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Will promotion to hte Prem be all that??


washsaint

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Whilst now is a good time to be a Saints fan and chasing 2nd promotion in successive seasons I can't help feeling that promotion to the Prem will mean we are in the 'promised land'.

 

The Premier League is not as exciting as the Championship (where anyone can beat anyone else on a given day) and despite not being able to see games now going into every game thinking we can win is a good feeling. That will disapear completely in the Prem.

 

When living in the UK and being a season ticket holder for 15+ years I have to say most prem games bored me to tears and the prem is all style (money et al) over substance.

 

PLus the prices to see games will go through the roof and price out families and lower paid and we'll end up with the missing 1,000s fighting over tickets just because we are in the Prem.

 

To my mind, it's Hobsons choice.....whilst getting to the Prem is the goal of any team and its fans, the reality once there is unlikely to live up to the expectation......if we're safe the last half of the season will be meaningless and there is really no chance of us chalenging in the Prem. PLus teams are so scared of losing that games can be very defensive and not the most exciting to view.

 

Anyone else feel the same?

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Have some ambition fella!

 

The longer we stay down here, we'll continue to see our best players go out the door 1 by 1.

 

We need to get up to have the opertunity to build an exciting team, which I think we're capable of doing.

 

Look at what Norwich and Swansea have achived, if we made it and did as well as them I'd be bloody loving it.

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You don't play a game to be second. That's all.

 

Bingo. Nobody strives for second best. We want promotion to the Prem. When we're there, we will strive to establish ourselves there. Once done, we'll strive to be a top-half Prem team. Then we'll strive to be a top-five team.

 

Nobody is saying this will be easy, nobody is saying it's possible, but it's not impossible so that's what we'll strive for.

 

The day we stop striving to be better than we are and achieve greater things, is the day I stop supporting SFC.

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What's the point in football if you don't want to play at the highest level?

 

It all comes down to that.

 

Just hopefully we are realistic enough to accept that we cannot go into every game expecting a win next year. (IF we go up, BIG if.)

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NC wants us to have a chance of a crack at the Champions League - I can live with that, after all, I expect he'd hate for Pardew to be getting the better of us on a regular basis. Being up in the top half of the Premier League would be pretty exciting - but not at any price, and there's the conundrum - what is a fair price for top level football?

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Personally I am not bothered about being in the Holy Grail that is the 'Premier League'. I do however want to win the Championship title as we have never won this division and for a club of our size that is something that needs to be put right.

 

There is also the fact we finished 2nd in League 1 last year but we were by far the best team in the division and had we have not been playing catch up Brighton would have choked if we could have exerted some pressure.

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Of course we should be aiming to get to and compete at the highest level. But it is a weird one; I've deifnitely had more fun at games in the Championship and League 1 rather than when we were in the Premier League, and have been to comparitively far more games since our relegation from the top flight.

 

But the aim is always promotion. It would actually be different to see a Saints team in the top flight giving it a good go. So many times in the PL we took a very pragmatic approach; and had a team of work-hards rather than a team who could outplay others. Adkins doesn't strike me as being too safety-first, so perhaps a PL Southampton under his stewardship would give us somehting we haven't seen for a while.

 

Of course, we have to get there first....

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got to go up, to keep the momentum and to keep the likes of Lallana and Shaw, but I am not looking forward to £40+ ticket prices. Those pointing to Norwich and Swansea should consider the plight of Derby County and others that have come up and quickly gone back down again. Not sure their experience of the Prem was quite as good. If we play like we have over the last few weeks we'd be slaughtered. Play like we did at the start if the season and we'd thrive.

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People have said this to me but having your team in the prem is a amazing feeling as we all know, now with coverage been so focused on the prem at least the games we cant make we can get decent highlights of.

 

Also ok our aim will be staying up but with our youth production why cant we become a decent team one day ? we have a chairman who has proven he will demand top money for our best players now, i know its all IFS and Buts but if we had always been in the prem and kept players like Walcott and Bale we would be a top 6/7 team, and also if we sold them for more upfront money we would of never got in money problems like we did, if NC can get 12 mill upfront for a player with only league one experience imagine how much he is going to want for the next AOC that comes through our ranks, 15mill min plus add ons at least and with the fair play rules coming in teams spending will drop and more focus on producing talent is going to be the key, we have one of the best youth production in europe, with players like Bale Walcott AOC Dyer all performing well in the premiership.

 

I say if we can finish 16th or 15th if we are in the prem next season, as well as getting our young players league one/ championship experience on loan, players like Stephens martin Ward Prowse Luke Shaw Jake Sinclair and Bart, then next season we can get mid table and stay there for a while 3/4 years and hope for some luck in the cup and that Lallana MS and Cork have progressed even more and now top class prem players and hopefully we would of blooded through a few decent talents from the under 18s/21s who are decent young prem players.

 

Jesus longest post ive ever done, not everyone will see it from my view but i honestly think this can be done.

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Theres bound to be a hike in ticket prices if we go up, (and I'm probably alone in not counting our chickens yet in that regard, theres a way to go yet,) but didnt Cortese suggest that if we did, the capacity would be extended to 45000? Surely the extra crowd would mitigate the need for massive price rises?

 

As for the OP, part of me agrees wholeheartedly. But... if we dont go up, how many more seasons are the chairman and owners going to stick with the project? The five-year plan didnt say anything about sticking around the lower divisions for a while because its more fun that way. They bought a club to turn into a prem outfit, cant see them being satisfied with anything less tbh.

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I really don't want to have to explain this again, but it does look as if I might have to.

 

Yes, we won't win as many games in the Premier League. What's more, we're very unlikely to win it. However, whilst NC has ambition, as do I. It'd be fantastic if we could be that team that breaks the mould and instead of buying success, nurtures it.

 

More to the point though, if we don't go up we'll lose our best players and get almost nothing except the transfer fees anyway. If we do go up, we keep them and get £60m - and another £60m for a second season. If we go up and come straight back down, we lose the players but we get £60m to help us rebuild and come back stronger. Staying in this division won't mean we "win" more games, even more so after we've lost our talismans. We'll be faced with rebuilding - without the extra help of the £60m having got into the EPL. We'll probably stagnate and things will run it's course. Then we'll be on that cycle of rebuilding again.

 

It's a complete no-brainer.

 

If we want to produce our own players and have them stay, we need to be in the top division matching their ambitions - whilst also receiving the finance required to keep them.

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From a purely selfish view - can't wait to see us back in The Prem - every Prem Match is shown live out here, although I will have to get yet another decoder and subscription!!

 

Will miss Merry Dave and winning more matches than we lose - but unfortunately The Prem is the only place to be to survive - and enough clubs still manage to make a complete horlicks of it still despite the obscene amount of money being bandied about. Strong leadership and a fine balancing act between paying for quality and not being ripped off by agents and wage demands and also not pricing out the fanbase is going to be a tough act.

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Why wouldn't we want to be promoted? Yes we wont win the league....but then if we dont win the championship, guess what....we haven't won that league either. Makes no sense. It's pretty much saying "I dont want to win this league becuase we wont win the league above it"

 

If we don't go up, we will lose so many players and we will never be able to build. Also, being a premier league team, you have a much better chance at winning a trophy.

 

The only negitive in my eyes will be the price. I pray that Cortese is sensible, especially to those fans who have been going thoughtout the hard times.

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Interesting point from Football Focus yesterday. Both Norwich and Swansea were unfancied to stay up as they haven't spent bucketloads like QPR but if fact they've done well building sensibly on the promotion side. The fact is most Prem teams aren't any better than the best in the Championship. Hope we follow that model.

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Interesting point from Football Focus yesterday. Both Norwich and Swansea were unfancied to stay up as they haven't spent bucketloads like QPR but if fact they've done well building sensibly on the promotion side. The fact is most Prem teams aren't any better than the best in the Championship. Hope we follow that model.

 

Exactly.

 

I'd say if anything, in the last few years the gap between the top of the championship and the bottom half of the premiership has greatly reduced. It used to be light years apart, but it's very close now.

 

Look at the dross up there. Blackburn, Wigan, West Brom aren't that great - an average player like Keith Andrew's is now scoring up there. Norwich and Swansea pushing as high up as they are is a great sign for us and I have no doubts that we'll sensibly build on the team as we did this year.

 

No doubts we'll get some maniacs moaning that we need to spend £30m to stand a chance and that we need 11 new players - but that simply isn't true anymore. Having a team and a collective group of players is more than money can ever buy and it would be tragic to destroy that with an influx of 'mega bucks' stars. Let's do it the proper way and laugh at the likes of QPR who go about it the completely wrong way.

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Interesting point from Football Focus yesterday. Both Norwich and Swansea were unfancied to stay up as they haven't spent bucketloads like QPR but if fact they've done well building sensibly on the promotion side. The fact is most Prem teams aren't any better than the best in the Championship. Hope we follow that model.

 

 

QPR probably haven't best used the resources that they had last season.True Barton has been added but Taraabt got them to the PL all by himself and now he hardly ever gets a game.Plus with players like Derry you're always going to struggle a bit more the higher you go.They didn't change the right elements really.We'll need to be careful on that,making sure that we keep those who can adapt and not be sentimental over those who can't.Think we may need 5 or 6 players.

Edited by Window Cleaner
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Look at the dross up there. Blackburn, Wigan, West Brom aren't that great - an average player like Keith Andrew's is now scoring up there. Norwich and Swansea pushing as high up as they are is a great sign for us and I have no doubts that we'll sensibly build on the team as we did this year.

 

No doubts we'll get some maniacs moaning that we need to spend £30m to stand a chance and that we need 11 new players - but that simply isn't true anymore. Having a team and a collective group of players is more than money can ever buy and it would be tragic to destroy that with an influx of 'mega bucks' stars. Let's do it the proper way and laugh at the likes of QPR who go about it the completely wrong way.

 

A lot of what you said is true, because for teams like Wigan, Blackburn, Wolves etc etc, survival in the PL is the be all and end all. They regularly put aside progress in the cups to focus on staying in the league, and 17th position each year is a thoroughly acceptable outcome for some clubs. That sort of mediocrity goes hand and hand with the money on show at the top table, but it removes a huge amount of ambition from the lower lights who just know that they just cannot complete with the top few sides. It also leads to massive impatience on the part of chairmen; Warnock's treatment at QPR after everything he did for them is a point in case.

 

I just hope that, if we do go up and then struggle a bit, our chairman will have a little more patience in his manager than at Loftus Road.

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QPR probably haven't best used the resources that they had last season.True Barton is gone but Taraabt got them to the PL all by himself and now he hardly ever gets a game.Plus with players like Derry you're always going to struggle a bit more the higher you go.They didn't change the right elements really.We'll need to be careful on that,making sure that we keep those who can adapt and not be sentimental over those who can't.Think we may need 5 or 6 players.

 

Would agree. Remember when we got Fox and Richardson in and only after realised they were needed to strengthen from Harding /Butterfield.

 

Think we'll need GK, CB, maybe fullbacks, RM and maybe CM.

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of course it is all that....we are only asking the question as we win most weeks...now why its that..oh yes, we have many prem quality players...who will want to play there should we don't make it.

 

if you had asked my in 2009 if this league was so great, you would have had a different answer

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There have been times when I thought I would never see another Premier league game so I would love us to go up.

If you get a chance to go up you have to take it, if you are ready for the Premier league or not as this is a very hard league to get out of and the chance may not come again as easily as it has this season.

I'd love to see what Rickie Lambert could do in the Premier league and he isn't getting any younger.

I'd love to see who else in our current squad would do well.

I'd love to see quality big name signings again.

If we can get safe in the league we can have a proper go at the FA Cup. It might not be what it was but it is still the biggest competition we can realistically win and it has given many of us some of our best days in football.

The cost of tickets does frighten me, hopefully common sense will prevail.

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Theres bound to be a hike in ticket prices if we go up, (and I'm probably alone in not counting our chickens yet in that regard, theres a way to go yet,) but didnt Cortese suggest that if we did, the capacity would be extended to 45000? Surely the extra crowd would mitigate the need for massive price rises

Do people really think we will sell out every week if we make the promised land?

Last year I thought if we do this well this season it will be great to see the place full, well we have been top two all season, top scorers, played great football yet only a full house once (1st v 2nd) and over 30,000 for boxing day and Brighton, maybe skates depends how many they bring.

Not knocking our support but I believe the recession and the prospect of things getting much worse and live tv coverage all means attendances will continue to fall apart from the select few at the top.

If we are promoted the club needs to heavily market an attractive season ticket policy which ties people in for a few seasons like Norwich did just to ensure we keep the place full as possible.

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The first thing to say is that we're a long way from automatic promotion as yet and assuming a top two finish at this time smacks of a WHU level of arrogance. Having said that, a degree of arrogance is unavoidable when you are top of the league in March. :) So should we get there I'd say only around half our squad look really good enough - or potentially good enough - to play regularly at the top of the English game.

 

Quality players:

Lambert - what a player! he has well and truly earned his chance at this late stage of his career

Lallana - easily our best player technically and the closest thing we have to a certain PL success

Schneiderlin - there are very many worse players than Morgan already featuring regularly in PL midfield's

Cork - a young player who has a great chance of proving himself good enough methinks

Davis - like Lambert deserves his place, but IMO we should still sign another proven keeper as real competition however.

 

Those who may, or may not, be able to make the step up:

Fox - good FL player, but defensively strong enough for the PL ?

Sharp - not the best of starts to his SFC career perhaps, but early days & thus almost certain to stay

Chaplow - decent squad player when fully fit, likely stay I think

Martin - coming along nicely and a young player we will retain I would have thought

Richardson - good going forward, but like Fox is he 'all that' when defending ?

Hooiveld - proven CB at this level, but only time will tell if he is he capable of more. Almost certain to stay

Fonte - see above

SDR - a fringe player so far, but worth keeping for at least another season in my view

Lee - good prospect & sure to stay. He needs to fulfill on that promise however

Butterfield - decent cover for Fox who hasn't done much wrong. Just given a contract extension

Guly - not really my idea of a PL player, but NA likes him it would seem

 

Those who just don't look up to it in this fans view I'm sorry to say:

Puncheon - could go into the group above I suppose, but no favorite of mine and on his way this summer I guess

Jaidi - too old/slow for the PL

Barnard - another borderline case, a latter day Brett Omerod perhaps ?

Hammond - looks like a FL standard player to me, but will probably stay anyway

Harding - I have always liked him, but the PL may be a 'bridge to far' for Dan I feel

Connolly - see Jaidi

Bialkowski - the PL is no place for a 'bag of nerves' like Bart - time for him to move on

Seaborne - lower league player IMO

Holmes - out on loan, a decent fringe player who will be on his way this summer I reckon

Dickson - another lower league player, already out on loan

Forecast - Get rid ASAP

Forte - doing OK out on loan, but on his way soon methinks

 

 

It seems unfair to comment on our youngsters as it's too early to tell with most of them.

Of course some players you want to go will stay, and others you'd rather retain may go anyway - such as AOC last summer. So with only 5 likely to be good enough, and a further 10 (or so) 'maybe's' it seems to this fan that we'd need to shift out about ten, and bring in at least six quality players to replace them this summer if we go up. The 'goals conceded' stats show that NA will surely need to take a long hard look at our defence in particular I reckon.

Edited by CHAPEL END CHARLIE
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Do people really think we will sell out every week if we make the promised land?

Last year I thought if we do this well this season it will be great to see the place full, well we have been top two all season, top scorers, played great football yet only a full house once (1st v 2nd) and over 30,000 for boxing day and Brighton, maybe skates depends how many they bring.

Not knocking our support but I believe the recession and the prospect of things getting much worse and live tv coverage all means attendances will continue to fall apart from the select few at the top.

If we are promoted the club needs to heavily market an attractive season ticket policy which ties people in for a few seasons like Norwich did just to ensure we keep the place full as possible.

 

Thats what I meant. I can see us getting 35-40k average in the prem, thats 10k more than now, so why should the ticket prices go through the roof?

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For those saying we need to get promoted to keep hold of our players...........we have NEVER been able to keep our best players (the great MLT aside) even when in the Prem. If any of the bigger clubs want our players they will get them....think Walcott, BAle, AOC, etc. And there will be nothing we can do about it.

 

I still hope we get promoted....but still feel the Premiership will not be as much fun/as entertaining/competitive as the Championship.

 

Let's ask Norwich and Swansea fans in their 2nd season once the honeymoon period is over.

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Yes of course there are down sides, as the OP mentions, like ticket prices / ticket demand by the JCLs / the general hype / the fancy dan freeloading players who dont give a monkeys (not that we will sign any).

 

BUT - even though it may only be now and again, the feelings I remember best are when we beat Liverpool, or Spurs, or Utd, or whoever. Way better than beating Millwall or Barnsley (sorry to them). The anticipation before we play those sort of teams is fantastic. The chance to compete at the highest level, attract better players, see our own players rise to the challenge. Thats what its about

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Norwich and Swansea show what we can do - but we will definitely need several new players, in many positions.

 

Many said the same last year.

 

Questions over whether lambert would do it at this level, Deano not being good enough, Frazer not good enough....and so on.

 

You state that Norwich and Swansea show what we can do.....they've kept 80% of the side from the championship. Why can't we do the same?

 

Do not expect lots of new players if we make it, 3 or 4 maximum to add to the squad. That's all I expect, anyone expecting more are being a bit harsh on the current group and will end up being disappointed.

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Butterfield - decent cover for Fox who hasn't done much wrong. Just given a contract extension

Huh? Perhaps you mean Richardson. Don't think Butters would survive long in the PL, probably given contract extension so that we can get a fee for him rather than lose him on a free.

 

I would put Jos in the top bracket, no doubt in my mind that he is PL quality, already proved himself in Europe. Not so sure about Fonte, has not looked as good this season, but has formed a good partnership with Jos.

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Can't wait to pay extortionate amounts and sit around the new happy clappers that will start going to away games. Our support has improved so much since we've been in the lower leagues, if we went up it'd be boring again and we'd sit at most places like we did last time we were in the Prem.

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Can't wait to pay extortionate amounts and sit around the new happy clappers that will start going to away games. Our support has improved so much since we've been in the lower leagues, if we went up it'd be boring again and we'd sit at most places like we did last time we were in the Prem.

 

Totally agree with this. The supporters who will be most inconvenienced will be those attending away games regularly. Going away has been fantastic since we got relegated from the Premier League. I do however want to win the Championship just for the record books.

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Ticket prices increase with every jump up a division, that's a fact of football. Even the newly promoted clubs are £10-15 more than us, QPR charge nearly double for some of their tickets (£65 for 'Platinum', whatever that is).

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While I sort of agree on some of the things you said I do disagree on the teams not beating each other comment.

On any day any team can beat any team in the pl. The gap has closed a lot. Look at Birmingham winning the cup. Or Blackburn Or Palace winning at old trafford. They even got thumped 1-6 by city at home.

While obviously we won't win the league if we apply the same principles we have had since Cortese came in then I think we can do alright. I remember people said the same thing about league one.

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Have some ambition fella!

 

The longer we stay down here, we'll continue to see our best players go out the door 1 by 1.

 

We need to get up to have the opertunity to build an exciting team, which I think we're capable of doing.

 

Look at what Norwich and Swansea have achived, if we made it and did as well as them I'd be bloody loving it.

 

Sorry I must have missed something...what have they actually achieved? This is the difference between the Champ/league 1 and the PL apparently in the PL mid table safety and endless years of being safe is an achievement becuase in reality the PL is a closed shop only realisticly winnable by a handful of teams. The last few seasons I've actually been able to look at saints and think yeah we could win this league that ain't ever going to happen in the PL. Next season (if we make it) we will be back to getting all excited about not being relegated or finishing mid table rather than actually winning anything that's the truth for 80% of PL teams. People banging on about you don't play football to come second are right in the PL you play to come 8th or 9th and then pass it off as achievement.

 

Having said all that clubs need the cash cow that is the PL if you ain't at the top table you get scraps and not many clubs can survive on those.

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Sorry I must have missed something...what have they actually achieved? This is the difference between the Champ/league 1 and the PL apparently in the PL mid table safety and endless years of being safe is an achievement becuase in reality the PL is a closed shop only realisticly winnable by a handful of teams. The last few seasons I've actually been able to look at saints and think yeah we could win this league that ain't ever going to happen in the PL. Next season (if we make it) we will be back to getting all excited about not being relegated or finishing mid table rather than actually winning anything that's the truth for 80% of PL teams. People banging on about you don't play football to come second are right in the PL you play to come 8th or 9th and then pass it off as achievement.

 

Having said all that clubs need the cash cow that is the PL if you ain't at the top table you get scraps and not many clubs can survive on those.

 

I think you've missed a bit of the point... we need to be in the Prem to keep our quality players, and we need to be in the Prem to be able to hold onto those who might, might - help us actually achieve something...

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