saint1977

So that's him gone then as he's out of contract at the end of the season. So much for the big reputation in the summer. Bournemouth don't want to take Ollie Lancashire as well do they? I would say McGoldrick but he actually pulled his finger out V Reading, hopefully not a flash in the pan. McGoldrick will still end up being a League 2 player in the end.

Thanks Martini that sounds encouraging, I'm surprised we haven't tried this avenue before. He CANNOT be any worse than Lancashire who really is Sunday League standard - Perry was doing his nut V Man U as he had to do his work and Ollie's and Perry isn't 21 anymore although glad we have him. Lancashire should be loaned to Eastleigh, he wouldn't even cut it in the Conference with Nick Holmes and Salisbury.

He can only achieve that by reducing the overheads - selling the stadium or scrapping the academy on a League 1 income. The playing staff has been reduced hugely and with most of the big earners left out of contract soon, you have to ask why the club are STILL leaking money like a sieve. It has to be that we cannot support the overheads. A competent Finance Director might help as well!

Great post but there is also a lot of truth in Weston's post as well. Jones comes out badly whichever way you look at it and should be removed ASAP - he's lucky not to be on the equivalent of the DTI's old blacklist banning him from being a Director where he could join Terry Venables for company. Perhaps as fans we should push for this. The whole house of cards is rotten as proved by Wilde's role in everything that has gone wrong at SFC in the last 3-4 years. Lowe and the stupid Dome spending are also not being mentioned - why? It added a significant overhead that we couldn't afford in the CCC and wasted the first parachute season which is why 2006/7 was such a gamble although it doesn't excuse the poor buying. SCW had some good ideas but it should have been shelved for 2 years as promotion should have been the priority and even then should only have been externally funded as part of perhaps a shared sports science research institute where we kept the players but a company or another organisation ran the centre and facilities.

Depends on whether we've been in administration - even if we get a buyer part of the terms of coming out would be that we would have a very low wage celing - or if we are still in and -15 in August and cannot sign any players or even take cards at the ticket office.

I was going to ask you how you found the AGM. Like your last paragraph. I think the SMS regulars have a bit of a gallows attitude to it all now, VA looks on the cards, even that seems to be the message from those genuine posters on here who are a bit more ITK. I'm not even sure protests will shift any of them now to be honest, I think the meltdown is about to happen and the scary bit is still to arrive and where it takes the club I dread to think. The board clearly cannot service the club - did Cowen say at the AGM "We can't do any more than we are currently doing" as quoted elsewhere on here today? I like Cowen but if even he's saying that, SFC is a very, very sick patient.

Don't know enough about the SISU deal to comment there - step forward RL, MW and LC - but your first bit of info Morph ties in with what I've heard. In fact, the Cup game may have delayed the inevitable but I was told months ago that if we were cut adrift at the bottom admin was on the cards and we're 2 more poor results from that happening. Of course the best way of avoiding it altogether is to get the team playing the situation and not a pipe dream - getting crosses in the box, bringing in an experienced target man and defending properly from front-to-back and mixing up our play a lot more. 2-3 wins in January would make a difference and perhaps even get a few more punters through the turnstiles.

Fair point although the SCW investment in 2005/6 was very harmful. If we'd stayed up in 2004/5 fair enough and SCW's ideas were good in themselves, it's just that we should have been focusing on a promotion push in the first parachute season, the plans should have been put on ice. Instead we created an additional overhead that wasn't needed post-relegation unless we went straight back up.

The Theos and Bales of this world, and their parents, want to go to Academies as the facilities and coaching levels per kid have to be far better. You can't really attract them and even if you do as a very young player hold onto them as Swindon found out with Theo.

I'm no fan of the board either and I've no time for any of the major shareholders although Leon is probably the least worst option out of them. Then again, he doesn't inspire me with confidence either. SFC has been a closed shop for many years despite the PLC window-dressing and there's not much that would surprise me. The closed shop meant that when the economy was booming, the prospects for bringing in external investment were badly reduced. I remember seeing a programme in summer 1997 on the reverse takeover which highlighted the different potential parties that were interested in buying SFC. Not only did you have Frost's consortia but also Sanderson, our then sponsors and at least 2-3 other consortias. Secure Retirement did not emerge as anywhere near the best option but made Guy Askham (and LM) a few quid and allowed him to still keep a significant element of control via the proxy. How accurate the journalism was is hard to say as the programme was a long time ago.

Guy Askham. Great username by the way, takes me back to the early and mid-80s.

KP's ultimatum was a bit strong but it has been clear to all England supporters - well perhaps not some Moores loyalists from Sussex - that Moores is not up to the job. Giles Clarke has been a disaster ever since he arrived from Somerset to promote the counties agenda, the sponges of England cricket that for the most part squander the money brought in by the national team that keeps them alive. Clarke should go first and foremost and take Hugh Morris with him. I'm sick of the counties, they have held England back for so long. Divide the LV CCC into 3 divisions and make the third level part-time. We wouldn't need so many Kolpak players to bring up the standard (which sadly they certainly do) as there would be less professional teams with a smaller but higher quality and more densely populated quality.

Fair play, good reply. I don't agree with you on Rupert being the best man for this situation, I'd prefer to see someone bring in a manager with CCC experience that knows how to make the team as competitive as it can be in the circumstances, bearing in mind that we don't want to to be cut adfrift with 20 games to go which is starting to look likely if we don't win the Barnsley and Doncaster games. That manager obviously will cost more than JP but would be worth more than say £100k extra if he keeps us up. It's becoming clear that this is a task beyond JP, nice as guy as he is and as good a player as he was.

You may well be right.

That's what concerns me Gemmel, the club have historically had a lot of goodwill from the local community (bar HCC and EBC) which will dry up when we need it most due to the irresponsible actions of the likes of Askham and Wilde. Lowe has made plenty of mistakes and I suppose I'm an "anti-Lowe" poster but at the end of the day he's an employee with a 6% stake.

Not aware of this Jim but thanks for sharing. Probably best that we don't comment on this further as in the current climate you never know who may be reading posts on this site! Mike Wilde has been known to log on here and some of the posters pre-XMAS although not so much at the moment reminded me of those on Saints4E at the time of Wilde's "taking power", even down to the user names.

If the club opted for a VA then Feb would make sense. May would lead to League 2 as we'd be -15 in a competitive League 1. However, this would mean that we'd only be able to loan players to CCC rivals with an agreed fee built in the loan contract which would almost certainly be less than we'd get in January. The board won't wait until May if they are going to go for a VA. The administrators would be looking for a buyer fairly quickly but the question is, is there one there that is genuine? Sadly, I think we will find out sooner rather than later, SLH is on borrowed time and taking some last gasps of air.

Supports what I've heard - that we don't owe HMRC. I agree with Gemmel above that Staplewood will be sold - assuming we own the land. I hope Rupert reflects on the folly of spending millions on the Dome and the facilities after relegation when the focus for 2 seasons should have been getting back up where such a development was sustainable. Some good points of the stadium but do remember that it is a large fixed asset. Pity that there isn't a decent Rugby Union team in the area as that would be a revenue-sharing option to make the venue sustainable. London Irish were still looking for a permanent home until recently and the sport is popular locally. After all, Saracens have shared at Watford and Richmond at Reading.

Pretty accurate summary and tallies with what I have heard recently. Basically, I think January's results are going to have to contain some home wins, if it doesn't and we are 5 points or more adrift in February the board are highly likely to opt for VA. They can't seem to raise money, Lowe and Wilde have lost a ton on the stock-market and are severely discredited both locally and nationally. I agree with you that Aviva and Barclays don't gain anything by putting us into administration but I did hear as far back as the autumn when the team was holding it's own that if we got adrift this season the board would go for a VA before the Football League sanctions kick in so that we had a clean start on points in League 1 but administration is not clean in any sense with SMS almost certainly sold and Surman and Kelvin at least loaned to promotion-chasing CCC sides.

Hugh Morris and Giles Clarke must also surely resign or must be put under severe pressure to do so as they picked Moores in the first place. What a mess, Moores should have followed Vaughan out of the door in the summer and a very poor record with some talented players. Moores was an average counties brownoser, typical of the sort of person that gets on at the ECB. Hope Strauss can take us forward and that it doesn't impact on his new-found form with the bat. We really need KP to bat well for us and hopefully the ECB can show some man-management for once.

Cowen would do a far better job as Chairman, Lowe is only an employee owning barely 6% so his incompetence is unneccessary. This move would involve no shares changing hands but would put a far more respected man at the helm. Sorry to pull the "where's the alternative" comfort blanket away. There is no reason for Lowe to continue.

Just looked and it's 4-1 now. Looks like a bit of a gulf in fitness if not entirely class has told although I like Owen Coyle as a young manager and he has bought very well with the bit of investment they've had. Eagles is the sort of player Saints should have been buying in summer 2006 with the wonderful benefit of hindsight - talented, young and hungry after a setback at Man U. Bet the wages aren't as bad as some of the players we signed that summer either. Paterson is another one mixed in with experienced players on smaller fees like Clarke Carlisle. There's some smart lower league buys in there as well and a couple of home-grown. Bale seems to be getting a lot of criticism. Surprised Fergie didn't buy him but perhaps knew that he wasn't quite ready for that level of club.

Rupert probably looked on Football Manager or whatever it is now and thought Wotton had good stats. Just like Sturrock had good LMA stats or Delgado had good stats.

A better post than Calamari one.

Depends on how far we can maintain the level of investment needed for the academy infrastructure we have created. The overhead is currently a real burden for the club but we need to be able to bring more Theos and Bale's through. If we let the academy rot - and this is a real danger - we drop down to a Centre of Excellence where we'd be competing with Aldershot, Bournemouth and Bristol Rovers for players. Scary for a club with our wonderful history of bring TOP young players through.