I, of course, have not been a
Southampton fan long enough to have personally experienced the relegations and
relegation battles, but reviewing the final tables for the first 13 years of the
Premier League, it looks as though Southampton was involved in a serious
relegation battle in six of those years.
I assume it was very exciting, but not pleasant.
This year on the other hand, we
can do no worse than 14th place—a result that was considered good just two
years ago—and are very likely to end the season in at least seventh place.
If you compare our position to
that of the two teams promoted with us just three years ago, we are doing very well indeed. Reading has been
relegated and is unlikely to be back soon.
West Ham is still here but they are not doing nearly
as well as us. (Of course with their cheap
new stadium and London location they are a long term threat.)
Our biggest problem seems to be
that richer clubs want to buy our good players for excessive amounts of money
while we have to decide which of the many potential replacements are good
enough to play for us. Financial Fair
Play, which many view as a barrier to our further ambitions, actually makes it
difficult for most of the clubs in the world to compete with us on transfer fees
and salaries even if they have a very rich owner.
While Champions League Football
looks unlikely at this point, it is still not impossible which is not something
that has ever been said before this late in the season. On the other hand, the Europa League beckons
unless we play very poorly for the rest of the season or we play poorly and the
FA Cup is won by a long shot club. We
have to look back to 1983-1984 to find a Southampton team that could be viewed
as better than this one and if we get 17 points out of our last eight games we
will surpass that team on a points per game basis.
Of course no one knows what the
future will bring. Clubs can be very
good one year and find themselves relegated the next, but this one moment in
time is one of the best in Southampton history and we should enjoy it. I certainly count myself lucky to have become
a fan of Southampton when I did.
Finally, purely for entertainment
purposes, I provide a link to an interesting discussion of Southampton and its
future prospects from last summer, but without the emotional angst found on
Southampton forums. I certainly enjoyed
reading it.
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