As the season gets near it's close it's squeaky bum time. West Ham are getting close but the kumb is as vitriolic and arrogant as ever about us. 'Big Sam is useless', 'This is not how West Ham play', 'how can ****ty little Southampton STILL be ahead of us.' Well this is not just annoying it makes us very angry because yes West Ham is a famous team but they've done **** all for years. They are no bigger than us really. They don't have many more trophies to speak of and all we get is 66. Well its 2012 guys. We are irate and are not going to take this **** from West Ham. We are almost equal or maybe even equal to them. How dare they talk about us like this. Then Reading beat us to the title and the dream albeit partially fulfilled from getting to the Prem is still quite bitter. We've not won again. Second best again. Then this season we hear about West Ham fans happy for their club to be stabilised for a while, take the ****e football for a while. Not what they said last year when they were the 'big boys' that deserved to win the Championship. They reach the heady heights of mid table and are very quick to tell us that we have now reached our position. We are where Southampton should be. We are a yo-yo side. We hope Adkins can keep us up. We're still realistic and grounded. We know what our chairman says but we are still realistic about things. If we stay up Adkins will be a god. There are some dark days where we lose to West Brom but the rumour mongers are circling. Adkins is on his last chance. What? This guy is a miracle worker and is achieving our dreams. We lose 2-0 on a cold cold night but 'ONE NIGEL ADKINS' rings out through the away end. We are the proudest most passionate fans in the land at this point. Everyone hears what we chant on TV and thinks WOW these are real fans. Cortese has different ideas though. Yes Adkins has got us to the Prem but he said at the start in L1 that this club would never be relegated, that survival would not be counted as success. Surely that doesn't mean in the Prem. Is he crazy? No we know he is sound. Adkins remains to louder and louder 'ONE NIGEL ADKINS' and the media and other team's fans love us. WOW those Southampton fans are awesome. Then Cortese decides to make a move and sacks Adkins bringing in a little known (to many English fans) manager from Spain. We are open jawed, dismayed, distraught. We have lost our miracle working leader. The man who's positivity made even a bad performance seem OK. The man who we were singing the name of constantly. Cortese Must be crazy, he wants to much. It can't be achieved. Not realistic. WE ARE GOING DOWN NOW. The media and other team's fans hate Cortese more than ever. Who is this prick from Italy. How dare he think you can just waltz in and expect to tear up the Premier League order. We vow to make our voices heard and opinion known but Cortese has been clever. He has made the decision just at the right time. Short enough for no real plans to be arranged for mass disturbance but long enough for many to calm down and accept we are going down. The dream is over. First game with Pochettino in charge, it's Everton, we're going to get battered tonight. the world is watching and it's going to be embarrasing. We dominate them first half, we are looking more like a CL contending side than bottom of the league. Wow what a performance. Best 0-0 ever seen in the Prem is not an exaggerration. We question that maybe Cortese has pulled off another masterstroke but it is far too early to believe that. Just maybe. Beat about the bush I won't we are where we are now. Cortese was right BUT more importantly he has show his hand. Southampton WILL get where he wants it to on his terms and in his timeframe and anyone that fails HIS expectations is doomed. He is not Abramovich throwing money away willy nilly. He has a plan that involves sensible but sizable spending. Not tight but not careless. We are not ambitious enough for him. He is not going to let us accept we are 'little plucky Southampton'. This hard nosed businessman says 'I have no sentiment, this is business, this is what I want, this is when it will be done and how it will be done' Get with the plan or your out. Don't care who you are. This is my baby and you have 2 choices in or out, there is no middle ground, there is no nearly. Achieve what I have said or you're a gonner. So I think you now know why we are angry. We were humble in L1 and we were the big boys there with average gates over 21000. We were humble in the championship until West Ham started to cry and call us names. We aren't taking **** from anyone anymore. We are big boys and our chairman wants us to be even bigger. Those Man U and Chelsea fans can **** right off because we are joining them. We have no reason to believe not other than our continued 'realism'. But Cortese will not take that. He will spend massively in the summer, not the 'few signing' that us realist talk of. He is aiming for Top6 next year not after a period of 'stability'. Everything we doubted so far he has done. he hasn't smile because he has just done his job as he sees it. Why smile. I reached my target. So those West Ham fans that barked on about 'big club this' and little Southampton that can **** right off cos you ain't the famous ones anymore. You have good history and a solid fanbase. We respect your club and it's history but we don't respect anyone from any club that wants to tell us we should be sitting in our place. That we have ideas above our station. We're going to the top and we are doing it the Southampton way, not splashing trillions around a la Man C and Chelsea. We don't need to. We have the England team of the next decade on our books and coming through our academy and we can afford to buy who we want when we want but only if they buy into our vision and pay structure. WATCH THIS ****ING SPACE cos little Southampton is under the control of a genius that is not listening to all the experts or the pundits or anyone else's fans. He listens to himself and measures success on his own expectation. There is no second best, there is no nearly. He will see it as a failure if he doesn't achieve what he says and your board warbling on about us being 100m in debt need to see that WE ARE IN PROFIT. Yay we are in profit even though we are spending loads. Why? Because we don't pay players £50k a week now let alone the Champ. We can pay transfer fees to be spread across our accounts over the contract's years and the contract is relatively cheap. Those stadium plans you've seen That is not pie in the sky. The Academy you've seen? Nearly finished and it is freakingly awesome. FPP - We are fine with that but could do without that as a restriction to our plans. Cortese would never settle for BFS and stability. That is not stability it is stagnation. We progress year on year and do not look back. We push on and try to achieve. Try to improve and at long last us 'plucky little Southampton' fans can shout and have our voices heard. We don't need to take **** from anybody because we mean business. You can say we are just sheep following the words of a mad man but look at what he has said from the start. Look at what has happened from the start. Look at the balance sheets, the profit and loss!!!! This is a model based on Barcelona without the 500m debt. THIS IS THE SOUTHAMPTON WAY. p.s. feel free to post on hammers forums. We don't hate you. We just want some respect.
Oh and remind the kumb of their complaints about atmosphere in the Boleyn after you've heard the St Mary's crowd on Saturday. This will be the loudest Saints crowd ever heard and the internet warriors are going to be thanking the fact their speakers are tinny
Thanks! Got a massive soft spot for Hull, followed you very closely when you were in the prem, hope you make it up
You should. Wigan had quite a bit of success when they first started using a back three, because it took teams a fair amount of time to work out how to attack it...a little tactical innovation can go a long way, if you're more comfortable playing it than teams are playing against it.
I`d rather pay money and watch the Skates and help them out of the mire, than watch Hoofball Hammers - that`s how boring they are. Come to think of it I did it once before in 1976 - then Skates manager Ian St John got Celtic to play a Nottarf Krap in a money spinning friendly when they were on the bones of their arse again. Celtic won 6-1.
My father in law came over last year and I took him to see Lincoln City v Celtic. pre-season friendly of course. He was sceptical at the idea. His team Sporting are in trouble. Foreign clubs struggle to get bums on seats unless they are playing Top4 or Europe. There's only going to be a coulple of hundred watching this pre-season game at £15 a ticket surely. No official attendance was the usual tax dodging lie of about 4500. Celtic brought 3000 and left half as many in pubs or police cells that couldn't get tickets. The place was almost full. Probably 7000, 8000 there. He could not believe it. Opened his eyes to the passion for football in this country. He loved it and tells all his Sporting fans that if they want to see real football supporters with Passion to go to a game in England. We should all be proud of our passion in Britain. We are lucky to have what we have here. Sporting may well go the way Saints, Leeds, Portsmouth have in a few years. All because their country dared to want to host an International football tournament and the clubs thought that they could support semi financing their own new stadia.
