PokingFun

Didn't Leicester sign Jack Hobbs on loan last season from Liverpool and end up going up with him being a pivotal part of the team and they ended up buying him?

Interesting how some of our fans are happy to give the new manager no more than 2 months to turn a poor team into L1 challengers. Asking questions about Pardew's future no more than 2 months into his reign is extremely knee jerk. Give the guy a chance to build for goodness sake. Maybe the lack of changes last night were as a result of him feeling he had nothing better on the bench! Rasiak and Saga want out (hardly inspiring), Thomson and Gobern are very young and would make little impression, Bialkowski obv not needed, Gillett could have replaced Wotton but what exactly would that have achieved and then that left Perry ...... doesn't offer a lot that bench for one reason or another does it?

The question was not to 'challenge' it was to be 'competitive' at this stage of the season. I'm not naive to think that we will be good enough for promotion with the current team but on the same token we will not be cannon fodder either give the much lower standard.

My take on it is that he is either going to cost more than we want to pay, after all he was a CCC player for a big club last year, which if thats the case then we wont be held to ransom which is good IMO, or the work permit issue was not originally thought to be of concern. The work permit issue maybe wasn't thought about becuase he has been here in the UK for a long time and was considered a shoo-in. I also thought the club would apply for the work permit, not necessarily the agent, but I do not know the procedure well enough to sepculate whether you can have a pre-discussion with government agencies to assess chances of success or not. His agent will try to get clubs interested and then do the formalities of any deal conclusion, which I assume includes obtaining a work permit. After all, he cannot get a permit if he doesn't know who he will be playing for. Are we really much weaker than last season? GK = Same RB = Improvement (Murty) LB = Improvement (Harding) CB = Perry & A N Other (same as last year, plus we are trying to sign a first choice CB) CM = Same as last year, Wotton, Gillett, Spiderman, James (maybe) but accept Surman / McG going has probably weakened us a bit. Wings = Surman is a loss, but all other personnel that regularly played are still here. Can't count Skacel as he wasn't bothered!! Strikers = McG / BWP out, Rasiak / Saga still here so stronger assuming they want to play. In summary, yes we have been weakened and I'm sure AP is working on that given his recent interviews, but equally this league is much weaker than CCC and we will be competitive with the current team. Once AP gets the right players we will be a force. Unfortunately getting the right players does not happen overnight.

Personally having read a large number of your posts, it wont matter who is in charge, you will still think everyone is lying! Common thread in most of your posts. These guys are planning for the long term, not taking a short term view and that means they will not buy in players for the sake of it at a time when we are most disadvantaged. I suspect they will settle for steady progress and consolidation this season and then have a push next year. I really don't believe that ML would buy Saints and then proceed to let it rot in L1.

That is quite bizarre given that he has played consistently in this country for many years now at Bolton and Birmingham. We certainly should appeal this. I guarantee if he was looking to sign for a premiership club he would get the required paperwork!

Do you know what the deal was that he had offered? What if the terms of the deal were derisory? Would that not be reasonable grounds to look elsewhere?

He was one of the top goalscorers in the CCC that season and scored 20 in 50 odd games for us. Fans are so fickle! He is better than L1 standard and has secured a contract to play in CCC on more money (we presume) which is what we would all do. Nothing to do with greed, just personal ambition and motivation. The fella owes us nothing and you are forgetting football is his job and he has every right to move for more lucrative terms when out of contract.

In fairness, he probably does have more to offer than at L1 level.

Maybe the quality of Ajax was a bigger test than Hearts will present and he wants to judge the guy against players of closer quality to what we will face week in week out. At the end of the day the guy just needs to be good enough for L1 and Hearts are going to be closer to that standard than Ajax were.

I suspect that market is easier to tie up deals quickly due to the out of contract status of such players which links with our current situation of needing to improve quickly.

Yeah, because I remember many Redknapp interviews referring to us as "they" and it used to get right on my nerves! What happened next......yep, jumped ship!

Fry doesn't need to clear anything up, his job is now complete and we should be happy to simply move on now in the knowledge that we have secured someone who seems very serious about our future. Personally, I don't care about the past now, its onwards and upwards I hope!

Just confirmed on SSN

Adrian, where is the evidence that the league were to impose a -25 deduction? Has this been factually stated anywhere at all as I cannot recall seeing it..

I think you'll find Messrs Lowe, Wilde, Crouch et al have done more damage to Saints than MLT or Tony Lynam have ever done, after all, no-one is exactly queueing up to buy us are they?!?! Some of you lot need to take a serious reality check !!

People like you really have no clue...

Le Tiss on SSN now

No, why they are insisting on agreement that SFC is in admin when it isn't. The -10 points relating to the spirit of the competition etc is fine, but the FL are asking SFC to agree that it was in admin and is now coming out of admin. I guess this possibly has knock on effects if SFC wanted to engage in future business contracts etc, but am not sure. TL mentioned that the conditions the FL were imposing exposed SFC to risk. What are your reasons for wanting to knock TL anyway? I saw the interview on SSN and he did nothing wrong at all and the additional information about agreeing SFC is in admin is not something I had heard previous and seemed quite significant.

No the clause was actually agreeing that the Football Club itself had been placed into Admin when it clearly has not been at any stage of proceedings. It is this element that TL has stated is illegal. Yes, SLH is in admin, and the finances may be intrinsically linked to SFC, but legally the football club is not in administration and it is this element of the conditions that Pinnacle seem to be objecting to. Whether there are any other implications other than the -10 points by accepting that SFC was in administration is anyone's guess, as I have no idea whether that agreement might impact on future risk for the football club.

"Knowing what we know, factually and legally, certain aspects of the agreement need alteration, without which it is our firm belief that you would be exposing the Club to risk. And with this in mind, we are working closely with the League and we will resolve the issues as quickly as possible, thus resulting in the best position for the Club." This is a very significant statement as clearly the terms and conditions as imposed at the moment by the FL for a license are problematic for the long-term well being of the club. Personally, I would rather they do the job properly and reduce the risk to the football club than rush to sign a contract that may cause more long term pain. Also, the suggestion is now they have spent in excess of £1m for this process and that is not money that gets spent on a whim or for 15 minutes of fame.

I posted this on Tony's thread, more or less my sentiments exactly: The interesting thing for me is that Fry specifically came out and said that there was a very strong case for the football club not to get a deduction as the football club was definitely not in administration and that was before the FL had the previous emergency meeting following their 'independent' accounting standards review. Now, a man in his position would surely not have gone public on that issue so readily unless there was a very strong legal case for not getting the deduction so this smacks of the FL not getting their rules watertight and then trying to save face with other clubs by hoping Fry and any new owners would simply forget about it and move on. It seems that is not the case and therefore I suspect the FL are on very dodgy ground. After all, why would they bother with an emergency meeting otherwise? Surely if they were not worried they would simply say 'go ahead boys and take your chances, we are watertight on this one and don't need no meeting to resolve it as we stick by our decision.'

The interesting thing for me is that Fry specifically came out and said that there was a very strong case for the football club not to get a deduction as the football club was definitely not in administration and that was before the FL had the previous emergency meeting following their 'independent' accounting standards review. Now, a man in his position would surely not have gone public on that issue so readily unless there was a very strong legal case for not getting the deduction so this smacks of the FL not getting their rules watertight and then trying to save face with other clubs by hoping Fry and any new owners would simply forget about it and move on. It seems that is not the case and therefore I suspect the FL are on very dodgy ground. After all, why would they bother with an emergency meeting otherwise? Surely if they were not worried they would simply say 'go ahead boys and take your chances, we are watertight on this one and don't need no meeting to resolve it as we stick by our decision.'

1st April 2010