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do you want promotion?


sotonian

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Whilst I can't disagree about wanting to be in The League, which is the only one that exists as far as Sky and many others are concerned...

 

I think this is a bit harsh on Sky

 

They do show live games from Championship, League 1 and even League 2. Sure this coverage is nothing compared to their Premiership coverage; but standing back and looking at it objectively, the lower leagues have never in their history had the sort of coverage they are getting now.

 

Also BBC 1's Saturday Night FL show is amazing in comparison to just getting MOTD showing the top division, which is all we had for decades.

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I think this is a bit harsh on Sky

 

They do show live games from Championship, League 1 and even League 2. Sure this coverage is nothing compared to their Premiership coverage; but standing back and looking at it objectively, the lower leagues have never in their history had the sort of coverage they are getting now.

 

Also BBC 1's Saturday Night FL show is amazing in comparison to just getting MOTD showing the top division, which is all we had for decades.

 

Agreed Sky show lower league games. I may be wrong, but don't they have to show these as part of their deal to show Prem? It's the massive coverage of even the most trivial bit of Prem gossip and speculation over coverage of real news from the other divisions that drives me mad.

 

And you're totally right about BBC.

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No, I said surely fans would want us to compete as the highest level and achieve the best we can. We, as fans, can't directly do that like the players and management can but we support them and what they are trying to achieve. If your only consideration is the price of a ticket then I fear you should support Bournemouth after all, their Chairman tells their fans who want more to support Saints!

 

The 'cost' of going up wasn't about ticket prices but about the good things from lower league football that we will miss out on.

Edited by Fan The Flames
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I play football on a Friday night in Kent and the non-prem fans outweigh the prem fans by about 2 or 3 to 1. Amoungst the ood Arsenal and Chelsea fans and the ****in southern Man U fans, there are two or three each of Palace, Gillingham, Charlton and then there is West Ham, Leeds, Forest, Leicester, Saints and Oxford and Im probably missing a few. The pint afterwards is dominated by Championship talk it's great.

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Thanks for that. Very good of you to assume budgetry control of the club based on the owners wealth. Yes it is a factor, but, again, just because our owners have billions does not mean that the budget will run to that. I know it's difficult to understand - but if they were going to give us the same backing as the billionaires at say Chelsea or Man City, then you would probably have seen just a little more activity in the transfer market this season. Hence making us much bolder this season, perhaps.

 

I have not said that the situation will be the same as the last time that we were in the top flight, but neither do I think that (in my lifetime) we will be serious contenders to winning it. All I have pointed out is that many have tried, well about 40 to be honest, but most have failed, many have come nowhere near to winning the league. There is little competitivness to the overall aim of a league system i.e. to finish top.

 

As a result, and largely because of financial gain, most teams that make up the league are there not to challenge for the ultimate prize - but to take the biggest wedge that they can. But then again, what do I know, I don't have the faintest idea.

 

I don't for one moment think we will do a Man City or Chelsea, but you don't need to spend billions aim for Europe, as Stoke and Fulham have proved.

 

With a well run club and modest investment we could be knocking on the Europa door EASILY.

 

The lack of ambition in some Saints fans is astounding. THank god we have someone like COrtese running the club instead of some hobbit like Sotonian.

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I don't for one moment think we will do a Man City or Chelsea, but you don't need to spend billions aim for Europe, as Stoke and Fulham have proved.

 

With a well run club and modest investment we could be knocking on the Europa door EASILY.

 

The lack of ambition in some Saints fans is astounding. THank god we have someone like COrtese running the club instead of some hobbit like Sotonian.

 

So basically you agree with me, we could occasionally 'knock on the door' ala the two clubs you mention - what chance have either Fulham or Stoke of winning the Premier League Title?

 

No lack of ambition here, as you like to call it - just a realisation of true expectations.

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When prices get up to £40+ i may decided that top flight football is not for me. If we were challenging for the champions league (which we wont be but thats another arguement) then i would go. But i take pleasure from seeing Saints win, the idea of paying £40+ a week seeing Saints most weeks hoping to scrape a draw or catch a team on a bad day and get an unlikely win, to spend a whole season where staying up is considered success just doesn't do it for me. The standard of football might be better but the standard of my enjoyment would be worse, because i wouldn't be seeing us win as much.

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So basically you agree with me, we could occasionally 'knock on the door' ala the two clubs you mention - what chance have either Fulham or Stoke of winning the Premier League Title?

 

No lack of ambition here, as you like to call it - just a realisation of true expectations.

 

The opening post said staying up would be our only realistic aim, I was the one pointing out that European football would be the aim.

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I don't for one moment think we will do a Man City or Chelsea, but you don't need to spend billions aim for Europe, as Stoke and Fulham have proved.

 

With a well run club and modest investment we could be knocking on the Europa door EASILY.

 

The lack of ambition in some Saints fans is astounding. THank god we have someone like COrtese running the club instead of some hobbit like Sotonian.

 

You can get into europa without being in the PL all we need to do is win a cup (or even just get to the final). How about saints buck the trend and play a super strong team in the carling cup every round ....................well maybe not but the point is if europa was the clubs aim we could that from the championship.

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These sort of threads come up every season my response is always the same. On a personal level I hate the PL, bunch of overpaid players, playing overhyped football, MOTD creaming themselves over Man U every week, the same old clubs in the top 4/5 places The PL is a gaint pus filled boil on the arse of English football................

 

But any club that wants to get anywhere in English football these days has to be in the PL which means Saints will need to be. It will probably mean an end to my season ticket mind.

 

I'd be f**king livid if we got promoted to the best league in the world. Livid.

 

So will I away matches in Spain every other week would cost a fortune.............

 

MOTD (and journalists etc) "cream" themselves over Man Utd because they play the best football and win the most games. Pretty simple concept.

 

I see you are talking simply from a selfish point of view that you won't be able to afford a season ticket when in the prem however (calling you selfish might be a big harsh of course, as the price will rise and people will unfortunately be priced out of the market, which is never good for the average fan.

 

But I presume you are joking with your Spain comment, as apart from the games with Barcelona/Real Madrid, their league does not compare with the Prem. Sure they have some decent individuals, and some of their other teams are mildly competitive, but you can't complain that the Prem league is predicatable, and the "same old club in the top 4/5 places" and then in your next post say that La Liga is a better league! They only ever have one of two winners!

 

I wonder if fans of teams in the 2nd division in Spain have this problem too, and do not want to get promoted to La Liga as they know they won't be able to win it. No, I doubt it.

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MOTD (and journalists etc) "cream" themselves over Man Utd because they play the best football and win the most games. Pretty simple concept.

 

I see you are talking simply from a selfish point of view that you won't be able to afford a season ticket when in the prem however (calling you selfish might be a big harsh of course, as the price will rise and people will unfortunately be priced out of the market, which is never good for the average fan.

 

But I presume you are joking with your Spain comment, as apart from the games with Barcelona/Real Madrid, their league does not compare with the Prem. Sure they have some decent individuals, and some of their other teams are mildly competitive, but you can't complain that the Prem league is predicatable, and the "same old club in the top 4/5 places" and then in your next post say that La Liga is a better league! They only ever have one of two winners!

 

I wonder if fans of teams in the 2nd division in Spain have this problem too, and do not want to get promoted to La Liga as they know they won't be able to win it. No, I doubt it.

 

 

The Spain bit was a Joke...:facepalm:

 

Yes I said my dislike of the PL was personal (selfish if you like).......Football clubs have to aim for the PL they can't afford not to now most of the money is concentrated in one small area of English football............

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Yes we must strive for promotion for all good reasons. I do look at some of the struggling teams line ups in terms of players, compare them with ours and have a little concern.

 

However I think it has been shown financially it is better to be promoted then relegated as long as you get promoted again afterwards but I do not think I could bear relegation from the Prem again. My neighbours in the Kingsland still remind me of my hilarious stand up rants at Claus and others when we conceded yet another soft goal so much so that the steward had to ask me to sit down. :lol:

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Strange question - can't believe some would prefer not to go up, doesn't say much of their own ambition for the club. What if life in the premiership meant a strong top 10 side and weekly gates at full capacity?

 

I'm a fan I don't really need ambition (that's the clubs job) my desire is to go with my son and watch saints play a good game of football (ideally winning) at 3.00 pm on a saturday afternoon (with the odd evening game for good measure). Ideally I want to do this as a cheaply as possible. I would prefer not to go up for theses reasons. The problem is I fully understand that for the clubs sake this can't happen they like every other club need to be on the PL gravy train or the club will suffer (also if the team play good football and win alot they will go up anyway).

 

Anyway you talk about ambition and then say what if we could be top 10.........

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Strange question - can't believe some would prefer not to go up, doesn't say much of their own ambition for the club. What if life in the premiership meant a strong top 10 side and weekly gates at full capacity?

 

Let's wave a magic stick - Saints to get promoted this year, and to spend the money necesary to start next season in the Premier League with a competetive squad - what level of pricing would give 'weekly gates at full capacity?'

 

I don't think we would 'sell out weekly' at prices above £35; I don't think the club will offer us Prem Lge football at less than £35 a pop.

 

QED we won't be 'selling out' every game we play in the Prem?

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really simple question, but as someone else said, very difficult to answer.

I loved turning over the big boys in the late 60's and 70's , we then became a big boy for the early 80's , struggled most of the time in the 90's.

until Marcus came along the club and football was sh*t between 2003 and 2009.Last 2 years we have probably won more games than any other 2 year period since i started watching in 61.

I hate the corporate nature of the premiership and the type of Saints "fans" it will attract but for the sake of my two sons(23 and 16) i want to be back in the top flight, turning over the big boys again

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No. The Premiership is a joke. Utter ****e. I'd rather that there was no Promotion from the Championship and that the winners got a place in the UEFA cup.

Really good point. That it is most unlikely is no reason not to discuss it. For the Football League to cut itself off from the Prem has a lot going for it, and since about half the clubs playing in the Prem at any time are really Football League clubs being used as cannon fodder, they should pull out as well. If the few ultra rich clubs were cut adrift the rest of the game, it would be very much healthier.

 

As for Saints joining the ultra rich because we are owned by billionaires, its hard to believe this will happen, despite Cortese's original statements about ambition when Marcus was alive. If we get promoted this year we would need to spend massively to be at the Liverpool, Spurs level and still way off the Chelsea, Manchester and even Arsenal level. Since we haven't even spent the Chamberlain money to make promotion a greater certainty this year, it doesn't feel realistic to expect that sort of spending. Its not as if we have owners who are watching the matches and taking a close interest like the high profile ones do.

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Of course I want us back in the top flight, but the cost will mean I don't go very often. High ticket prices were just about affordable a few years back, but the travel costs are too much now and when you factor in booking fees it's past a joke.

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Let's wave a magic stick - Saints to get promoted this year, and to spend the money necesary to start next season in the Premier League with a competetive squad - what level of pricing would give 'weekly gates at full capacity?'

 

I don't think we would 'sell out weekly' at prices above £35; I don't think the club will offer us Prem Lge football at less than £35 a pop.

 

QED we won't be 'selling out' every game we play in the Prem?

 

ha ha , QED? you're a clever boy aren't you - ok maybe not every game, but a much higher average gate than we have now.

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I'm a fan I don't really need ambition (that's the clubs job) my desire is to go with my son and watch saints play a good game of football (ideally winning) at 3.00 pm on a saturday afternoon (with the odd evening game for good measure). Ideally I want to do this as a cheaply as possible. I would prefer not to go up for theses reasons. The problem is I fully understand that for the clubs sake this can't happen they like every other club need to be on the PL gravy train or the club will suffer (also if the team play good football and win alot they will go up anyway).

 

Anyway you talk about ambition and then say what if we could be top 10.........

 

So relegation back to L1 would be you're ambition for the club? You must have been gutted when we got promoted with all those expensive ticket prices it has brought us.

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So relegation back to L1 would be you're ambition for the club? You must have been gutted when we got promoted with all those expensive ticket prices it has brought us.

 

Er no as I said I don't do ambition one way or another not my job that belongs to NC. If our little stint in league one has shown me anything it's I enjoy watching saints play (and hopefully win) the opposition is relatively unimportant as such for me personally which league we're in isn't overly important. Would you stop going to watch saints if we were in the conference? no thought not.

 

Also I actually payed less this season for my season tickets than last season thanks to the kids under 11 going free...................

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Of course I want promotion, the last thing I'd want is for us to stagnate in this league (like coventry). I'm sure their fans are loving it in this league.

 

Let's have some ambition in the fanbase!

 

Thats the exact problem I hate the PL (personally) but no club can afford not to get there if they want to keep moving forward becuase of the money involved.

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FFS, I'm sick with this obsession of being in the Championship. Yes, at this moment in time we stand a good chance of winning more than we lose; yet, if we stand still and "consolidate" like some people want for us to do then we will lose Fonte, Lallana, Lambert and Cork.

 

If we accept mediocrity than eventually that's what will get. Then stagnation follows - and that'll be mirrored throughout the team with the replacements we'd have to find for our better players. The disruption losing them will cause no-end of hassle.

 

The sooner we go up, the better chance we have of keeping our best players. And if we do go up and get relegated, we go down with £60m in the bank - much more than if we'd sat around in the Championship for a couple of seasons making up the numbers. Even promotion and subsequent relegation would leave us in a far better position than Mid-table/mid-table.

 

Besides, as fun as it's been sometimes, I think we've done our time in the lower leagues and most definitely learned some valuable lessons.

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FFS, I'm sick with this obsession of being in the Championship. Yes, at this moment in time we stand a good chance of winning more than we lose; yet, if we stand still and "consolidate" like some people want for us to do then we will lose Fonte, Lallana, Lambert and Cork.

 

Calm down; barely anyone agrees with the OP that they'd prefer to stay in this division rather than gain promotion.

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I haven't read any of this thread, because I assume it has to be ******. I want Saints to win every single game they play. If they do that, well, the Prem, Europe, and all the rest just kinda happens on auto pilot Duh!

 

If you want Saints to stay in this division, then logically, you want them to lose more than a few games. That's just weird.

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I want to win this league but I'm not in the slightest bit bothered about the prem.

 

It's an uncompetitive, plastic, greedy, removed from reality, kick off at lord knows when, totally overhyped, lose most weekends, dysfunctional circus of a league.

 

If Man U\C, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool were to bugger off to a European league then the premm would become much more competitive but at the moment it's an annual procession.

 

Where's the fun in that?

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The Times Fink Tank has us as red hot favourites for automatic promotion...

 

Southampton 64%

Middlesboro 36%

West Ham 35%

Cardiff 18%

Brighton 10%

Reading 9%

Birmingham 8%

Leicester 6%

Blackpool 5%

Leeds 3%

Nottm Forest 1%

Hull 1%

Millwall 1%

Watford 1%

Peterboro 1%

Burnley 1%

C Palace 0%

Derby 0%

Portsmouth 0%

Ipswich 0%

Coventry 0%

Bristol City 0%

Barnsely 0%

Doncaster 0%

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FFS, I'm sick with this obsession of being in the Championship. Yes, at this moment in time we stand a good chance of winning more than we lose; yet, if we stand still and "consolidate" like some people want for us to do then we will lose Fonte, Lallana, Lambert and Cork.

 

If we accept mediocrity than eventually that's what will get. Then stagnation follows - and that'll be mirrored throughout the team with the replacements we'd have to find for our better players. The disruption losing them will cause no-end of hassle.

 

The sooner we go up, the better chance we have of keeping our best players. And if we do go up and get relegated, we go down with £60m in the bank - much more than if we'd sat around in the Championship for a couple of seasons making up the numbers. Even promotion and subsequent relegation would leave us in a far better position than Mid-table/mid-table.

 

Besides, as fun as it's been sometimes, I think we've done our time in the lower leagues and most definitely learned some valuable lessons.

 

^^This^^

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My support for Saints is not dependent or conditional of what division they are playing in. I started supporting them in the second tier and am as happy then as I was in the 80s, 90s, 00s and today.

 

What people get out of supporting Saints is up to them and I have to chuckle at some of the more rabid posters on here telling others what they should be getting out of their experience.

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first time ive been back on here since i did the original post, some great comments, i think we all want the best for our club, the structure of the club, is probably ready i think promotion is immanent if not this year it will be in the next couple of years, it just may be a step which does price some of our real fans out of going, but i guess there will be plenty of plastics to take there place,

 

im still not sure if the premiership will improve the overall match day experience, but i'll be there regardless

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The dichotomy is the same as running a junior club in mini soccer or tyro. Do you run a community club, let everyone have a game and lose your best players, or do you run a winning side, play good football and attract the best players and leave those who may have started the club behind?

 

I enjoy the winning and playing well to the winning and boring football under Strachan. Here is to the former when we get promoted. :)

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