Fitzhugh Fella

Shame as I reckon he would do a better job for us in Div 1 than Rasiak. Not AP's fault but we don't exactly have a lot of time to blend a team now - there will be a few strangers on show v Millwall I reckon.

Hypo - you really should not put words in people's mouths. For the record I am not "upset" or even "so upset" at recent events - I am, compared to last year, very satisfied about the turn of events. Thank God we have a club still and the Saturday ritual has survived. However I am merely trying to point out that being taken over by a wealthy benefactor may not be the panacea to all our woes - like I said 100 times already on here it all depends on his committment and motivation. I believe ML to be upstanding and far more genuine than most of the other gun runners/porn magnates/oligarchs/bogus doctors and quick buck merchants who are increasingly becoming involved in the game. Right have you got that Hypo? Not looking to be negative, just cautious and unwilling to raise my expectations too high too soon. And for positive Pete (sorry Alpine) no I have not got "too close to Crouch" - apart from a couple of recent interesting phone calls re Pinnacle I have not spoken to him since the AGM. When news first broke about Paul Allen there I was telling my son we would be bigger than Man Utd one day and we would be signing all the big stars blah blah blah - how stupid was that. I have come to realise English football is diseased by money, lust and greed and although I'm glad Southampton will be able to compete in the whore house I cannot be completely again seduced with the knowledge that although I can buy the prettiest girl in the brothel it will be with someone else's money. Like someone said perhaps I am getting old. 30 years ago no doubt I would have been kicking down the door to get in. Anyway chaps this is a debating forum after all - forgive me for offering a slightly different perspective. I have already purchased my ST and I will be there a week on Saturday as nervous as a kitten as usual.

Sorry, you said "the club owns the stadium" and I was pointing out that the club doesn't but ML does. Semantics maybe but there is a difference albeit subtle.

don't agree Nick - ML owns the stadium - there is a difference. But SFC's only current significant overheads will be wages and upkeep of their property which compared to last season when we had an overdraft and a mortgage to service makes our position with or without ML far superior. I do think some on here are struggling to get their heads around the private ownership malarkey. If and when ML opens his purse it will be interesting if it is in the form of a loan or an investment with no repayment.

Nick you say "clearing the stadium loan" but really that was all wrapped up in the purchase price when ML acquired the club (12m?) so he got a bargain imo. However I am today hearing positive news that substantual (for a club outside the Prem) funds will be made available should they be required. I guess it is going to take time but after the last few years we are all anxious to get the cart back on the right track.

Hmm does this mean that Palace are out muscling us financially? Interesting.

His dad died about 4 years ago and the Independent amazingly carried quite a lengthy obituary.

Thanks for all the report backs - loved the Bear Grylls reference. Can anyone work out why we signed Pulis and how he is in his mid 20's and yet played less than 50 professional games?

Club 100%. Couldn't care less about England these days in fact I usually support the other team unless it is Germany or Scotland.

You're probably not wrong Hughie.

Love that last line

Not wishing to stir up an old debate but I think Lowe claimed the "kudos" for the Crouch signing - or at least his supporters did.

I will be delighted if we are near a play off spot come April. Hope that doesn't mean I am aiming low - its just I think there is a lot of work to do with that squad and it is going to take a while. The sooner Pardew gets in some good asistants the better - he has already confessed to spending too much time on the phone last week.

Agreed. Let's hope ML is in it for the long term.

That goal he got at the Riverside in our relegation season was one of the classiest finishes I have seen from a Saints striker.

Les Miserables?

I honestly don't know how much Lynam knew. As far as I know neither MLT or LC "blame" him so the culprit may indeed be one higher rung up the chain. Pretty sure it wasn't Fialka however as his name came from nowhere. I think the one who was leading everyone up the garden path was one of the 6 names on the original e mail but I think that name is up to others (The Echo?) to reveal or investigate.

Firstly to address the "debt" situation. I was under the impression that whoever bought Southampton (rumoured to be in the region of £12m) would, by signing a cheque for that amount, be obtaining the stadium (mortgage paid off) and a club with the overdraft settled. So the bulk of the 12m going to Aviva and Barclays with the balance going to smaller creditors. An absolute bargain then and on the face of it an easy way to wipe your debts in one foul swoop - go into admin. I seem to remember some on here getting chastised for welcoming administration. But of course that was because there was a hitch........ The nasty FL started handing out points reductions which in their words were to stop clubs actively seeking administration so as to come back leaner, fitter and financially solvent a la Leicester. Please don't get me wrong and think I am being negative re ML's ownership - it simply has to be better than what we had (so was administration a good thing? - best leave that for a later debate) and as potential wealthy new owners go this guy seems to be right near the top of the pile. However everything and I mean everything will now depend on one man's motivation. If he was a fanatical fan for instance I think we would see a quick upturn helped by plenty of cash but he is not and the sense of a steady "build from the bottom" policy appears to be, to the fans, a sensible way forward. (Don't know if we will be still saying that in 2 years if we are still in Div 1). I think my real misgivings originates not so much with Saints but more modern football in general where there is now hardly a club that is not in private hands. When Chelsea play Man City the fixture list might just as well say Dodgy Russian money v Dodgy Arab money. It is no longer a game played on a level playing field where the wealth of clubs came on the back of the size of their support through the turnstiles. And while "sugar daddies" are initially welcomed it can go horribly wrong - see Newcastle, Portsmouth and West Ham to name a few. In the old days football Boards were duty bound to listen to the views of the fans, the lifeblood of the clubs. It was only dwindling Dell gates and fan anger that "persuaded" our old friend Mr Askham to sack Branfoot so soon after extending his contract. GA knew Southampton to survive had to at least fill the Dell and under Branfoot that was not happening. (Mind you it took the return of a football man in the shape of Lawrie Mac before the axe was wielded). Fans no longer have that "power", although I think many still think they do. Fan power ousted Dennis Wise and Sam Allardyce at St James but look what happened next. However now we have a new breed in charge - men who can do what they like (up to a point) who (as we have seen at Chelsea) will get rid of a popular and successful manager on the advice of a player. (RA is obviously very much hands on - more so than Markus Liebherr I would hazard a guess.) I think we will have to wait and see how it all pans out at SMS. Maybe ML will one day give a more detailed plan of how he sees the future and just how committed he intends to be. The future is a lot brighter, I am incredibly relieved that my town still has a team I can support and SFC will hopefully survive another 125 years (I feel a Zaeger and Evans song coming on) but one thing we all have to accept while the future for the Saints is brighter than it has been for many seasons, it is also going to be very different to what has gone on in the past.

John - its not a question of not "liking" being privately owned, nowadays it seems having a Sugar Daddy owner is the only way to survive/compete and our "sugar daddy" owner thankfully seems respected and genuine. However what I find incredibly frustrating is the way the fans seem to think nothing has changed except ML has come in wiped the debt, cleared the morgage and is wandering around with a blank chequebook. It is not quite like that. Whereas in the past under Lowe etc during PLC days, the chairman and the board were answerable 100% to the shareholders and to a lesser degree the customers (thats fans to you and I). Indeed even in pre PLC days when we were a limited company under Askham, Woodford, Reader, Barber and Co they were much anwerable to the fans who kept them financially afloat. Now fan pressure can count for nowt if Markus doesn't agree. He could send the team out wearing Pompey blue v Millwall if he wants. He is not financially dependent on the fans, he has no board to answer to. Hopefully the man will not be so silly and I am sure he will want to build a club he and us can be proud of but you only have to look down the road to see how a club can sufffer by falling into apparently wealthy hands only for it to go horribly pear shaped when people lose interest and try and claim back their previously invested funds. So it no longer is about debt or finance. If we had sold Lallana for £50m last season we could have all rejoiced, settled the mortgage and paid up our debts and still had cash left over for team strenghening but now if we sold him for the same sum tomorrow, it will not neccesarily make one ioata of difference to the "club's" wealth. We are totally and utterly in the hands of ML. I do very much feel we could be in worse hands so am hopeful better days lay ahead but we will never do back to the "good old days" when it was little ol Southampton punching above their weight in the premiership!

I'm sorry Saint Chris, I did not intend to sound "pompous". My excuse is this has been covered in umpteen different threads and people seem frustratingly reluctant to grasp the fuller implications of Liebherr's purchase of SFC. However my reply was abrubt and I have since apologised to Topgun. I accept he felt a genuine need to ask the question and in my next post I will try and explain where I was originaly coming from. I wish I had given this fuller answer initially without being so dismissive to TopGun. Hope that justifies you calling me an idiot btw.

Part of the deal when ML took over was all these questions (ie the price he was paying for the club) would be confidential. So it is irrelevant unless of course you are a creditor. I think you can take it as read that no one got back what they were owed. And as for the shareholders nothing. I was a minor shareholder, the company went bust, I lost out. End off.

I think you miss the point. It is not WE any more it is HIM He owns SFC lock stock and barrel - we have no debt or financial obligations but as fans we have no rights. All your questions are completely irrelevant. Hope this helps.

Everthing is relative I suppose - to be debt free in the old Div 3 - 20 years ago would make us probably the strongest club in that League but now we live in the age of the Sugar Daddy so who knows "how wealthy" we are. All I know that in the 124 year history of the Saints - we have always been in debt and mostly had a mortgage on our ground. Now we haven't but, of course, we no longer control or even have a say in our own destiny.

Well that's a fair question but LC is not too happy that he was basically conned out of paying it, therefore it wasn't done as a charity gesture (his heart was ruling his head at this point). IE Pinnacle told him the money would be there in a few days but in the meantime etc etc. He had belatedly hitched his pony onto the Pinnacle wagon and was being strung along by a man who's name I know (on the original e mail) but won't go public with again just yet. From what I can gather it was he that led, Lynam. MLT and Crouch "up the garden path". FWIW I also heard that Pinnacle were already looking to sell the club on, and again the source for that story was very near the action. Pinnacle may have started off well-intentioned (Lynam and MLT) but their backers were never really interested yet never told them.

Beattie lazy? I have never seen a harder working centre-forward apart perhaps from Rooney.