Stoke City - The ideal model for Southampton

With Cortese's ambition to take Southampton back to the Premiership and beyond, I am firmly of the opinion that Stoke City are the model to follow. The club is run very well from top to bottom - the chairman, manager, coaching staff and players are all on the same wave length and have been for a few years now.

They have a similar size fanbase and a similar size stadium to us and they have firmly established themselves in the Premier League having been promoted in 2007/08. They have been getting better steadily over the last 3 or 4 seasons and are able to compete with the 'big boys' of the league really well.

Add to that, the fact that finances are well organised and they never seem to pay silly money for players (Crouch maybe being the exception).

I think we could take a real leaf out of their books for our future progress.

 

Yeh good club to aim to be like,except for the football style.

 

Isnt it the otherway round n there following the saints model as they play in red n white and have a transfer policy of only signing ex saints lol

 

Not just crouch. Palacios and jerome have also been signed this summer, whilst upson and woodgate (despite being free transfers) presumably come on a fairly hefty wage.

I greatly admire how stoke have done in the first part of their premiership plan, but i get the impression that with these signings they have firmly moved things along and that they now have knew targets, aims, and ambitions. It'll be interesting how this all goes for them. Could yet go tits up.

 

We can certainly learn from Stoke fans ability to sing our song better than we can.

 

My boss is a Stoke ST Holder. Nicknamed "the shadow" for his ability of somehow getting away with attending more matches than days he actually works

They are club that has done well to establish them selves in the PL though. If you ignore Delap's long throws and the tough style of play, they do knock the ball about quite well.

 

We don't need to follow anyone,Cortese has set out his own vision and that is what we must follow.

 

This.

 

I'd prefer to be a stable club than a PL club that tries to buy league or cup success and then falls into financial oblivion. After getting promoted it normally takes about three seasons to bed in to the PL and get that stability, so Stoke probably aren't a bad model to follow. PL stability then we can bring in youth through the academy.

 

Cortese must have choked on his cappuccino, there is only one way..the Southampton way.

 

Apologies, Italians never drink cappuccino after mid-morning.

 

Let's hope the Southampton way is more like the Stoke/Sunderland way and not like the Pompey/Leeds way!

 

Agreed, I hate watching Stoke, they seem just a set piece team that lumps it into the box. From a neutral perspective I was disappointed when they signed Crouch because with their squad that's just gonna encourage them more :/

 

If it works for them, let them do it

Its nice to play attractive footy, but if saints started losing and we did hoof ball and started winning again, would we care, its all about the points at the end of the season

 

I'm glad im not the only one who thinks that, them and Spurs wipe the floor with our version.

 

When we are in the PL, they will sound like they are singing for us anyway. Did anyone else sing it when we were in the Premiership?

 

Stoke have debts around the £6m mark at the end of 09/10 season. Sunderland's debt is ten times that much. However both clubs have wealth backers which help.

 

Just think, in a few years, we could be losing 4-0 to Sunderland aswell.

 

Liverpool definetly did, Spurs did and still do a wonderful version and i'd imagine most teams that were playing pompey.

 

Well, they won't be playing Pompey any time soon