Richardson has played a few times, Butterfield has had about 10 games I believe? Rodriguez played a few games, Chaplow has.
Just from the top of my head, teams that have survived after being promoted without having your prerequisite raft of experienced players: Ipswich Bolton Leicester Reading Wigan Bradford Charlton I suspect there are more and yes, they may have signed one or two with that experience but, as has already been pointed out, so have we. So, to reiterate my previous point, being wrong is becoming a bit of a habit isn't it? Anyone would think that you were simply trying to stir things up.
Ah, the 98/99 season. My first ever season of following Saints (and football in general, thanks to the 98 World Cup). Here's hoping Ramirez has the same sort of impact as Pahars did back then (we would have gone down had we not signed Marian, I'm sure), though obviously Ramirez has basically a full season to make an impact unlike Marian. From memory, we went bottom of the table on the second weekend of the season, following that mauling to Charlton (Paul Jones sent-off, Mendonca hat-trick, as I recall...at least our early season mauling this time was to Arsenal, not a newly promoted team!!) and then stayed bottom all the way up until the week before Xmas. For one whole round of games we then moved off the bottom for the first time, so that we weren't bottom on Xmas day, and then immediately fell back to the bottom afterwards again - thus avoiding the old curse of whoever is bottom on Xmas gets relegated (a curse which remained in place every season up until our eventual relegation in 2005, when WBA broke it).
You are right - but a few of us have him and those like him on ignore (something I heartily recommend), and if people don't quote his comments he won't succeed
I have a feeling Ramirez is going to have a big impact. I think I am right in saying that part of the training they do is attack against defence, so the defence will be training against a very potent attack. Surely they can only get better as a result?
Statistics prove that 9 out of 10 = 90%, other statistics are not so positive, and are mostly history.
K.Davis, S.Davis, Cork, Puncheon, Fox and several others have PL experience. If you count foreign top flights too, we also have Fonte, Hooiveld, Ramirez and Mayuka. The experience is there even if they aren't your typical journeymen types. I'm content for them to sign for QPR or West Ham. Last season QPR stayed up on 37 points - a total that would have sent them down the previous season. They cut it unbelievably fine. Playing Championship football with a heap of aging cack on big wages with a 20k seater stadium isn't a good position to be in (just ask the blue few). Nothing is certain in football.
Incidentally, if it adds anything to the debate, we (Norwich) started last season with only one player who had ever tasted Premier League football at all, and that was someone you´ll remember, namely Surman., so I would suggest that experience isn´t the be all and end all.
Often newly promoted clubs splash out on experienced premier league players, if they then go down they often struggle to get rid of these overpaid players because they are then not wanted by other clubs due to excessive wage demands. Think of the problems Saints had financially after a couple of years in the Championship because largely overpaid experienced players underperformed. Yes Saints have struggled in their opening 4 games against Wigan and last seasons top three. The players here now are largely inexperienced at this level but should things not go to plan and we end up going back down then these players have a seasons experience at this level for when Saints then come back up or if they are too big for the Championship then they are all assets to sell on at a good profit.
Absolutely right, and very well said. It amazes me how incredibly short sighted some people are (deliberately maybe). One would have thought if there is one club who would be careful about who they sign, it is us - given what has happened to us over the last 7 years.
