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I've made my point pretty clear on here, he's got my backing for now because of what he did last season but my personal opinion is he's vastly out of his depth and his arrogance will see him gone sooner rather than later.
I actually don't think this squad has to be relegation fodder, but Martin's style means it is.
Hopefully he'll learn and change, but i'm not holding my breath
As someone who's moved away to the smoke but is back fairly regularly i actually have a slightly different view on Southampton.
My perspective is it's a hell of a lot better, cleaner and less aggro than it was for me growing up in the 80's/90's.
The bit round the civic center has been done up really well, bedford place has some genuinely nice spots there now and on the whole it feels like money has spent on the city.
Back when i was growing up i'd spend most of my time in the corridor from portswood through st denys to st mary's and the city was shady as f*ck, full of little rat runs and underpasses, a lot of crumbling concrete and town on a friday/saturday night was a 50/50 chance of a row.
I don't see any of that stuff now, in fact even the area around Northam estate and derby/empress road seems to have been cleared up.
My one complaint about Southampton these days - ironically - is it feels a bit soulless, a lot of the run down vibe is what gave it character in the past, and it feels like many of the proper boozers have gone and been replaced by "bars" or generic drinking places. Hell even Shirley high st seems to have been gentrified a bit now, which is f*cking weird to me.
A few do still remain, but mostly they're outside the city center itself (notable exceptions being places like the Wellington) but i definitely feel it's much more bland than it used to be.
I saw them a few times in the 90's including Knebworth and was always pretty disappointed by them as a live band.
Most of the time it was just liam standing around looking moody, Noel looking disinterested, very little crowd interaction and by the time of Knebworth you were basically paying to listen to people around you do karaoke rather than the band.
Personally I always though Pulp were the stand out live band from that era, and considerably better than either Blur or Oasis.
Taking this points one by one as it'll be easier to do if you don't mind?
"If it’s not about bantz then why did the Itchen North establish itself in the corner adjacent to the away fans and why did the Itchen North spend most of the time facing the away fans and surging across"
You are entirely right that's what ended up happening, it was very much a post covid re-start that saw that happen in block 1/2 and actually the main reason we all moved out of block 1/2 and into block 3 instead.
Ironically that happened because a load of people moved from the Northam, completely misunderstanding the culture of the Itchen North and just turning it into the Northam lite, which was equally unbearable.
"The notion that the closure of the Itchen North was a motivation for the change makes it sounds more significant than it was although I’m sure it was a pain in the @rse for the club to deal with"
That one wasn't a suggestion, that was something i know to be fact, in fact i also know the club internally referred to the Itchen North as "a necessary evil" (their words not mine) and genuinely didn't like it as section of the ground.
"But you seem to focus on your own enjoyment of the match day rather than what would make a difference to the atmosphere."
This is absolutely a fair point, i do, but that's because the choice of my experience has been removed from me. I want to stand, i can't stand anywhere but the Northam, therefore i have no choice.
I also don't equate songs to atmosphere, back at the dell some of the best atmospheres' and support didn't come from people singing, it came from "roar" that ran down the ground as players got forward, and the old boys stamping their feets in the upper tiers.
I'd much rather that than ANOTHER version of Allez Allez Allez, or a song about pompey.
"You talk disparagingly about our fans a lot and I sympathise although it does come across as rather superior. "
Again fair point, though i'm not sure it's superior, just that i'm older and find things a bit cringeworthy, as i'm sure older fans did for stuff i did when i was a nipper (though to be fair back then you'd get a clip round the back of the head on the terrace if the older boys thought you were being a din).
Fundamentally my complaint isn't "the wall" exists, it's not even that the away fans have moved. It's that "the wall" is the only choice.
The club dropped a boll*ck there in my opinion, they assumed that everyone who wants to stand and sing wants to stand with the same people and sing the same songs. That's simply not true. And they'd have fixed it easily by having say the back 5 rows of the chapel also as safe standing.
This is the mistake most people seem to make, they think being against being in the northam is about sh*t BANTZ with the away fans.
This is wholey and completely wrong.
The songs about sh*tholes, the inbetweeners hand waving and gesturing, the clapping like demented seals, songs about pompey and stolen versions of every other clubs songs are exactly the reason me and many others didn’t want to be there.
What I would’ve liked would’ve been another safe standing section somewhere else in the ground that isn’t the northam. So I could avoid all the stuff I hate and still stand and have a laugh with my mates.
The itchen north block three provided that previously but that’s now gone, so I’m lumped in with a group of people I don’t like just so I can be allowed to stand.
It’s annoying as f*ck that this has happened, away games are bad enough for putting up with the red lodge and social media lot, at least I had a restbite at home games, but that’s no longer the case
It was entirely predictable that the “wall” wouldn’t work. We simply don’t have 7k fans that want to stand and clap in unison all game, we also have always had small pockets of cultural differences between sections of the support, it’s why the layout of the dell lead to different pockets like under the east, the bike shed, the west stand benches and the Milton muppets
It’s also why st Mary’s worked before this, the northam was predominantly a younger stand, and more recently a social media stand. The itchen north was older and lot there moved to get away from people in the northam.
I didn’t make Saturday but a lot of the people that I know and have season tickets are already thinking about moving seats because they hated the “wall” so much, and they are/were all noisy f*ckers.
Personally I think the club have just played a blinder in using a small vocal minority to should about a mythical thing that would never happen so they can nullify a section of the ground they didn’t like.
Sammy Saints and his shock squad commissioned the big screens to play re-education films, apparently those that enter will be sat watching martin give talks about The Process like this to quell any originality and dissent
Can’t think of anywhere worse to spend my time than in the Saints gulags, I imagine we’ll be at the guide dog as usual avoiding the beer throwing people in the Poundland box park
I’m not too bothered about being close to the away fans, what I wanted was to stand and have a laugh with my mates and be nowhere near the inbetweeners lot in the northam.
Unfortunately the club have taken that choice away
Depends on players in and points deductions to other sides, but as things stand we're the worst side - on paper - in the division so i'd have to go bottom three for that reason alone.
Obviously if Leicester are hit with a points deduction, Everton implode from a lack of buyer or a.n other club gets point deduction then maybe 4th bottom.
If we sign a goal scorer, a good keeper and a creative midfielder then also maybe just outside.
Either way the aim of the club has to be just outside bottom three and bollocks to talking up anything else because that's totally unrealistic
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