CB Fry

How is that having it both ways.? Where exactly do I say not being a PLC before "didn't work"? My reponse is pointed at the likes of SaintRobbie who love to trot out the line that "it all went wrong the day we became a PLC" when, clearly, rationally, obviously, it didn't. Things getting better than they were for the five years immediately preceeding the change is clearly not "all going wrong" is it. Being that we had a very good run in the prem, and a trip to wembley and a fleeting trip into Europe and a new stadium following 1997, the kind of acheivements lots of other clubs could only dream of, its difficult for anyone to suggest how anything could have been better had something different happened in 1997. It's too long ago. How much better have these clubs faired than us since 1997? Leicester Coventry Derby County Forest Sheff United Sheff Wedsnesday QPR Luton Norwich Ipswich Wolves WBA etc etc. If our history had taken a completely different turn in 1997 none of you has any idea of how much better we'd have done. We could well have been relegated in 1998, just like we very nearly were in four of the five preceeding seasons. And my point is, just before the kneejerkers get all excited is NOT how fantastic Rupert is, but AND READ THIS, PLEASE, is 1997 is far too long ago for anyone to confidently predict we'd being doing any better than Forest, Derby, Leicester, Coventry and countless other clubs have done in the last decade. We just don't know. Plenty of other clubs have successfully got themselves nowhere without Rupert's help.

Just to confim everyone, according to Alpine: SMS is the mecca of football. £4,000 is a minimal amount. Just remember those two facts when in the next few days he starts whinging about the stadium debt (surely money no object for the mecca of football??) or our indentikit stadium blah blah or getting all unbelievably shirty about Lowe spending money, (say, less than £4k) on some corporate marketing or catering or some other triviality. Trust me, it'll come, and the tune will change.....

Sorry, this is utter rubbish. Our PLC did "work", and "work" fantastically well up until the end of Sturrock's close season. In the five seasons before we became a PLC we got through an average of a manager a season, and we were in last-week relegation scrapes in four of the five seasons and the only time we had a successful manager he scooted off at the first opportunity. Oh, and we sold all our best players, except the one who didn't want to go. Oh, and that one player we were lucky to have was the only reason we did stay up during that time. You seem to think it was the magical power of not-being-a-PLC that kept us up. Stop talking rubbish. PLCs work, and they worked for us, quite brilliantly. We're up **** street now, but its not "because we are a PLC". Grow up.

Not quite as ridiculous as people whinging when the club try and do something that a) might bring some revenue through the shop tills and/or b) get a few more fans in the ground what a bunch of cun t s they are for doing such a thing.

Agree with this in general. But although Leicester have spend a lot of money keeping hold of their CCC standard players - they probably have a better squad than us, Blackpool, Forest, Norwich and others - they haven't used that many "journeymen". As a squad/team they are pretty young actually. And okay, the L2 doom scenario is possible but I still think unlikely. L1 will probably mean yet another new start, but I think more players than we think will stay, and the likes of Gillet are L1 standard, easy. We just (!!!) need to appoint a half way decent manager to get us organised and we should finish top eight, which to be fair all our equivalents (Man City, SWFC, Forest, Leeds) have done. And let's not pretend that any of those clubs got relegated and had some miracle "fresh start" or had it any easier than we will. Those clubs were decimated on relegation. It's boring, but very likely. I've been saying that the boring thing will happen for the last eighteen months when those people screaming "we're defitely going into admin TOMORROW!!!!!". It isn't going to be that exciting. Relegated, yes, and then a reasonable slog in a rubbish league next season where we flirt with the playoffs. Boring, but chances are that is what will happen.

Not sure why you are the one laughing - its you that look foolish. I'm still trying to work out why you think it is wrong to believe the clubs explanation of why stands are x distance away from the pitch. What is your explanation of a) why the stands are where they are b) why the club would lie in explaining why they are where they are? Because all you have done is snipe at nickh with childish nitpicking about what is a law or a regulation blah blah when you know damn well what he's getting at all along. You just read like a conspiracy theorist ranting that everyone is lying because they must be evil or something and I said so because I am an architect or met one in a pub once or something. So do answer those two questions so we know exactly what point you are trying to make.

Actually, yes you do. This idea that millions and millions have been frittered away on non wages is just stuff in the heads of the likes of you. That is where the money has "gone". And transfer fees and the stadium. And paying off managers. Proportionately, not on "dividends and expenses" and "being a PLC" all the other "evil" things you think about. So just to confirm, what you're saying is we should have saved up lots and lots of money in the prem years just incase we find ourselves at the bottom of the CCC? But maybe we shouldn't spend that money then either, just in case we find ourselves at the bottom of L1. Do you see? As someone else has said, name a club that has been storing up money for 27 years in fact name some that make consistent profits season in, season out (Spurs did this season, but they won't every season). Go on, I dare you, name Man United - they made massive profits for years as....a PLC. Oh dear. Your problem is you just bundle absolutely everything you can think of up and rant rant rant. No-one has said there is no mismanagement obviously there has been. But why not just stick to that, instead of scattergunning and blathering on about "27 years of top flight money" and "expenses and dividends". How many millions of pounds worth of profit did we make in 1988, anyway? Maybe Rupert found it all in a chest buried behind the old community building at the Dell in 1999 and spent it all on gold plated clay pigeons?

What a load of drivel. You're off your head if you really think "expenses and dividends" are the one of the key sources of our problems. You do understand how much professional footballers earn, don't you? Andy Oldknow's company car allowance is the kind of money even the likes of BWP could lose down the back of the sofa.

Well, the fact that he didn't do what "normal" players do and progress to a bigger club is odd, and that makes him a maverick. And as a Saints fan, and someone that worships MLT I think he was a bit of a plonker for staying with Saints all his career. I wanted him to play for England more, and I wanted him to go off and prove that he was brilliant and could cut it at the top level at a big club. He never did, IMHO he should have, ergo maverick and bit of a plonker.

So what exactly are the wallies saying now? Lowe overruled the architects and insisted the fans were as far away from the pitch as humanly possible, just to spite us all? Don't tell me, Lowe was seen screaming "put the cu n ts half a mile away from the pitch half a mile away I tells yaaaa" during the architects design presentations? Or maybe, just maybe, the fans are no further away at SMS than they are at, say, Pride Park, the Riverside and every other comparable modern stadium?

Reading stick with Coppell because he took them up in the first place and kept them there and is by far the best qualified person to keep them up. Not quite sure how that is any way comparable to SFC. The point is Reading when they went down had too much quantity and not enough quality in the squad, just like in the first post. My point is almost all relegations are sprung from the same reasons - managers/chopping and changing/lack of quality players etc etc. Saying our relegation this time is the same as our relegation last time is pretty weak point. Charltons relegation from the Prem was the same as ours, and their relegation from the CCC is the same again. Forest, or Norwich, or Watford, or Blackpool should they go down will be the carbon copy again. Pompey, Boro, Blackburn, Newcastle this season will be a carbon copy. You seem to be under the illusion that every other relegation is down to brilliantly run clubs being a bit unlucky but Southampton relegations are completely unique?

To be fair, this is probably a "carbon copy" of nearly every team that has been relegated from all four divisions in the last twenty years.

Agree with all of this, but it is also fair to stay we could have spunked gazillions on players and still gone down. Middlesborough are doing all the things that are supposed to bring non stop glory - new stadium, dream chairman, double figure million transfers, not letting their biggest names go to Spurs, faith in the manager, stability in the boardroom and on the training pitch.....and.......and..... almost certainly relegated. Who knew? Dowie was given £25m to spend at Charlton, but that over investment brought unbelievable pressure and implosion. Portsmouth are finding "building on a cup run" (apparently the easiest thing in the world to do according to half the fans on here) is not quite that easy and are likely to finish lower than our season after our cup run (that we failed to build on). You are right in where we went wrong, but there isn't a magic formula that would have kept us up forever, and those that think not having SMS would have guaranteed Premier League football forever are frankly retarded.

Would Rupert have been flooded with demands for a soulless stadium in a retail park nowhere from the city the club is supposed to represent that takes stupid amounts of time to get to and out of? Oh, and the true Saints fans want assurances you'll build a revenue generating hotel on the side of it to? That's what all "football people" would want, if only evil old Rupert had asked. "Stand up if you want a hotel" Oh to have a stadium like that notorious hotbed of blood guts and glory football passion, that well known cauldron of hell for visiting teams....The Madjeski, sponsored by Waitrose. At the end of the day its the gentrification of football, the all seater stadia and the "family" focus that has changed the atmosphere at clubs up and down the country. "Fans being asked what type of stadium they wanted to move to" wouldn't have changed a thing.

Is it? What's the answer then.

No he doesn't. Michael Owen has scored 40 goals for his country in a ratio of about a goal every other game. Moran in contrast bummed about for the majority of his career and faded very very quickly. Its not all about talent - its about application. And anyway, stop going on about "not being knocked over". Composure in front of goal is a different attribute to being strong. Lineker and Owen and co scored loads and loads and loads of goals not by being "a brick shi t house" or "not being knocked over" but by getting into space, timing runs and being composed in front of goal. Of all the attribues Composure is probably the most important one. Torres has it and it has jack sh it to do with being a "brick shi t house". BWP needs composure, he doesn't need to put on six stone like you seem to think he does.

Yeah, BWP will never have composure in front of goal because he's not built like those notorious brick sh it-houses Michael Owen, Gary Lineker, Steve Moran, Marians Pahars and Kevin Phillips.

The snidey comments on the Echo forum really are pathetic. I'm sure we'll see similar on here before too long. But before anyone gets all excited, read the article. MW is not comparing BWP to Torres, all he is saying is "great strikers do this, that's what my striker needs to do" MW in a press conference he has to do each weekend made a few encouraging comments about a striker who probably is low on, but could thrive on, confidence. Why that deserves a slaughtering from the usual suspects I don't know. This is not "PR" or "taking the fans for mugs" and all the rest of the garbage that gets churned out whenever anyone from the club says anything. Just a couple of quotes that might just give one of our strikers a bit of confidence before an important game. Before you slate Wotte for doing such an appalling thing (how could he) just ask yourself precisely what you want the manager to say in a pre match press call he is contractually obliged to do?

Possibly the most hilarious line ever posted on this forum. You do realise starting lots of threads on the same subject over and over and over and over and over again on a tinternet message board doesn't actually achieve anything. No one has got their heads in the sand. We've just heard it a billion times before, from the same poster, every single day.

You can accuse our esteemed chairman of plenty of things, but being afraid to take risks is not one of them. You do realise Mr Lowe placed the very existance of the club in the hands of a unqualified, out of his depth dutch dipstick, don't you? How much bloody risk do you want?

"Far more money for loans etc" oh we're so hard done by. Last time I looked we had a keeper in goal we paid a million pounds for, while Forest have a keeper in goal we turfed out because he wasn't good enough. Oh, and we have a £1.75m left winger, two £750k strikers, a £1m centre back, a rising-to-£1m midfielder and so on. Forest got Earnshaw in, and a couple of loans down to Pleaty's contacts more than cash, but not a great deal else. If they stay up it won't be because they've blown everyone else out of the water financially.

No one ever said he was the second coming. However, in three full seasons at this level (and in the last five years, not a decade ago) he has a achieved the play offs three times, the play off final twice, and promotion once. That's a bloody good record, recently, in this division, and with clubs as skint as us (the Derby little bit of spending happened in January when they were top of the league, and Davies spent, err, the same as Burley that season). So apologies if it offends you that someone with that record is thought by some fans to be a pretty good bet for us. How awfully silly Who would you recommend that is so much better?

I can't see it being the right thing, unless the run-in is a spectacular nobel failure, rather than just a typical failure - say we win five or six games and still go down, then maybe it would be worth keeping him. But relegation would kill the Dutch thing stone dead and a clean sweep (yes, again) would be in order.

What the hell is anyone supposed to say? You do realise football managers all get interviewed on the thursday/friday before a match whether they like it or not, don't you? It's not managers deciding they want to speak to the world because they have something illuminating to say. Seriously, it's just rent-a-quote.

I think if Wotte keeps us up Lowe should give him a full size fully functional classic victorian steam train. Plated with gold. And full of hookers and beer. And with a specially made dutch cafe style cannabis carriage. And a couple of hundred miles of track suspended in the sea going from port solent to Rotterdam. And the keys to the city. Apologies if I am confrontational but I do get ****ed off when people lamely pull the "you're a Lowe luvvie" card when anyone says anything they don't happen to agree with (not referring to you, but it explained my slightly ****y tone).