Southampton 2013/2014

southampton-stadium

Southampton quick review - season 2013/2014

Southampton Football Club is an English football club, nicknamed The Saints, based in the city of Southampton, Hampshire. The club compete in the Premier League, having gained promotion in the 2011–12 season, finishing as runners up in the Championship.

The Saints' home ground is the St Mary's Stadium, where the club moved to in 2001 from The Dell. The club has been nicknamed "The Saints" since its inception in 1885 due to its history as a church football team, founded as St Mary's Church of England Young Men's Association (or St Mary's Y.M.A) and has since played in red and white. The club has a long standing rivalry with Portsmouth due to its close proximity and both cities' respective maritime history. Matches between the two sides are known as the South Coast Derby.

The club has won the FA Cup once in 1976, and their highest-ever league finish was second in the First Division in 1983–84. Southampton were relegated from the Premier League on 15 May 2005 ending 27 successive seasons of top division football for the club.

After three seasons playing in the Championship, including losing to Derby in the play-off semi final in 2007, The Saints were further relegated to League One in 2009. After two years playing football in the third tier, the club secured back to back promotions under the management of Nigel Adkins. Despite leading Southampton to 15th in the Premier League, Adkins was replaced by former Espanyol manager Mauricio Pochettino in January 2013.

St Mary's Stadium has been home to the Saints since August 2001. It has a capacity of 32,689 and is one of only a handful of stadia in Europe to meet UEFA's Four Star criteria. In the 2004–05 season, attendances never fell below 30,000, although in more recent seasons attendances have inevitably been in decline. In 2012 the Saints returned to the Premier League and in doing so recorded their biggest attendance on 28 April against Coventry City of 32,363.
The stadium has also been host to a number of internationals including England's qualifying game against FYR Macedonia in 2002 where the teams drew 2–2, with David Beckham and Steven Gerrard scoring for England.

The club's previous home was The Dell, to which it moved in 1898 and at which it remained for 103 years.After much speculation about the player, on 10 June 2012, the official club website announced the completion of the £7 million signing of Burnley striker Jay Rodriguez, Saints' first signing of their top flight return. This also broke the club's record transfer fee spent on a single player, previously £4 million for Rory Delap from Derby County. This record was then broken by the £12 million signing of Uruguayan winger/striker Gastón Ramírez from Bologna just before the transfer deadline, one of a clutch of eight new signings for the team before the transfer window closed. Another signing, Zambian forward Emmanuel Mayuka, has also excited great interested, as did the signing of Japanese striker Lee in the previous season. A difficult set of opening fixtures did not go well, Southampton conceded 24 goals in their first eight games and picked up just 4 points. This left them 18th in the table and in the relegation zone.

The club's training facilities, known as Staplewood are located in Marchwood, on the edge of the New Forest. They have received significant investment over the last 10 years, most notably during the time Sir Clive Woodward was employed by the club between 2005 and 2006, and are now considered to be among some of the best in the country. However on 8 December 2009, it was confirmed that these facilities would be ripped down and replaced with a new "state of the art" two-storey building.

The Club also for the 2012–13 season and for the forceable future agreed a deal with Eastleigh F.C., currently of the Conference South, for the use of their stadium, The Silverlake Stadium, for The Saints' U21 team fixtures. This continues a partnership with Eastleigh that has lasted for the last decade.

On 18 October 2011, a record attendance of 32,152 watched the 1–0 victory against West Ham United, beating the previous record set on 29 December 2003 when 32,151 watched the 1–0 Premier League defeat by Arsenal. However, this was broken for the second time in the same season when 32,363 watched the 4–0 victory against Coventry on 28 April 2012.