 Tuesday, 27th Aug 2013 08:21 Saints travel to Barnsley in the Carling Cup and this competition represents their best chance of actually winning something this season. There is an old saying "If you chase money you will never catch it, if you chase success then the money will come" that is probably relevant in football today as the focus for most club's seems to be getting into the Premier League and its untold riches and staying there, however I would suggest that is a recipe for long term troubles and that if football is to survive in its present form for another century, then it needs to get back to what actually made it the World's biggest sport and that is the fact that supporters are not interested in bank statements they are interested in silverware. Speaking to a good cross section of Saints supporters on Saturday both before and after the Sunderland game it became clear that although naturally all wanted Saints to do well in the Premier League and finish as high as possible, most of them recognised that realistically Saints were not going to challenge the big 6 clubs and that our best chance of success would be in one of the Cups. Make no mistake about it, its success that Saints fans and indeed fans of any club want, most of whom I spoke to said they would much prefer a lower Premier League position if it meant that we won the Carling or FA Cup, having seen what Wigan and Swansea did last season and the fact they are in Europe that's what they wanted more of and yes I know what happened to Wigan. But in modern football the focus has gone off winning cups and is firmly on cash, last season saw Saints go into the final day playing for silly money per place and there will soon come the day when the Premier League cheque is paraded round in an open top bus. I know that perhaps those I was speaking to were not as wide as representation of the fan base as perhaps conducting a poll outside of the stadium, but they were of all ages and backgrounds and last season I found that when I spoke to the fans of clubs like Sunderland and West Brom etc, they were all of the same mind, they were becoming bored of the monotony of the Premier League, they wanted to chase glory not cash and they wanted to play in Europe and the chance of some big European teams, the rot is starting to set in and creating apathy amongst fans and that is not good. Perhaps that can be pointed out in the attendance on Saturday, more Saints fans turned out last season for the opener against Wigan, than they did for the game against Sunderland, on the face of it there is no logical explanation, in fact there really should have been more wanting to go, £35 million in signings on display and the stated ambitions of the club, whatever the reasons though the facts aare there, 3,000 of them all empty seats, supporters want to see games with something on them, excitement, something to play for and this game just didn't have it. What it did prove though is fine words on message boards mean nothing, its all about what you do not what you say, and that's the same for on the field as well as off it, Saints want to move up a level and to do that its not just about being in the top 10 of the Premier, its about showing the rest of the footballing World we can compete and that means winning trophies, so tonight we should go to Barnsley and take this game seriously, one of the reasons we struggled to attract players in the summer was that we couldn't offer them European football, if you can do so then you can sign better players, they all want to show themselves off on a European stage and a club that can offer them that is always going to be an attractive option even if it is only Europa League. So winning the Carling Cup or better still the FA Cup is very much a step in the right direction for a Club with Saints ambitions, of course the league will be a priority, but so should this be, some will say that Wigan went down distracted by their cup run, I don't think so, Wigan were in big trouble long before they started in the FA Cup, it should have been a way of kick starting their season, it wasn't but I think they would have gone even without the cup run, in fact that showed they had the players and the question I would have been asking as a Wigan fan would be why did they not perform in the League as they did in the FA Cup. Becoming recognised as a big name in football again wont be easy for Saints, but one way of making progress in doing that is in the Cup's, no one will remember Wigan for a series of mid table Premier League finishes, what they remember them for is that day at Wembley Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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