Sadly this is very true. We needed investment as we had already started to stagnate. It seemed odd that we would then sell to someone who took half a year to struggle to get the money to buy the club, let alone invest further. Surely we could have done better. Sad times.
Indeed. Though the Liebherr dream frankly began to die before the sale. This didn't happen all at once, and it resembles nothing so much as Newcastle...went from being on the cusp of Champions League to backsliding down the league, and by the time Mike Ashley recognized that there's no such thing as being too big to be relegated, it was too late to paper over the cracks.
I've said before I think the Liebherr dream really died with Markus. Kat wasn't exactly a bad owner but she wasn't really interested. Which is completely understandable, the scale is different but it's probably a bit like inheriting your dad's prized collection of, I dunno... garden gnomes or something.
I never blamed Kat for wanting to sell. Now, it's a slightly different matter that she decided to sit on the asset to maximize her profit, and then sold us to a dodgy businessman who had to jump through hoops to raise the money, and who had to turn state's evidence to avoid prison (or execution).
He probably had to promise the Chinese government that he wouldn’t put a penny more investment into Southampton FC!
-11, +8, +21, +18, -7.... What number comes next Ralph? Or if you prefer it another way.... 49, 54, 54, 59, 41.... Currently on track for -19 & 36. Not good enough.
Or promise to recoup some of the money. The great unknown is where the money to buy the team actually came from: we know that Gao was raising funds via debt, but we don't know if this is because he didn't have the money, or simply didn't have liquidity outside of the Chinese mainland to use. Officially, we have no debt as a club. Unofficially, we might now have 200m that Gao needs to service, if he raised all of the money through debt and doesn't have the ability to cover it personally.
Looked like a pretty empty stadium to me on MOTD. Plenty of empty seats almost an embarrassing amount of them!!!
It was full for most of it, fans started leaving in droves after they equalised. There was only ever going to be one winner after the ineptness pellegrino took off our best player. I don’t blame people for leaving. I stayed, but the second half was atrocious. A fan ran on the pitch at the end to have a go at Bertrand and some other players - that’s how bad it was.
I agree with you. Ralph has been the only one with any realism over the past 2 or 3 seasons with Les and others constantly banging on about breaking the top 6 he has been trying to temper expectations only to be contradicted by those in cloud cuckoo land. This just seems to me to be the next level of realism so no doubt we'll get another Les interview next week saying how this is a blip in our goal of world domination meaning next interview Ralph has to make it even clearer that this is the real world and not fantasy land. Ever since Cortese was "removed" Ralph has had to increase the realism in his interviews seemingly surrounded by others within the club that just can;t accept reality and keep on banging on about Cortese's vision without Cortese there to action it nor with any recollection that Cortese's vision was about to crash and burn anyway as all of his players wanted out the season he was removed only remaining due to promises they could leave in a few months time.
22nd in the world means nothing unless you finish in a Euro spot. Unless we are planning to apply for SerieA and dominate them because of our financial superiority. We are 10th in this league. Not in intranational competition so the world position means nothing.
If I could have a good rant on leadership... As the chairman, we have a man whose sideline gig involves being paid to talk about the importance of leadership and self-belief. Yet he's rarely heard from beyond these vague and often contradictory PR exercises, and he tempers the suggestion that we want to be in Europe on an annual basis with the statement that we're really just a small club. When Ralph drones on about The Southampton Way and our single-minded pursuit of excellence, why should players believe if Ralph seems to be in two minds about our future himself? When he gives one of his rousing dressing room speeches, why should the players buy into his sage words on leadership when he hasn't shown much? As the director of football, we have a man who has angered a few Academy players and their players by attempting to push them to sign on with his son, who is an agent. When he talks about the importance of our Academy to the club, why should prospective scholars listen when he has been willing to jeopardize the Academy in that fashion? When he talks about the importance of commitment to the club as a whole, why should players listen given that he himself put his personal interests first? As the CEO, we...no longer have a CEO. Not sure it matters, but yeah. I'm not saying that everyone involved needs to be fired. But it shouldn't really come as a surprise that we have a lot of mercenary players who aren't buying in to the club as more than a stepping stone when our top-level leadership hasn't exactly shown the commitment they espouse.
I look forward to beating Napoli to the signatures then. The Premier League is the draw, not us being 22nd in the world. We are 10th in the PL yet we can't compete with teams below us in that "rich list" like Everton and who are the team in 21st in that list???? Newcastle. The reality is that we are competing within the PL for the same talent so we are 10th in terms of "richness" yet we will still be outcompeted by teams "below us." The list means sweet F A when all of those in the Prem are in pretty much the same position as us bar a few of the other teams that at present don't have as much draw through either being newly promoted or highly unfashionable.
