Now The Southampton Players Are At It!

[Randsta]

Bunch of gypo's but they will be near the top when it comes to he end of the season

 

[Arthur]

Dear god, what do you expect their players to be saying?

Quite frankly the Southampton obsession was boring last year and made us look like a two bob village club. This year with much bigger fish to fry I thought some of you lot would have moved on. Clearly not!

 

[stss30]

No your right, I dont either really, the grating part basically stems from last year and Adkins and some of there fans giving it large, but were not really rivals in fact apart from the ground being in a total shit hole of an area, its a good day out

Agreed!

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Hubris is a great word that should be used more often. Could be applied again and again in a football context.

 

[catfish]

Let's just hope we give them a jolly good stuffing this season.

 

[Seagull Steve]

Didn't CMS say similar when he signed for us?

Exactly what I was going to say Bwian, I can't see what else he was meant to say. As much as it pains me to say it, but they are very much better placed than most in the Championship for promotion. They had money anyway, but getting £12 million for OxoCube, was an amazing bit of business.

 

[NMH]

It's an attitude they've long held, which is all fine and good, but it's this hubris which has been their undoing.

Ah, but you suggest that it's been an undoing - when in fact it hasn't really undone them in the least.
WE perceive them as arrogant because of the "if they can keep up" comment, but they DID finish in the automatic promotion places (the spare one), they did beat us at ours (yes I know we'd already won the league but everyone said they were very convincing), and they obviously have a great positive attitude if players few have heard of are singing such high praises.
So, no sign of dissent, lost a couple of players because they were so good (as have we), and got enough spending money from those players to underpin a claim for promotion.

There's been a lot of attempts by our fans to create a rivalry and scorn them - but really their fans haven't been bad and ours have been relatively arrogant back because we won last year's League 1.
I'd rather align ourselves with their hopes and aims and emulate them, than curl my lip in any disdain at them - they aren't bad at football and their opening game and result was more convincing than ours, let's be honest. Gus says he was pleased and "the fans should be happy" because we scraped a tight win on the first match, and that's true.
It didn't portend a runaway success in this league - just a first battle won and a bit of settling in required for the team. A couple of integral players missing, but we cannot at this time in the campaign lament a missing player here or there!

This season, I'd suggest us having humility and keeping it. We might not need to build the extra stands at Falmer, we might not get a tidal wave of new local fans praising our talents, and we might get some disgruntled existing fans moaning that this season isn't turning out how they like.

Be ready to appreciate the SPORT of it, and don't get UNsporting about clubs who aren't deserving of it (okay, palace and portsmouth are always rivals needing putting down).
We haven't done anything yet. We've won league 1 at a brilliant time for this club and with a good new manager we all approve of - but high aspirations are definitely made of sterner stuff yet.

 

[The Large One]

Ah, but you suggest that it's been an undoing - when in fact it hasn't really undone them in the least.
WE perceive them as arrogant because of the "if they can keep up" comment,

Some might, but their 'we're a Premiership team in waiting' attitude has been at the core of their problem since they first got relegated from the top division; an attitude many still didn't have the nous to fully appreciate the irony of as they went down to the Third Division.

It's not about humility, it's about reality. By all means make a confident statement about your intent, but present it as that - intent, not a foregone conclusion.

Of course, not everyone is like that, and it's only the noisy ones that get heard.

 

[Shooting Star]

The things that gets on my tits is the supporters constantly telling us how big a club they are yet for the opening game they had 25800 in, which included 3500 Leeds Fans meaning there was just over 22000 home supporters. Bus Wankers

This. I noticed many empty seats whilst watching the FLS. Such a big club huh? Even though I hate their arrogance, they strolled past Leeds and I wouldn't be surprised if they were in the playoffs this season. They're physically perfect to challenge for the Championship.

 

[NMH]

Looking at the Championship, I'd put Southampton, Leicester City, Blackpool, Leeds and Ipswich as top teams - with possibly Derby, West Ham and Cardiff as decent contenders.
If we prove ourselves against those sides, then we could be nearer the playoffs than relegation places. Does Gus Poyet's brief experience as 'the boss' compare well against Allardyce Goran-Eriksson and Cotterill?
Be ready to encourage the lads, including Gus and Mauricio, to their best abilities and be 'the 12th man' - this club isn't ready-made and capable of getting along fine without support!!
We know how Albion fans can bloody moan blue in the face and all the ManU and Chelski as their first team will soon turn against if allowed to think it's okay to boo and whinge 'their second team'.

It's only the start of the start.
A stadium doesn't make a fortress, yet.

 

[NMH]

Some might, but their 'we're a Premiership team in waiting' attitude has been at the core of their problem since they first got relegated from the top division; an attitude many still didn't have the nous to fully appreciate the irony of as they went down to the Third Division.

It's not about humility, it's about reality. By all means make a confident statement about your intent, but present it as that - intent, not a foregone conclusion.

Of course, not everyone is like that, and it's only the noisy ones that get heard.

Yeah, but how much of the bigging up was done by the fans and how much by the players?
Now it's their staff who are suggesting they are on the up. They could be proved wrong, but they certainly show the ambition required.
I'm not so sure their cries weren't just plaintive ones when they came down to the 1st. We've been there too and felt disgruntled about our decline - we certainly aren't happy now to be perennial everyday 'Southern League' casual entertainment like we were until the early 70's. Mullery was once our Poyet!

To be frank, I look forward to our players saying "we are a Premiership side" and there being some thoughts that it's possibly true.
Right now, I'd retain doubts and it's very possible the Saints boys are speaking too soon too. A couple of losses and we'll see, but they seem to have money and capability to back up their claims.

 

[nicko31]

Its amazing how these clubs put themselves into administration just a couple of years back, get the pathetic 10 pts deduction, clear their debts like nothing ever happened and come storming back with a new owner. Complete joke of a club..

 

[NMH]

Incidentally - how is it they got 12million plus a possible £3mil add-ons for Chamberlain?
Arsenal are known to be pretty frugal with money, and have an eye for a good deal.

Elliott Bennett went for an 'undisclosed fee' to Norwich.... but how much better than EB is Chamberlain, really?

 

[SouthamptonGuy]

I think the original poster is just trying to renew a bad feeling towards Saints because we are so 'arrogant and cocky'. Luckily, and correctly in my opinion, the majority of the responses have taken what the new signing said for what it is, new signing rhetoric.

 

[middletoenail]

Im fairly sure CMS said something similar upon signing for us.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

Today i have learned cakewalk and hubris

Me too!

 

[HastingsSeagull]

Not much wrong with that.

THIS! Isn't that what CMS said too?

Don't get this hatred thing. Last season they were by the winter our only real rivals in L1 and was true they were playing below their 'natural place' in the league pyramid. What got us all was the WAY they said this and way they gave us NO respect whatsoever for being 10+ clear of them with no games in hand at times. Is in the past and temporary 'rivalry'. We should enjoy our games against a neighbour but both concentrate our attentions on sending palarse and portscum down

 

[Ecosse Exile]

Personally, i fuckin hate Southampton, almost as much as i do Palace and certainly as much as i do Portsmouth, it all goes back to that 0-0 draw with Tottenham. Perhaps i should have got over it by now but i haven't and thats that.
Are they rivals of ours? No, not any more than Reading, Swindon, Bournemouth or any number of clubs that are not Crystal Palace or maybe Portsmouth.

However what Fox said isn't arrogant its the truth, they are very well set up to challenge this season, they have some very good players, indeed last season they had better players than us in nearly all positions, but... and it is a very big BUT... we had a better team as was proved over the course of the season. In the latter part of last season Southampton looked like they had become a team too, and one with very good players as i have said, so this season all they really needed was a little tweak here and there which they are doing, i think they will do very well indeed.
On the other hand we already had a very good team and although we have added to it i dont think we have added sufficiently to challenge at the top end of the league, but we will see, as i said on another thread success breeds confidence, and a confident team can be even better than a talented team, if we string a few wins together we could be flying again.

As for Adkins hes still a prize prick!

 

[Biscuit]

Southampton are a very big club, with a big fan base, a big stadium and a quality team. They also have serious money in the bank and are looking to becoming a Premiership club soon.

I can't blame them really. I didn't like the way Adkins went about his business last season, and I certainly didn't like a lot of the redneb-style egotism, but we're kidding ourselves if we think they're small time. They're not. They're going to do very well in the next few years and good luck to them. I hold no issue with them really - if Brighton were in the same boat (we're close but not quite there) then I can only imagine the amount of bullshit that'd be spouted on here.

Let them enjoy there good times while we enjoy ours Hopefully in 5 years time we'll both be Premiership clubs, but I think they might just pip us to it!

 

[rcf0712]

hmmmm, guess I missed the mark there then, in hindsight I guess there's not much wrong with what Fox said. That's what happens when you are bored at work on a Friday I guess. I did mention that they looked rather tasty in the highlights against Leeds and I agree they could be there or there abouts come May.
I agree it's time to move on and ignore them again. Frankly I'd never really given them much thought since Le Tissier until Gus' first game was televised live here and I saw my first Albion game in 15 years and then they did rather rub me up the wrong way last season with their frankly hubristic manager.