Do Fans Expect Too Much ?

We critise the players for their get rich mentality and lack of loyalty but are we as bad with our expectations and lack of patience with players and there performances? what is a realistic expectation for a saints fan ? lets be honest we have and always will be a small club ,one FA cup win a 2nd in league at top level once in 125 years, so what is best we can hope for ? mid table premier league playing good football and odd cup run does for me

 

I understand where you are coming from. We were always a small club, and I think the move to St Marys gave us the step up to being a medium sized club. Our fan base is good.

I do think expectations are often too high, particularly in the transfer market when some want millions to be spent when it was only 2 years ago we nearly disappeared.

For me, I am delighted we seem financially secure, well managed off the pitch, a good young manager taking us forward and a team that wins more than it loses.

Happy Days!

 

I wouldn't say we were a small club at all. We are a provincial club and are therefore never going to attract the levels of support that the "big" clubs do. But how many "big" clubs are there? 7 or 8? We certainly stand shoulder to shoulder with any other club. It's also worth noting that we often did very well indeed against these big clubs when we were at the top table, so it could be argued that it was our performances against other "small" clubs that set the tone for our expectations!

Belief is the biggest factor in any sport. Everything about the club at the moment suggests that it believes great things are on the horizon and I wouldn't argue. As to what those great thing will be, well you've got a better chance of achieving them if you believe you will than if you don't! That said, mid-table in Prem with the odd cup run would be a great starting point Oz!

 

first time i went to St Marys i was very emotional as my Dad had died before the move he would have been so proud as supported saints all his life (he went to school with Ted Drake) but call me nostalgic but the Dell holds special memories for me and would love to be able to go back there ,,, but life moves on and am more hopeful of a successful future for the club than i have for years ,same as most fans i should think,,St Marys in a fantastic stadium and was interested in reading chairman talking about expansion in size in future ,am i right in thinking it was designed with option to enlarge at later date ?

 

Just want to pick you up on one small point SiO.........Saints are not now a small club. Granted we are not a huge club but in terms of fan base etc we are listed in the top 20 clubs in the UK. I am told we are in the top 40 in Europe. I have not authenticated that last remark so don't take it as gospel but the top 20 UK can be. Even our friends down the road are listed about 24/25th in the UK. So could you at least change your description of us to a medium size club. As for championships yes you are right although we do have quite a few championships of the then top division in the south pre the great war. That in their day was a good standard as teams like the Arsenal and Tottenham and Fulham were included. However one has to accept that the real nationwide Leagues did not start until after the great war around 1920. Which seem to coincide with the rise of our dear neighbors and our decline. The rest as they say is history

 

I think that the two qualities which the fans should have regarding Saints are ambition and patience. Seems to me that the former is more in evidence than the latter! I do think that our expectations have been raised over the last two seasons though. I can hardly remember the last time someone ended their post with the previously frequent tagline, "but this is Saints we're talking about"
Fans always have an opinion of course. They know more than the ref from 5x the distance and they have a complete understanding of which transfers didn't happen and why, on the basis of hearsay. But when I see how the fans reaction has changed when we go a goal down, from "that's it" to "so we'll score 2", I would rather expect too much than too little.

 

Good point, Beddy. Of course Beddy has an extensive knowledge of all things ancient. In fact, when we wore the sash last season, he was quite nostalgic, as he still has his original replica shirt from the first time around.

 

We are not so much small as unfashionable. Media coverage concentrates on the usual suspects. There are great things going on at Southampton and I would be scarcely surprised if very few journalists are even aware of it. They will only pay attention when they can sensationalize it, such as NC's 'ban' on photographers. We have a large fan base, which will get bigger when we are in the PL, so can support a successful campaign in that league. There's no point anyone getting upset that there will be more fans in the PL..if there was no potential for growth we wouldn't be worth the investment. My hopes are promotion this year, staying clear of relegation next year, and then becoming a team that people consider may get into Europe. The Cups will always be important to a team our size. Nicola would call this lack of ambition as his target is world domination by 2014!

 

Yes You are right Channon.......but you didn't tell them it was your shirt though did you?......

 

To echo others sentiments, there's no way we are a small club now. Just look at the way teams in league 1 raised there game and enjoyed the day out at St Marys, not to mention the attendances albeit we are a club on the up. On the continent, its not unknown for 'smaller' well run clubs to do well in the top leagues. Villareal and Deportivo la Coruna spring to mind, Chievo in Italy although a little while a go.

I think with respect to our expectations, why not dream a little. Every thing is in place at the moment for continued success, think of how many clubs have some niggling problems. We are almost unusual at the moment with the harmony that seems to exist across the layers of the club. When we are promoted (not sure when!) providing successs is maintained interms of team performance, it would be interesting to see if the ground is expanded.

 

Yes.

 

Like someone else said on here,we can match any team apart from the big four to six clubs in england,we have the support and we have terrific training facilities that are going to get better.To me saying what is or is not a big club is a bit old,what does it take to be a big club? support? trophies? stadium? i don't really know,all i know is we are a great club that is going places,who says we can't ever play in the champions league or challenge for cups? you've got to have ambition otherwise it's all pointless,luckily for us we have a chairman who thinks we can achieve these things,i think he has mentioned the champions league as an ambition,it sounds daft and other fans would snigger at the thought but i think it's great that the ambition is there to do it.Who knows how far we can go? there isn't a rule that says southampton can't succeed,just gotta have belief and togetherness which we have right now.

 

Nothing would please me more than us becoming a top winning club but I've always been proud of our history (until Lowe)of being a well run family club,,but big money changes clubs there managers and players and also fans so in some ways I would be happy to stay as we are with the odd challenge in the cup and strive for premiere league security,, to be honest had it not been my love for this club I wouldn't care too much for football nower days,most players are over paid over rated,egotistical ,uneducated foul mouthed and no respect for officials ,,Pele is famous for calling it the beautiful game,,not much of that in evidence ,,although seeing
Wenger squirm in his seat at present is a thing of beauty ,,think he,s the pits

 

But Wenger is a proponent of the beautiful game, their level of football is about as good as it gets in England?

 

We certainly aren't a small club. We are not in the top ten when it comes to size of fan base but there are 92 clubs in the league. We are probably in the top twenty so I'd say we are a medium-large club. How many clubs would have sold over 40,000 tickets for a JPT final? As far as expectations go I was happy with where we were under Strachan. Safe in the league and a cup run or two to set the pulses racing. When we started to drop down the leagues my expectations changed but I knew we would get out of league 1 eventually. The championship is far harder to get out of but with the current progress both on and off the field it is achievable. In terms of players performances I simply expect them to go out and play the game as it should be played and give in 100% effort when they are on the pitch.

 

No, Saints aren't a small club. But for most of their existence they have been. They have been that way because previous owners of Southampton FC haven't had bucketfuls of money which they have been prepared to throw at the club. Plus, there was that family aspect to the ownership that was cosy, but was never going to achieve anything truly earth shattering. And they were content to continue that way. When Guy Askham's board made the first real changes, with the reverse takeover, they made sure they got a stack of money out of it, first and foremost. However, when the new stadium was eventually built, it catapulted Saints into the medium sized bracket. At one point, I believe Saints were listed as a similar sized club to Aston Villa [IIRC, we were considered to have slightly more assets]. The problem [for several investors, owners and some supporters alike] the stadium brought about was, we could never go back to being a cosy little club again.

And this is the thing about Saints. For donkey's years, the potential was wasted by remaining small and not having the ambition and the facilities to cater for a huge catchment area of support. Prat though he was, Rupert Lowe saw that potential, but didn't have the disposable wealth, the connections, or business influence to alter things.. Now all those things, and more, have changed for the better. I do wish Markus was still with us though, for his sake, of course. All this progress is great fun.

 

Do fans want to win their team to win every game? Of course they do.

But if we are being realistic I think most of us are incredibly happy with the way things are going at the moment. After five games, we're 2nd in the league, which if you offered to me at the start of the season I'd've snapped your hand off. The team is playing well, we're still in the Carling Cup. More importantly we've got good foundations: stable finances, money in the bank, a youth academy with a record of producing good players.

A small club? Not on your nelly. Neither are Stoke or Bolton - and whilst they're never going to be challenging for the title, they've been in the Premier League for some time now. Is the Premier League for a reasonable taregt for the Saints? Yes. Do I expect us to go this season? Whilst it would be great, I'm not going to be disappointed if we stabilise in the Championship this season and become a real force to be reckoned with in a few years to come.

 

I don't think any of us expect to see the Saints at the top of the Prem in the near future! As long as we get there soon and make a very good fist of it, then they'll be doing us proud. Course I'll happily be proved wrong and will enjoy the celebrations when we do the quadruple in 20 years time

 

It's harder to challenge the top clubs these days because they have so much money and so much clout, but if we went forward twenty/thirty years I bet there will be some surprises. Leeds were top dog when I was young and no one could have predicted their fall in recent times. Also in the time we were in the top league, ManU got relegated. There is room for a team like us to get promoted and do well.

 

Well I agree with you when you say that we're a small club although we we're quite a big club in the 80's.I disagree with you when you say that we'll always be a small club now what kind of ambition is that?Cortese won't like that talk as he has said before when we get into the premiership we won't be there to struggle we'll be there to compete,then it's European football for us eventually(hopefully),I believe in him why not?other clubs around Europe have managed to get into the champions league like Lyon who were in league 2 then they got a good team together and won league 2 and 1,got a new stadium and now they're a big European team there are many examples.You don't always need money,you need a great spirit within the club and ambition we've got that and the money.“Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the floor.”