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Slim wrote:Even if they broke top 4 this year it would be disastrous for them next season.

For many reasons too.

Qualifying leaves Southampton with some big decisions in the summer if they qualify for the champs league. The way I see it there are a couple of options:

1: Fill the squad out a little to cope with 6 extra games
2: Sign a couple of big names to try to win a few of the 6 extra games
3: Do nothing

With option 1&2, I'd be fairly certain they wouldn't make top 4 the year after, which would leave them with a larger wage bill. The irony is that they would most likely have to sell the core players who got them to the champs league who are further on in their contract, and the mercenaries signed would continue to play shite, dragging them right down the table arguably even to relegation.

With option 3, this seems to be the approach of a few promoted championship clubs latterly, who recognise that their first time in the prem will almost certainly end in relegation and should be treated as a means to bank some money to build a sustainable team for promotion the year after. This would be my preferred, (albeit less palatable to the fans) option in Southampton's case. Make transfers to try to keep their league position or at least stay in contention at the top end, and no silly financial decisions.

Not sure how much of a restriction FFP would have on a club like Southampton, arguably it stops them doing too much of option 1&2 so is a good thing, but it means that they can never sustainably challenge for the top 4 year in year out and thus fulfils the argument that it's biased towards the sky 4.

The alternative is that the board there are geniuses, and banked the £80m or so they made in the summer expecting that they would have a good season anyway, and to spend in the future, if so, fair fucks to them. If the owner has banked the money, who can argue with him?

Well FFP doesn't apply to teams who weren't in the competition the previous year, or Liverpool would have failed this season.

When Everton made the top 4, they bought 10 players to help them in the CL and repeat the performance of the previous season. This resulted in an 11th place finish and their fuck ups in Europe were absolute getting dumped out at the earliest possibility of both the champions league and uefa cup.

I see this as the template for every team who gets there on the performance of their first 11.

yeah, Soton don't have the squad to complete in Europe right now.

they have a really good 14 or so when everyone is fit but thats not enough to cope with the add rigors of European competition.

Slim wrote:Well FFP doesn't apply to teams who weren't in the competition the previous year, or Liverpool would have failed this season.

When Everton made the top 4, they bought 10 players to help them in the CL and repeat the performance of the previous season. This resulted in an 11th place finish and their fuck ups in Europe were absolute getting dumped out at the earliest possibility of both the champions league and uefa cup.

I see this as the template for every team who gets there on the performance of their first 11.

They bought 10 players?...have they bought ten in total since?...seems ages ago now...It was bad luck they drew Villareal out of the hat, to use a 70s term...a "crack" side, managed by some undead looking geezer cant remember his name

Slim wrote:Well FFP doesn't apply to teams who weren't in the competition the previous year, or Liverpool would have failed this season.

When Everton made the top 4, they bought 10 players to help them in the CL and repeat the performance of the previous season. This resulted in an 11th place finish and their fuck ups in Europe were absolute getting dumped out at the earliest possibility of both the champions league and uefa cup.

I see this as the template for every team who gets there on the performance of their first 11.

I was more on about the premier leagues version, although I admit I'm not all that clear how it works

Premier league version boils down to: if you lose money, you can only increase your wage bill by a maximum of 4% the following year.

Slim wrote:Premier league version boils down to: if you lose money, you can only increase your wage bill by a maximum of 4% the following year.

In the domestic version, who will have the 'responsibility' for perusing City's accounts and disallowing all sorts of revenue from the final computation ??

After that, which body will have the 'onus' of determining our punishment ??

No doubt there'll be no appeals procedure allowed for us.

forget Schneiderlin and Jay Rodriguez, the one id buy is Harrison Reed. 19 yo English CM. hugely impressive so far, and not just for an academy product brought on to fill in for Wanyama and Schneiderlin.

Amazing season so far for Southampton FC . New Yank owner comes in sells all the clubs " best " players , bins around £80 million quid , tells Koeman to fucking sort it and fucking sort it he has ! Funny old world innit ......... We absolutely battered them at St Mary,s and made them look very average but and it is a huge but .......... if Southampton keep performing to the level they are under Koeman there is every chance they will finish ahead of the rags and possibly keep them cunts out of a CL place ,

Now that would be fucking awesome !

I hope they finish 3rd to push than whining Wenger out of the cl and the rags who think it is their divine right