I would suggest that we should question the accuracy of the predictor.
Great. A bunch of plastic glory hunting US fans. Where was that dude when we were in League One? Seriously though, it's good to know some people are choosing Saints. That Southampton TV special was well-done and I would hope that would attract people to the club. I do know that a lot of people talked to me about it afterwards. It didn't make them convert to Saints fans, but maybe it raised the teams appeal/awareness enough that they get a couple extra live games shown, and that might generate some fans. All of it builds up. But it's still a tough situation. Soccer as a sport is growing in popularity in the US (personally, I think this is because of FIFA Soccer the video game, not because of any clever marketing push). So Saints need to pick up more fans relative to Man. U., Liverpool, Arsenal or it's just kind of keeping the status quo.
I predicted an increase in interest in the beautiful game when I saw years ago that it was being played widely in schools and colleges, especially amongst girls initially. You don't love a game as a child and then give it up....the game remains an interest. I thought then...give it a few years and it will works its way through to adults.
