Match Day Thread Saints at City - Bleak and Awful Cupday Thread, Oct 29 at 19:45

Im not sure the whiff will be one of glory!

 

Forest away when we were already relegated was brilliant.

 

Fats walking up to the turnstiles on Tuesday night like

 

- What’s that smell?
- I think it’s glory...
- You sure? Smells like **** to me, and we’re in it..

 

I agree with everything you have said but I would add that I actually don't really mind being in the Championship anyway so if we did go down and stayed for a while, it would be OK. What is sooooo good to us as fans about being in the Premier league anyway? I know it's where you want to be and all that but really what is the point when you can't compete? I thoroughly enjoyed the lower leagues and I know I'm not alone. The first few seasons were good but the last few have been mostly pants!

From a business point of view the Premier league is a must but I don't give a **** about the money coming in, only to buy ****e and moan a lot.

I think Ralph can turn us around if he is given the backing from above and would stick with him even if we went down, obviously he might not want to. Premier League, Championship, Sunday league, wherever we are, you still get a chance to watch a cracking game of football. The beauty of football is there is always another game.

 

Four of our seven seasons out of the PL were good, and very much enjoyable (three of them in particular). The other three though really, really weren't.

When people mention our times outside of the PL, I often wonder if what they really mean is our time under Nicola and Nigel. Rickie, Morgan, Kelvin et al. Which is hardly a fair replica of what most relegated sides go through. But maybe you do mean all seven seasons.

 

I can back from Africa in October 2007. The first match l went to when l came back as the last game of the season; the must win game against Sheffield Utd. I went regularly thereafter and observed the slide into League 1. I so loved the lower league seasons, tickets were easy to aquire and reasonably priced. Having the quiet confidence of knowing we would likely overpower the opposition with stylish football. Loved Tuesday night games racing from work, throwing on winter clothing!
Then the Championship, that opening game vs Leeds and wondering if we could cut it in that league..
All happy days and l miss them. The model of find cheap and sell expensive was ultimately high risk and not sustainable, particularly in the top flight. Better we are a force in the next tier and enjoy the occassion than slogging it out at the bottom of the EPL.

 

I really enjoyed our time in L1, and our rise back to the Prem. That took and awful lot of effort and commitment, and I`m not prepared to let that all go without a scrap.

 

They should play that clip on the big screen when Saints run onto the pitch.
Am quietly confident we will be efficiently stifled and then crushed.
Going to be a long and painful season

 

We need to take advice from one of our previous managers, Nigel Adkins:

" Don't get too high when we win, and don't get too down when we lose"

Or something along those lines. We will get to the Promised Land, wherever that is, or am I being unduly Messianic?

If all else fails, we've still got Fratton Park, Tuesday 24th September....

 

Oh I enjoyed the Championship too. When we got promoted.

But there is no guarantee that if we go down we will compete. We could easily end up struggling down there too.

Fact is, if you are in the Prem, you are closer to success, than if you are in the Championship. Sure we are having a sh*t time right now. But look at Leicester's season the year before they became Champions. Just survived the drop by the skin of their teeth.

I'm not saying we will win the league next year, but, we (just like the rest of the bottom half) are only 2-3 good signings from reaching 6/7th place.

 

You are obviously talking personally, but I honestly don't understand it. From a football fan's point of view I can't think of anything much worse than relegation and all the associated problems it brings.

Firstly, there are plenty of teams throughout the leagues that don't compete, have no chance of promotion (or title) and are very unlikely to ever win a cup but no-one suggests their position is pointless. What have fans of Grimsby or Carlisle or Portsmouth got to look forward to except watch a game of footy each fortnight? They wallow around in the lower half of their league every year without success. Surely you may as well be in the top league not competing as in div 1 or 2 not competing? At least we get to see top international players every other week even if they don't play for us, sometimes we even beat a top team.
What I am trying to say is that it's not necessarily more enjoyable in the lower leagues unless you are winning every week and there's no guarantee of that whoever you are. Recent PL sides Huddersfield and Stoke are good examples of that.
There's a rather romantic view of the Championship and League 1 among us without really looking at why it was so much fun. We were winning most games as we moved up the tables, but people seem to forget that when we were on our way down it was a miserable experience. A few seasons like that would have us reminiscing for our days not competing in the Premier League.

Edit: This is a rather long winded version of what Susan said above.

 

Huddersfield, Stoke, Wigan, Sunderland, Hull, Boro, Reading.

Coventry, Leeds, Sheff Weds, Forest, Pompey, Blackburn, Bolton, Charlton - none of whom were one or two season wonders like Barnsley or Bradford - are still waiting to return, years after going down. And generally speaking, maybe aside from Leeds, they haven't even come close to returning.

 

Important. Please accept my apologies for hijacking this thread.

In 2001 Sir David Attenborough first narrated the first episode of the critically acclaimed series Blue Planet. Of course it was about the survival of Manchester City supporters. At that time, outside of the greater Manchester area, City supporters were near extinction.

Blue Planet of course highlighted this tragedy. Even in Manchester the blue city supporters were outnumbered by their giant red rivals United. Highlighting City supporters plight saw a remarkable upturn. Not through an intense breeding program or conservation methods but from a large pot of money leading to shiny things with handles city fans started to increase.

Scientists are overcome with the speed in which this has happened. Manchester City supporters can now be found in all cities, towns, coastal and rural areas up and down the country from John o Groats to landsend. The most remarkable increase is in primary schools and is testament to the hard work Attenborough has put in.


Footnote:

Further studies have shown a downside to the project. One of the factors being highlighted by Blue Planet and the natural world was the eradication of plastics across the world. These plastics were a stain on our civilization. Unfortunately there have been thousands of plastic City supporters now blighting the world's landscape.

Thank you for reading.

 

Hey It's Only a Game, nice name.

I understand what you are saying and I know its better to be competing in the top league and we have done that a bit in our 2nd stint, more than we ever did in our 1st.

Obviously that is the dream but it is the dream for all the other teams in the league as well. There are bigger things to worry about in life than what division we are in, how many goals we concede in 1 game, how many points we have after 10 games etc.

I am a largely positive person and enjoy the little triumphs from my team, I have confidence in Ralph, I think we will stay up and may even look to put a cheeky bet on it if the odds are worth it.

I loved getting promoted to the championship and again to the Premier League, the 3 most recent cup finals, finishing 8th, 7th and 6th, scoring the fastest hat trick, fastest goal, staying up when it looked like we would go down, beating Sunderland 8-0. These moments are great and all clubs have them.

If we went down, I would be OK, doesn't mean that's what I want but I would carry on enjoying the players, the goals, the results, the ups and the downs. How many of the current Premier League players have we got genuine soft spots for? Most of the players I like are the hardworking honest players, people like Yoshida and Romeu. My favourite players ever are the likes of Le Tissier, Benali, Dodd, Pahars, Marsden, SKD and Lambert, some with immense skill, some with far less skill, all to a man honest decent people. These are the type of players that we need to get us out of this mess, who in our current squad will knuckle down. Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard and all that.

Unfortunately with the money involved now, it's harder and harder to motivate the non decent, honest players for a club of our size. They are on big wages, on long contracts and know if we go down, they will get a nice signing on fee, sign for some other sucker and make even more money.

It all clicked for a few seasons while we rode the wave of double promotion with a few players that were there from the beginning of the journey. They are all now long gone and what we are left with is a squad that isn't overly bothered really when it comes down to it.

Anyway I have waffled on for too long, like your name says, it is only a game, and I am now looking forward to Tuesday to see what changes Ralph makes and what response we get from the players.

 

So what are we thinking for a line up?

McCarthy
Valery Stephens Danso Bednarek Yoshida Vestegaard JWP
Romeu Hojbjerg






Ings

 

I think all on here entirely agree with that sentiment, but football is about entertainment and enjoying the whole match day experience. I and others have merely expressed a view that we enjoyed it more when we were fighting our way through the leagues.

We are where we are because of inept management at the club. Its my view that since the removal of NC, whatever some on here think of the man, that his direction and drive has not been replaced by any that has followed.

 

I would say drop the first team and play the kids but having seen them play this season I wouldn't advise it.

I think most the half decent prospects are injured right now anyway.

Actually it looks like Vokins and Ramsay played the last u23 match so we could have a back 4 including Vokins Klarer and Ramsay if we really wanted to commit suicide, with slattery as one of the CM's.

 

I agree, seen them live in the cup at Walsall and there looked very few that will be able to step up into the EPL let alone take on City