Saint George

You couldn't be more wrong about that if you tried......One of the very reasons the Bundesliga is quietly creeping up on Premier League popularity is the phenomenal atmosphere generated at most games. The Premier League doesn't have a god given right to be the most popular soccer league in the world and if doesn't do something to resolve the current sterile atmospheres soon, the TV money will start to shift elsewhere. It'll not only lose its crown to the Germans, but will eventually become about as relevant as the Scandinavian leagues. Hell, even the MLS over here is starting to put the EPL in the shade when it comes to atmosphere and spectacle

Go **** your self...I was a Saints fan before the kiddies crayoning competition winning entry was thrust on us....Wasn't to keen on it back then and every 'tweak' it's had since has made it look more and more tin pot....It ****ing makes my eye's bleed it truly does.

Interesting that Veho, a lifestyle company who deals in 'cool' are going with last years classy monotone club badge rather than the multi colored puke stain that Wreck it Ralph reintroduced this year.

There is a way to solve at least some of the problem. Football in Europe has never been the same since the Bosman ruling.....But there is a simple way to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Just limit the number of transfers a Club can make in a year. With say a 3 player a year transfer limit, The big Clubs would no longer be able to hoover up all the available talent and would have to start looking more to their own academies to fill their squads. With less clubs buying, Clubs like Southampton get to hold on to their talent at least a year or two longer

'fraid i can never support incompetence....never have, never will. Ronald Koeman has my support, he's the only soul at the club with an ounce of leadership quality. I just hope he's strong enough to drag it in the right direction, despite the fools who have found themselves at the helm for no other reason than being at the right place at the right time.

Good luck with that with those god awful cheap and tacky stripes.

Put me down for this being Gaston's year if he stays.

He said the Club's aim was to continue improvement on the previous 2 seasons, then mentioned 7th, 8th or 9th place as a no no and wouldn't really be an improvement.......So you can deduce from that we're aiming for a top 6 finish.

Ah, so you have a couple of friends in a country of 300 million and from that you think you understand the the heartbeat of a Nation? Silly boy

LOL...Thanks for proving my point...Chivas USA, the one team in the MLS that plays in red and white stripes has by far the lowest support. So bad in fact, there's talk of taking some pretty drastic action.

The fact that half our players are off to Champions League quality teams and most of the rest are internationals show's it wasn't such a "crazy, unrealistic dream"......We had a first team that was good enough for 3rd half way through the season. Unlike our sad fan base, that team believed and proved they were good enough......Add 4 or 5 more quality players over a couple of years and anything was possible. But now we have Ralf and stripes and back to out traditional level of "reality" and everything is wonderful with the fan base. Our only hope now, is that Koeman can rise above the incompetence of the board and make things happen in spite of them....If he can't then it's goodbye Premier League for sure.

Not trolling at all......The club have said they want to tap into the growing North American and other international markets and last year was a good start, there was certainly more than a little interest in Saints and we picked up a few new fans.....But i can tell you this for sure....It aint gunna happen looking like TFI Fridays. It's no coincidence that teams in red and white candy stripes have next to no support over here or pretty much anywhere out side their own local catchment area...even teams like Fulham, Swansea and even the skates have non local support that dwarf all the red and white striped teams put together. Saints fans may like it because they feel it's traditional and that's what they're used to....But the cold hard truth is, to the neutral with no ties to the City and who's looking for a team to support, it's gash. Cortese understood this and was prepared to brake with tradition to help the growth of the Club.....Ralph on the other hand......well....

How to stunt the potential for expanding the fan base overnight. Stuck in a tin pot with you.

If it's anything like it is over here then the tax payer will be paying for 30 - 50% of it in green energy incentives

The fact he was still up at 3am the morning of a game goes a little way to explaining why England were the ****iest team of the tournament by a country mile.

Good riddance to the donkeys in white......A bad stain on what has otherwise been an awesome World Cup.

Yup....That's exactly why i said "anyone else from the Bielsa 'stable'"......Good to see reading comprehension is up to its usual high standard on Saintsweb.

Hmmm...Maybe someone should tell him that's the way we've been playing for the last 18 months.....and the very same reason i would rather have seen Jorge Sampaoli or anyone else from the Bielsa stable get the job at Saints.....Really think we've missed a trick here, but onwards and upwards

Not always.....In fact on many Commercial projects, existing utilities cant cope with the increased demand and need to completely replaced with new anyway

Who said anything about it ever being "League One standard"....Are you seriously suggesting the Club should have taken a 30m punt on a training ground while we were in League One based purely on "plan" to get to the prem in 5 years?....I guess you are...I'll leave it there.

Lemme help clear up some of the ignorant bull**** from some of the Cortese haters here. The training ground would have been constructed under a JCT contract, probably JCT05 or possibly JCT11, either way under a JCT contract it's pretty much much impossible to run up the sort of overspend on overheads alone that Turks, Buctootum etc. are alluding too. The 'Prelims' are submitted during the tender period agreed in advance as part of the contract and short of physically ripping work out and starting again will be what the Contractor will receive for delays etc. On a 15m Contract this would be in the low thousands per week of claimed and proven delay. Contracts just don't get signed if a Contractors Prelim figure is so high to account for the sort of overhead overspend that the blinkered are making out. The bottom line is, with additional design fees and contractors prelims we probably spent around 1 - 2mil more then we would have done if the final design had been built from scratch and that's comfortably mitigated by the rapidly changing and improving circumstances the Club found it's self in during that time. The easy decision would have been to have left the original design that was put together in league one alone...The brave and once again correct decision was to seize the opportunity while it was available and provide us with the facilities worthy of a top 10 premier league Club

Strip everything else away and it's still 11 men kicking a ball about on a field for 38 games. With good tactics, preparation and belief, anything is possible.....The regularity that well organized smaller Clubs give the big boys a bloody nose in European competitions proves it. Something Saints under Cortese's watch was well in tune with.

Hey, a fiver's a fiver

No it's not....What we're seeing at the moment is down to the Board Room changes...Nothing else. Plenty of other Clubs have been in 8th place and not been asset stripped.... The simple fact is, the environment and goals that existed under Cortese are no longer there.....This has led to players looking elsewhere for a similar working environment. It's no different to anyone else in any job when their employment structure drastically changes...especially peeps who are top of their field.....You don't like what's happening at the company you work for, you move.

The 32-year-old was the subject of a bid of £4m plus add-ons on Thursday by Liverpool, who became aware of the Kirkby-born player’s availability during their inquiries for Lallana and the Croatian central defender Lovren. So Liverpool come knocking for Lallana and Lovren and we say yeah no problem, and hey take Lambert as well......Anyone else you want while you're here?.....Knock down sale prices too....everything must go! Ralph Krueger....There to do Kat's dirty work...Something Cortese refused to do