itchen

Interesting to see how people outside the SaintsWeb bubble saw the game: Huddersfield’s winning run ends after Southampton soak up pressure https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/26/huddersfield-town-southampton-premier-league-match-report?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Did you read what you wrote? It was better when the club conducted its business discreetly? Where exactly has the club been indiscreet? It wasn't the club that started discussions with Liverpool. It wasn't the club that put out a public transfer request. But once those actions had happened the club responded by reporting the illegal approach and by restating that VVD is not for sale. What would you have had them do differently?

Well we've seen how bad the Glazier leveraged buy out was for Man Utd. They've barely been able to raise the price of a Paul Pogba and had to look down the back of the sofa to pay Zlatan.

Why are they wearing gloves? In Melbourne?

I'm working in Italy at the moment and asked a Juventus supporter about him. He said that he hasn't really had a run in the side but looks a good player. We should expect him to break up attacks rather than score goals (which is what I think we knew).

But Whispering Dave usually has Saints on top even when we aren't.

It's the Daily Star quoting a Liverpool fan. I feel dirty for clicking on the link.

Fonte, Rodriguez...

I wish they would break away and take Sky with them. Not sure Liverpool would be invited though.

If we had agreed such a deal then I'm sure we would have honoured it. Or do you have evidence that the club lies to players to get them to sign new contracts? Do you think Les had his fingers crossed?

But you're still not talking about investment in any understood meaning of the word. You're talking about a sugar daddy (or sugar corporation) who would put money into buying players with no realistic prospect of ever seeing that money again. They would do this just for the pleasure of seeing Saints break into the top six, or maybe even the top four. Why would anybody do that given it would cost many, many millions of pounds to buy the sort of superstar players required and to pay their over-inflated wages week after week? And if you did find someone, and FFP allowed them to make that "investment", what happens when they get tired of losing all that money or some other misfortune forces them to pull out? We're not going to generate the income required from attendances, mechandising and TV to cover that. You're left with a club with players on unaffordable wages and I think we all know how that ends.

So we need an owner willing to spend their money (on top of the income the club gets from tickets, media and merchandising, because we break even at the moment)? As we have seen from the club down the road, that may work for a couple of seasons. We could sign top, top players, good lads all of them. And it may be sustainable if we're really, really lucky. Or the owner may lose interest, or be caught in some sort of financial wrongdoing. And of course the FFP rules also make it difficult to spend vastly more than you earn. Frankly, I'm happy supporting a club living within its means and trying to grow sustainably. It may be frustrating at times but I'm an adult. I can cope.

Depends how much you charge.

I don't know why I'm bothering but

Who's, you're and the first person pronoun is a capital "I". It's tedious enough reading your repetitive drivel. At least do us the courtesy of using English correctly.

Who's, you're and the first person pronoun is a capital "I". It's tedious enough reading your repetitive drivel. At least do us the courtesy of using English correctly.

I've seen some nonsense on here, really I have, but this exceeds most of it.

"The world's most expensive defender in the world." Sub-editors are a dying breed.

Right, off to the game. See you all later.

He's injured.

Alps, someone's hacked into your account.

I was at the game. We weren't terrible in the first half. We dominated for much of it but just failed to convert our chances (a familiar story). Then they scored and we fell into a bit of disarray. But, after we scored, we got back on track. I thought we were the better side but we did struggle a bit in our penalty area with the constant high balls. A good win where previously we might have crumbled after going a goal down.

As he's not on the bench I assume it's an injury. I'm a big fan of him but he had a dreadful game on Saturday. He spent the whole time moaning at averyone else.

Think you just proved his point.

I think it's more that the Premier League and its clubs make millions from selling the broadcasting rights to Sky, BT etc, who in turn make millions from the mugs who sign up. Once people realise they can see more games free than are available for their subscriptions - as is happening - then the business model begins to look shaky. The point somebody else about lower league attendances being affected by 3:00 games being shown live is also a good one. While football has benefited from Sky's millions in terms of infrastructure, and top players have benefited beyond imagination, it would be good to go back to a simpler age where budgets largely depended on how many people you could attract through the gates.