Saints are back in the Premier League - how are you feeling? DS: I feel amazing. I'm so blessed to be part of the Southampton story. Obviously, I don't know that much football, but I'm trying to help with my experience, my knowledge and my energy. I found that with Russell Martin, with the players, with the board and even with all the fans, we can all share this kind of passion. Saints, I did a lot of research, and everything I learned about Saints was so special. They are completely, I know, I'm a kid born in communist Yugoslavia who made his way into the world, and I love that they are fighting for what they want. They are fighting for their success. They are passionate, but also they are family club with beautiful supporters and I share their passion 100 per cent. Now you're in the Premier League, the thing is that you have to stay there? DS: Honestly, it's a 10-year plan, 10-year project, and we are just at the beginning. I'm glad that we had this sporting success. We'll try to capitalize on it, but we'll continue working on our long-term projects to make Saints a real, stable, forever Premier League club. For that, we need to do a lot with the enlargement of the stadium, with the enlargement of our commercial capacities, with many things we have to do. We are going to play with the biggest boys there are, and we are not afraid to play, but also I want to somehow provide the club the basis to be rightfully there. You know, you can always have a luck with one generation of great players. It can last for three or four years. You can make good money if you let them go somewhere else. But what we want to do is to create a real basis that Saints should rightfully think they're a Premier League club and actually aim for even more. Dragan, is it now so important to spend within your limitations? DS: I think that's super important because that gives some fairness to the whole game of sport and game of football. Obviously, we will look into our abilities. We'll try to spend to the maximum we can, but also we try to spend wisely. We'll try to continue developing young players, but also we also learned one thing. You cannot just have young players and focus on only player development. You need the leaders on the pitch. You need personalities who are able in games like this to find this 110 percent and to win the game. And you need a good owner. How do you describe yourself as an owner? Tonight, I'm a very happy owner, but most of the time, people, it's very funny, people ask me because we had some not so happy moments. Everybody asked me, what do you think now about your investment? And I always say, I really love it. And I can tell anybody, as long as you can afford it, it's a wonderful thing. But unfortunately, you have to be able to afford it. My day business is still going pretty well. So I'll try to help the Saints! But again, I think we have to stay within the smart environment of financial fair play and try to do most with the money that we put in. We don't just throw money in a basically careless way. Dragan, welcome back to the Premier League! DS: Thank you so much. It is so good. I told the guys from Championship, I really enjoyed the season. I think it's a great competition. I love the competition. I had so much fun. But obviously, I'm so happy we are back to Premier League. But I really love the Championship as well. I think it's a bunch of unbelievable clubs and it's always a great weekend.
10 year plan & not the Cortese 5 yr. I actually like the sound of that as it indicates he’s here for a very long run. Nice.
It was also nice to read the bit about recognising they'd made a mistake with just recruiting youth and the need for leaders. Indicates to me that a) the leadership understands there needs to be a balance to the side and b) they recognise they make mistakes and learn from them. Very encouraging.
If my warm fuzzy feeling inside couldn’t get any better, he says all of this. We had desire, now we are freed from desire. Nanananananananananananananananananana
