dubai_phil

If you intend to play them? Hence the cort of comments about not being around the first team Just seemed a concept that made sense that's all, but hey it was an ITK comment from a poster on here sooooooooooooooo..................

AwaySaint 1 posted a theory that due to finances we are not paying insurance premiums for high earners so we will not risk them in a match situation until we know whether they will stay or not. Made sense at the time

Unfortunately it is a trait of the British that you only notice when you aren't there. The Whingeing Poms the Aussies call it. Think the "noticing it" bit happends when you stop watching the News (which is alays BAD and always a DISASTER), reading "papers with an opinion" or maybe simply by stopping watching soaps. You realise that everything is always angled as bad news and it just affects your outlook on life in general, it's programming. (Nobody watches Skynews for 8 hours a day for GOOD news, only when 9/11 type things happen) It isn't anything new, I recall Terry Paine getting abuse because he was old, slow and past it. Steve Williams being booed and called an idiot. Alan Ball having his name booed when the teams were read out. Even Le Tiss got stick when he made his debut in a pre-season game at Salisbury and missed about 3 open goals & one on one's Southampton just "seem" to have more of them than any others, but I can also tell you, I once stood on the kop watching them play Sunderland and the sh*t they gave some of their players made anything I'd heard at the Dell or subsequently at SMS sound tame. A former American boss of mine once said something very true. Life is like a Carousel ride. You can choose to sit down and enjoy the view or sit down and complain that the seat isn't very comfortable or that the paintwork is chipped. If you don't like the paintwork, hop off at the hardware store and buy some. Ain't nobody else going to do it how you want it....... For many a trip to the football allows them to get their negativity off of their chests. Can't blame anyone, because after all, in the past years when has going to see Saints actually made us feel good? Maybe two or three times a season out of what 40+......

Yeah and the money is coming from abroad with a plunging pound. TBF the money people will have saved around 8% of the cost (4mil) by not investing the money last season when the pound was at $2.1, and now it is $1.85 and heading for $1.55 Don't think Rupert believes either unless the Davies sale is a final desperate attempt to force them to come up with the cash and a REAL bid. A bid on Wednesday will not complete in 10 days so the idea of having zillions in a transfer fund doesn't work either as the window will close probably before they could change the signatories at the bank. May get us out of the financial sh*t but won't do much to help this season, it's a long time until January with expectations of a high finish from "Shearers' boys"

FWIW I expect we will still be able to get Skacel & Euell off the books during the loan window. We'd just probably have to pay about half of their wages. So we get a reduction in costs but the continued sales reflect it won't be enough AND it would damage the ability to afford loans.

Posted similar train of thought before. If we don't lose Skacel & Euell we would have to lose Davis Davies and or Surman. Drew is a good player, think he is more suited at left midfield, but with the formation we now have that position seems to be more suited to a pacy winger. Central midfield has better cover. So we haven't got rid of the deadwood and we are left with the family silver having to go. Nobody on here would pick Euell over Surman even allowing Euell's last performances under NP. They may be more evenly split over Drew vs Skacel. The bread on the sh*t sandwich seems to be getting thinner each passing day. About the only positive anyone could see is we get an exprienced International Footballer coming in at left back... hmmm Poortvliet clearly said before the season that he feels a first team squad of 24 players is the level for us with (my words) the "younger youngsters" adding the cover. It will be interesting to see what we have left at the end of the window. Moves into the loan market become more and more important now once 31st Aug has been and gone. (And I guess will depend on getting rid of Thomas if we can't move Euell or Skacel) Great work in securing these PL quality players on long contracts guys And good to know the likes of Sheff U & Watford will have similar issues once their parachute payments run out

Phew, relax gang. Just realised, nothing wrong with the team or the subs bench. We should have known the result before hand Tijuana Tim & ericofarabia were there - it was THEIR fault. Get back home guys, the team need some results :-)))

Oh yeah. The guy who used to give us a lift was in the loo, we made up that he'd landed on his car. Oh those were the days

Interesting hypothesis. Any source? It would show 1) we REALLY are in the sh*t if we are worried about the cost of the premiums and 2) no wonder they aren't "in the squad" if they don't have cover hmmmmmmmmmm

It's not often I see a thread on here that gets me angry, but this one has. Selfish sod as I said on TSF. "I want to sit in the corner so I demand the Directors pay 200k". I'm sorry you are in no way fit to be called a fan. Here we are on the day that we are losing one of our bright hopes and best players, Andrew Davies because we cannot "allegedly" afford his wages. Sorry mate but stuff you and your seat, if the Directors had 4k a week spare then we should be BEGGING them to put it towards HIS WAGES. We are screwed, and can't keep our best hopes to 1) keep us up this season and 2) earn us big bucks next close season and you want the Board to pay for your seat. Jeez, I have heard it all on here now

Well we all saw that one coming didn't we. bllx

Late on parade, sorry been for a swim. It was perfect weather - around 38 low humidity gentle breeze, almost had a goosebump or two while getting dry although we did have some heavy showers over the desert today. How's the weather at SMS?

Because we wanted to buy a PL quality team to get back up last year and got him on a freebie instead:-)

So here it is in black and white http://www.thisishampshire.net/sport/saints/display.var.2426924.0.euell_and_skacel_will_be_considered_if_they_dont_leave.php

No particular order 1. Le Tiss goal vs Arsenal last game marginally above the one versus Wimbledon 2. Sleeping in the Car Park for the cup final general sale ticket 3. Mate telling the (soon ex) wife don't worry sometimes it's exciting after she had been bored to tears by the 5-5 draw with Coventry 4) Alan Ball making a mistake that gifted Coventry a soft goal in same, having a temper tantrum, pushing a player out the way from the kick off, taking about 5 steps forward and launching an unstoppable shot into the back of the net 5) Fans booing and spitting at Lawrie Mac (what do we fans really know eh) and the way he just stood tall and continued signing autographs for the kids 6) Mick Channon's testimonial 7) The "Keegan goal of the century" that was disallowed for offside That goal of the season with about 30 passes that we posted on TSF recently 9) Jimmy Greaves playing for us against Vancouver Whitecaps with the whole silly "shoot out thing" 10) Being hungover on New Years Day morning vs Arsenal

Ah ha... The "solve the missing link between the academy and the first team tactic" The revolutionary new blueprint for English soccer Been spouting that this was a prime driver when SCW came here and low(e) and behold the management have decided that the reserves need to be prepared to step up to the first team. Wotte a surprise.... :-)

A lot of other teams lost on the opening day of the season and never even looked close to scraping a point out of their game. Don't see their fans slitting their wrists. This time last year we got embarrassingly destroyed at home by Palace on the opening day and yet we were all on about pushing on for the playoffs. We were wrong then as well

No you don't. They have the opportunity to "cut" a preferred deal with the administrator and you can end up like Bournemouth. Broke because your board has no money for a season. Into administration and any cash you get in pays the Administrators hotel bar bill and you get left with no money and whoopee the same directors with no money but trying to get even MORE back than when you were just broke. Forget it.

Looking forward to getting txt weather reports from ericorarabia. Shame about the press speculation about Davies, the fans seemed to have an air of "hopefully" excitement about them before last night. Let's hope we get a big crowd, a result and something to build on

Oh NOOoOOOOOOoooOOOOO Pericard

It's one line in a transfer speculation column that has been picked up from Vital Football. The column is only written by a staff reporter. If it was NOTW we'd be laughing. BUT If it IS true then it shows we really ARE in trouble, both on the pitch and financially. The ONLY possible hope is, after a dodgy start, Alan Bennet came good on loan and many would have had him back. Maybe we are jumping the gun slightly and once agan assuming that everybody else on the planet has a brain the size of a peanut and cannot work out for themselves that we need cover from the loan market. We do that a lot these days. Two things have happened over the close season. One of them is OUR fault - we didn't buy enough season tickets. Then secondly we know the club had a bad finance situation, we then had what 3 months of no income, and we had high earners back from loan, but the transfer market itself has been hit by concerns about the global economy, clubs are not spending as much as they did or able to borrow money this season (I posted a link to a Telegraph article before) Having slept on it, maybe we really don't have a choice, the position that was inherited, mixed with the slow down and evaporation of our ST holding base. It could just be the Perfect Storm. Europe is fast becoming a basket case financially and people like Hertha Belrin may also be feeling the pinch and we left with even MORE of a legacy of our stupidity in buying players on big long contracts who weren't good enough for money we couldn't afford. Alps may be right, we could be more fooked than we thought, and there are 3 groups to blame. The Mis-Directors of the past 4 years, the ST renewals and the bl**dy yanks for starting the whole recession. One thing I do know, if we are this screwed, no amount of IF ONLY's or Blame Game will solve it, unfortunately only major surgery

Probably just found the Company Credit Card Bills for all the directors we had last season. They were hidden in the back of a cupboard along with a few other parting gifts I would expect

1.5million is I agree stark raving bonkers. With so few quality players available at the moment on the market this figure hurts, but is also the only hope I have that it could just be speculation. If it was a figure nearer 4 or 5 mil that digs us out the cr*p financially and gives us room to bring in some more experienced players I could accept it but this is wrong and is not good Basically it only just covers Euell's & BWP's salaries for the year

Fair opinion. The only angle I can see that doesn't fit in is Lowe's well publicised ego. There is no doubt that he would have enjoyed the PL days and being a "power-broker". His seat at the high altar of the FA and mingling with the movers and shakers. We've commented enough on that ego issue in the past. Then add in this "football can be done differently" concept that annoys so many. So I think what you say could be an outcome, but may not be the intention. I don't think the man's ego would let him aim that low. I think he truly believes that if we can stabilise we can build an academy that will eventually get us into the Champions League by a long term plan of constant improvement........... In his eyes, create one Walcott lets you get another two into the system. Ain't saying it's achievable, just my view on where probably he "believes his ideas" can take it

Cheers, that seems pretty close to 100. Especially as he had quite a few first team games out on loan. Probably more than Davies??