CB Fry

Crouch's contribution in that article is utterly pointless, as was the drivel Lowe came out with a week or so ago. Much like Lowe droning on about what happened when he wasn't in charge helps no-one, I really can't see what Crouch grumbling about Arry being given £90k four years ago is going to help our plight either. It's over, it's gone, son. They're all self justifying pig headed children. Tell you what chaps, why don't you all shut up?

Yes they do but a club wouldn't be put off from buying a young prospect just because he was cup tied. I don't think there are Prem managers thinking "I need to buy some young players for my FA Cup squad". They either want to buy, say, Lallana or they don't. Whoever buys Lallana is going to stick them on the bench at best so being cup tied isn't really going to make that much difference and certainly not a deal breaker.

Nothing makes me laugh more than the idea that being relegated to League one and going into administration would somehow be some springboard to long term glory, whereas staying in CCC is holding us back and a long term disaster. It's proper fu c ked up thinking. Not sure if anyone has noticed that Forest were down there for three years and look like they are heading back there - ie not a springboard to glory. Leeds are still down there and could easily balls up the play offs again - ie not a springboard to glory. Sheff Weds were down there for two seasons (was it three?) and are doing the sum total of jack **** e in this division these days and are still skint - ie not a springboard to glory. Bradford are now in the fourth tier. Wimbledon went out of existence. I'll give you Man City, but that was now a long, long time ago, and Southampton are nothing like Man City. Please can people stop wishing for administration and wishing for relegation like it is actually going to solve our problems. Newsflash: it won't. And no doubt you lot saying "lets go into administration now" will all be moaning like girlies and blaming Lowe "for getting into this mess" on the day it actually happens if it does. So stop wishing for it, please.

Nothing beats getting yourself completely worked up into a ranting lather about something that hasn't actually happened. But to be fair, this is your speciality. Calm the fu ck down. We're skint, in case you hadn't noticed. And remember, these were the same youngsters you've been happy to slate up until now. It's only now you've decided Lowe is going to sell them you're starting to gripe about how terrible it all is. When "Lowe was telling the manager to play them etc etc" it was a disgrace they were even playing. How about not moaning for one day?

But we have got spanked by Newcastle and humilated by Brissol Rovers on terrestrial TV since then. Can I also predict within half an hour of the final whistle at least six saints fans will be on this forum whinging and *****ing about how biased against Saints the coverage was. Also, the club should bundle the tickets for the game and insist that fans have to buy tickets for at least two other home games in January. Lots of other clubs do it (Derby did it for the Forest game recently) and its the best way to drive as much cash for the club out of our lucky draw.

You don't remember this at all, because it has never happened. I have never, ever tried to get any forum member banned, and never complained to the mods about any poster (apart from (name censored, please contact admin), and he was making threats to me via PM). You can ask them if you like. I think you're thinking of Alpine. Get your facts right, sunshine. Whatever, I posted the other day the games I've been to this season, it includes two away games. I don't expect a medal, and I don't comment on games I haven't seen. But I can comment about the general affairs of the club, and will do, and I understand them better than you, who compares a football coach going down the pub with "propaganda". With you coming out with clueless drivel like that then I will comment. Its my duty to bring up the level of intelligence in the debate. Wah, waahhhh, it's evil propaganderrrr. Grow up. Err, this isn't actually the "point" because this is a thread about JP meeting fans in the pub, not our current form. I only replied to your pathetic original post is because you were bawling your eyes out about evil propppergander. Don't remember saying anything about us being promotion contenders or playing brilliantly. This is always the problem with you Marco. Utterly incapable of discussion. Since when did everyone saying "fair play to Jan for meeting the fans" equate to those people saying we're playing brilliantly? They don't. Funnily enough this is Um Pahars position, so not sure why you think he is agreeing with you. Fair play for Jan for meeting fans, but he'll be judged on the pitch. That what I say, UP says, everyone says. What exactly is your problem with that view, apart from the fact you need to pretend you're the only person who thinks it? Err, thanks for the lesson,but this isn't nursery school. Do you seriously think if the manager says we'll be alright people actually then decide to switch their brains off and blindly beleive them? Come on Marco, some of us are nearly as clever as what you are.... Whatever, and anyway you quoted a allegory really, rather than a metaphor. And it was infantile garbage. This thread is about JP meeting fans in the pub. No-one who met him in the pub left the pub that night thinking "actually we're in eighth place after all" Err - you quote Iain Dowie who acrimoniously left Palace, acrimoniously left Charlton and acrimoniously left Coventry, and then acrimoniously left QPR. All four times becasuse of fallings out over resources and staffing or falling out with senior management. So not because he was a nice guy. You haven't got a f u cki ng clue, son. You haven't got a fu cki ing clue son.

Micky Adams is currently the manager of Brighton and Hove Albion. That, St Marco, is a FACT. Once again you come over with your I'm cleverererer than you routine. I don't think there's a person alive that places more value on a pub chat than our points tally in the table - its just you thinking people think that to make yourself feel superior. Jan meeting a few fans in the pub seems like a pretty nice gesture, but there isn't anyone that thinks that in itself is going to get us promoted. We all know we're an inconsistent mess and we all know serious work needs to be done to secure our CCC status. What we don't need is some dullard pontificating about "propaganda" - it's a football coach meeting a few fans in the pub. It's hardly "Triumph of the Will" is it? Propaganda....christ. Seriously, get over yourself.

This would be the same Malcolm Webster that you and many others slated left right and centre for being part of "the drunk's" regime and not adding anything to the club? I love the shifting sands of the serial moaners, just slight movements in position so they can continue moaning about everything. The above is a great example, as it other misery supreme SaintRichmond who has suddenly decided all our young players are brilliant because he thinks Lowe is going to sell them in January. Two months ago they were a cost cutting bunch of kids doomed to relegation which was a comfortable moaning position, but now there is something new to moan about so we need to start making out they are fantastic and irreplaceable and I can't believe we're going to sell them all moan moan moan moan. Love it chaps, keep it up.

Nicely done.

Absolutely correct, although the Pearson decision was less "questionable" and more pig headedly stupid IMO. Can anyone picture any other club on earth where a change of chairman would stick 5,000 regulars on the home gate? But there are genuine breathing human beings that think this is the case for Southampton. Mental. I don't want Lowe here any longer, but his departure in itself is not going to bring fans flooding back, or even make us play any better. It just removes the comfortable excuse for lots of fans not currently going because we are a bit rubbish and not in the Premier League any more (which is a perfectly valid reason not to go, BTW).

He did also say "the score is nil nil, as it was at half time" earlier, as well.

That statement is utter drivel from Lowe. Regular CB Fry haters will know I am often quick to attack those I regularly bicker with because I feel people too often dwell on the past - going on about the fact we were relegated, three managers in a season and all the rest of it. "Get over it" I'll say, "it happens" (well, maybe I stretch it out a little into a twenty line post....;-)). But christ, does someone need to "get over it". Step forward R Lowe. Get. over. it. That statement does him zero favours, and does nothing for the club, the unity of the fans, the faith of the manager, the players, the coaching stuff. Self serving, post rationalizing, kitchen sink excuse making drivel. Tell you what Rupert - if you are fed up with your detractors (rightly) blaming you for relegation, then maybe you should lead the way by taking the righteous path. Wacky, I know, but how about stopping blaming everyone else being positive about the future in a genuine, non sneering way understanding that whining about the mistakes of others does not fix today any more than "your detractors" moaning about relegation will get us (re)promoted. Repeat after me Rupert - we are where we are. Maybe if you started doing it it might, just a little, temper down everyone else. Maybe those that you rile might get slightly less riled. Maybe we might swallow this Dutch plan as a real plan rather than a plan designed to help you make a point to "us" about you being right all along. So Rupert son, get. over. it. and. start. moving. forward. Or, better still, fu ck off out of it now.

This would be the same Stern John who was our leading scorer last season and played a massive part in keeping us in the division and the same Kenwynne Jones who went on strike the moment a Prem club came calling making a sale the only option? Not my definition of a "bad, bad deal". I'll call it a bloody good deal, myself.

Good god, someone trying to start a "where's the money gone" rant for a £5m deal agreed nearly ten years ago? What next - "where's the money gone" from the £2m we got for Tim Flowers?

Remember all this was all during our glory days when we were a fantastic family club, regularly challenging at the top of the division before Lowe came along four years later and took us into "terminal decline" from the very second he walked in the door.

LOL. You do realise Leicester City are in League one, don't you. I love all these threads making out Leicester fans are in paradise and why oh why can't we be like them. Keep them coming, they make me **** myself. I doubt very much our relegation in May will be greeted with the same level of celebration that you lot have transmitted onto Leicester City fans, who in your eyes seem to be dancing in the streets at the prospect of playing Cheltenham Town and Yeovil. I'd rather poke my own eyes out that see Saints play a single match in that joke league. "Never had it so good". Priceless.

The original post was about look how many staff we've got through and some people genuinely believe that our situation vis-a-vis staff ins and outs is somehow unique. And the original poster is including the boardroom bods as well, so if you are going to let Sunderland off the hook as some model club because they had Peter Reid for so long, or whatever, then maybe you should look at two (three?) senior members of the SFC/SLH management team that were there from 1997 to 2006!!I'd like to see the boardroom movements in all those listed clubs in the comparable time. How's that for "stability"! Thought not.

Quite, but the point is we are not uniquely hard done by as some Saints fans genuinely believe. The fact that St Jason threw out the question about "name one other club that has got through staff like Saints have" like he thought it was a really hard question to answer says it all. Lowe has a lot to answer for, especially this season, and you know I want him gone. But plenty of other clubs are currently fu ck ed and have done it very well (badly) thank you without the help of Rupert Lowe in the last ten years. The arse end of last season's (and this season's) CCC table will show you that. We're never going to move on until people accept that, because whoever comes in next may not be a saviour purely because he isn't Lowe. Whoever it is could be a right plank.

Sheffield Wednesday, Derby County, Leicester City, Bradford City, Portsmouth, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, AFC Sunderland, Manchester City, Wimbledon, Leeds United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Coventry City.

Yes. There is no way the current regime are going to stop us going down. The only thing that will keep us in this division this season is Forest and Doncaster continuing to be worse than us, and another club going into administration and losing ten (or more) points. Frankly I am sick of "keep the faith" and sick of "we're playing brilliant stuff". I am not the most regular match goer, I make no claim to be (you'll notice, unlike Alpine, I keep my mouth shut about matches I haven't seen) but I have seen us live three times and on TV three times and all six times we flatter to decieve. Even when we're at our "best" we're ineffective - lots of pretty tappy triangles, but no finishing, and often not even a final ball. And I went to our best game at Derby, where, granted, we were really good for one half of football, but we were pretty bloody average in the first half, and being that we kepp getting told how we are going to "build on" things, that good half of football was in August and we have yet to better it from what I have seen, heard and read since. So I am sick of "we're going to build on" the occasional good results we've had. Because we've done nothing of the sort, and we're winning the number of games that a relegation team would win in this division by law of averages. I'm going to Reading, and I am expecting us to get tonked. So yes, sacking the manager is not an unreasonable thing to ask. There are actually some experienced managers around that might just turn our season around if they start now.

Er, and you said that before Lowe turned up no-one talked about the chairman, which is true. But it is also true that in the last ten years the awareness of "who your chairman is" has reverberated around the football world. ie everyone at clubs all over the country know about their chairman (and probably don't like them). ie Rupert Lowe did not single handedly invent the idea of the high profile chairman. Coventry fans all knew who their chairman was when they got relegated. But then, of course, people like you have absolutely no interest in concepts like "context" or heaven forbid, the "wider world".

Boo hoo Mr Scargill. Unless you're a member of the British Communist Party, I advise you to get over the fact that capitalism has been with us for some time now and isn't actually going anywhere soon. You can whine about those figures, but frankly they are piffling amounts - most of them would be about the same as the annual salary of one player in each year mentioned. Of course we could have remained a family club and resisted all attempts by anyone to modernise us in 1997, which would have left us where, exactly? My guess is playing Brentford on a regular basis from about 1999 onwards. Don't ever celebrate if we get taken over by a billionaire, will you, because that's not very family club, is it? But I bet my arse you would celebrate.

Yeah, because Southampton Football Club are the only football club on the planet that know who their chairman is and dislike him. I think you'll find almost all other league clubs who, in the last ten years have had their fans despise their chairman/figurehead/owner at some point. Plenty of other clubs have been fu cked over a hell of a lot more by owners/chairmen/false messiahs than we have. Lowe going will be brilliant for all of us, but some people are deluded to the point of lunacy that his very disappearance will turn us into world beaters living in fluffy duffy georgeous land forever more. There's plenty of footballl clubs bigger or as big as us that didn't need Rupert Lowe's help to flush themselves down the toilet.

This is far too sensible for this forum. 100% correct. And actually too sensible for Lowe who ignored this sensible advise and employed managers like Redknapp (who just doesn't buy into the concept of building a team from young players) and Gray/Wigley (who weren't strong enough, or experienced enough to fuse a team together within that remit). Jones, Hoddle and Strachan could and did do that. The perfect blend of getting the best out of what you have, and being able to stand up to the chairman - the three of them had the gravitas to face down Lowe, who respected them for it. And, lest we forget - it bloody worked. Forest, Sheff Weds, Derby, Leicester and the rest all went down and we got better and better. Burley should have been able to, but actually was given too much money and ended up being distracted by his new shiny thing at expense of his last shiny thing (Saga displacing Rasiak, John displacing Saga etc). Burley now in the current set up would probably have been okay, forcing him back to his early Ipswich ways. It's just a crying shame we didn't employ Gary Johnson or similar the day we went down. Or Dowie, or Boothroyd. In fact any of those three now would be handy. A real manager with experience of building teams, that will face down Lowe is what we need. But I don't think we're going to get him.

Of course he does. Having a team featuring homegrown young players is undeniably a good thing. In the period Arry and Arry were here, you couldn't move for people on this forum's predecessor demanding that so and so young player should play. Over and over again, people would leap on reports from Stapleford or the reserves and work up players into overlooked world beaters. And now you still get plaintive whining about oh why did we ever let Scott McDonald go, he's like the best player ever, oh why did we let Matthew Mills go he would have been brilliant just like he has been for, well, err... Okay, what about Brian Howard then. Now it seems that the very idea of playing young players is an absolute disgrace and why oh why should anyone ever suggest a thing. Lowe sticking his beak in is wrong, he shouldn't be interfering in the team, his Dutch project is wrong, playing all the kids is wrong, Lowe, JP both need to go and go now. 100% agree with all that. But for things to hang Lowe about, a belief in our young players and a belief that they could and should be our future show that his heart is in the right place. Wanting Saints to be a crucible of home grown young talent is not actually the most evil plan in the world, as some bitter people would have you believe. He's wrong, and he's an idiot, fine. Don't disagree. I want him out. But if AN Other figurehead came on and esposed the same beliefs in young players (say, a Nick Holmes, or a Gavyn Davies), I think he'd be called a breath of fresh air and a terrace hero.