PokingFun

Plus we probably got loan fees of some sort from Sheff U and Swansea??

Shiny, Happy People??

Apparently Aviva took £7m toward a stadium debt of £35m for Ipswich. Suggests a figure of 20-30% is not unreasonable...

In fairness, who can blame him for that either. We all go to work to be paid what we are worth (or perceive we are worth) and footballers are surely no different. At the end of the day, hes a polish fringe international player who is better than League One standard and is entering the last year of his contract so of course he won't want to stay here and play at that level especially as we could not afford him anyway unless someone pretty affluent buys us. If you played champions league football this season and someone said to you they wanted you to play L1 and have a much reduced salary to boot, as well as ruin any chance of playing in the world cup for your country, do you think you would stay at a club riddled with debt, unsure if they could pay your wages, even if you did love the club?? Nah, no one would do that - not even our god matty would have done that surely?

I agree, he will be a good player in a good side where he does not have to carry the expectation placed upon him because he is a local boy and a fan. Hes lived the dream, its not worked out and if he has to move on good luck to him. If we get bought and he stays then he will be one of the best players in L1 for sure.

Look at the date of the quote..... This was from December 2008 and I am certain this was an interview taken completely out of context at the time as there was a big thread on it from what I recall. Give the guy a break!!

Has he not been helping out by speaking at events organised?

Once again you have chosen to ignore the funds brought in from the sales of our BEST players during GB's reign.

They don't exactly appear to be rolling in money to be able to asset strip our players. I mean, what is there to asset strip FFS?

In my opinion extending the window because of the weather is scandalous as these clubs really should have had the ink dry on contracts well in advance of a deadline like this. All it does is aids clubs that have planned poorly and gives further opportunity to drag things out more. Lets hope we can keep everyone, get them all motivated and push up the table!!

Give the guy a break, I think he was trying to get across that the recent history was one of not being united and he is absolutely correct. I thought his conference was alright, he is placing some trust in the team around him and is asking the players to give their all on the pitch and I guess time will tell whether he can turn it around.....one thing is for sure he is clearer than Jan and probably would struggle to do any worse.

He will be judged by results but he has a very difficult job as he is already on a loser due to being associated with Jan. To be fair to him, he did give a little bit of criticism to the various boards and asked them to stop their fighting and unite as well as the fans so fair play on that point. Bottom line is this is what we will be stuck with so its a case of pays your money takes your chance for the rest of this season because any protests are unlikely to result in a new manager being installed....

A high proportion of those fans will have been Man U fans and some people will view football as an entertainment where they will only pay top dollar to watch Saints play against the very best opposition, hence the reason you sell out in the PL, but attendances drop as soon as you hit the CCC. Poor results will further encourage the non ST holding fan who goes on a casual basis to not bother. Remember, the 30,000 odd from the PL days was probably still a large number of casual fans wanting to go along for the odd day out. Why would they want to do that now with the dross being served up? As with any club / social activity, product sales will relate to the quality and pricing of the product and ours is poor on quality and expensive to boot. An absolutely desperate combination when trying to improve revenue. At the end of the day you will always get some that go regardless as it is their time away from other pressures etc, but I'll bet most Saints supporters do not fall into this category.

You drunken **** lol ;-) Sorry Um, but we have to laugh mate otherwise we really do cry!!

Hes in buddha longe if you are really that bothered, but personally i blame the guy that appointed him....

No, that is you being a good parent. Football is not still just about money, there is still a place for nostalgia an supporting your team. We all do it even though there are hard times now and ahead. keep your nipper going and smiling. If he enjoys it, take him, if not, then maybe dont go. I think your values are good ones.

Well, if you pop down to Buddha lounge you can ask him his real thoughts...

This might sound daft but would there not be work permit problems anyway?

Trouble with the logic of not playing him though is that if he does not play, then he cannot attract someone to take him and pay his wages and therefore we still end up with a player who does not want to be there, the club does not want him and no-one is happy, least of all us supporters. I think the players we have wanted to shift on have been treated quite poorly both pre season and now, and the bit about publishing his contract details was funny because it was preceded by a statement that said something like 'we do not like to talk about individual players contracts' (otherwise read as unless it suits us to do so).... The club is an absolute shambles right now and I am sure any prospective players may look at it and think twice about coming.

I look forward to playing against your team in the Southampton Premier League :-)

Colchester supporting workmate reckons that Ifil is out on loan elsewhere because he has gone really downhill this season for them.

To be honest Nick, it has now got to the stage where we should offload ANYONE we can get a good fee for and ensure that administration does not happen even though that will inevitably mean relegation. At least then finances might get back to an even keel and the club might be able to rebuild over a couple of seasons. If we are losing out based on money when competing for the signing of a premier league reserve team player (albeit a pretty good one) then what hope do we have of keeping or attracting players that might keep us up?

Or Chelsea want to send him to one of their ex employees, or Jack Cork fancies working with someone he knows from his time at Chelsea....

I am very worried that it will be an Alpine Saint we need a centre back fest soon!! ;-)

I would say I represent the 'average' fan in the street. I go to games when I can (usually midweek as I run my own football team on Saturday PM), but still consider myself to be an ardent Saints fan and have been one since a very young age. The point I am making here is that I believe there are many fans out there like me, who consider themselves ardent fans without necessarily going to all games, but I (possibly we) have absolutely no clue who the Trust are, what they do, what they are trying to achieve, whether the people running it are qualified to run such an organisation and market it properly to gain maximum support and so on. As such, I cannot possibly buy into it without a clear view as to what it is they are trying to represent and achieve. At games, I have never seen anyone marketing the trust as an organisation, let alone see them trying to make inroads into the local community via media or otherwise. To build any successful organisation, you have to have people that can make their target audience sit up and listen and want to take action. For example, is there anyone on the Saints Trust board with business / marketing expertise to run it and get across their message to the mass of average fans out there? Would engaging a football figurehead in the trust gain more support as an ambassador? As a concept, I think it is arguably sound, but if their goal is to create an organisation big enough to represent the fans as a vote in the boardroom or as a driver for change then it seems to me from the outside looking in that they only currently appeal to a very small number of fans and could never develop enough financial clout to gain a big enough share to influence change at SFC. Unless that was to change, I doubt they will ever have a real voice in the same way that the average fan doesn't have a real voice as such. In addition, the leader of the trust surely should be someone respected in football, and possibly business circles, someone that appeals to the fans, but also has the football and business knowledge (and not just the odd bit of inside information) to engage with those in the boardroom at the highest level. Please do not take this as a post knocking those that currently run the trust as I simply do not know them well enough to form an opinion one way or the other on them as a committee or as individuals, but I do know that to gain more support from the masses like me, if that is their objective, then they need to dramatically raise their profile somehow and have some appeal to a wider audience.