saint1977

Palace haven't needed to with the ineptitude from us. We played well on Saturday but only the 1 point and tonight is miles below CCC standard and not good enough for SFC, even given the circumstances. JP will lay into them as well.

I agree but it does highlight that he needs to move on for the club to be able to move on. Some people, both in the stands and on here, aren't going to change their opinion of him either way.

Some of the anti-Lowe stuff is OTT but Lowe can only do what he wants when he owns more than 6% of the club and has the money to put in to make his infrastructure sustainable. Until then, he is at the mercy of the banks and to a lesser extent the fans. John Madjeski he isn't.

He is a good player, just not a RB.

I loved it when one of the plastic Manc scum got whacked with a golf umbrella full around the head when Man U sullied the Dell turf with another boring title win (think it was 2000). Stewards did nowt as well. Hate them, I really do although Liverpool and Chelsea plastics are irritating as well. Remember the stick they gave us when we went down folks, let's give them a hostile atmosphere.

As a right wing-back, he was a key player in 02/03. As a right midfielder, he was not so clever but still a good free transfer signing by WGS, along with Paul Williams, in repairing the damage left by a novice Stuart Gray. He's still going for Leeds too. Telfer is past it now but what we'd give for 2 experienced free transfers in that mould to help our kids along and to close out games.

I'd second that, I'm surprised Burley didn't sign him up. On the whole Oakley debate, he looked very promising as a young player under Merrington, Souness sorted him out and got him eating and training properly, he was inconsistent under Jones but Hoddle got him playing really well. He got back into bad habits under Grey and Boring (didn't everyone?) but WGS had a pop at him at a fans' forum about his stamina and challenged Matt to pull his finger out - boy he did. Oakley was excellent when we had a good manager in charge to mix the carrot and stick approach but he could be a real tart if we had an average manager who wouldn't challenge him. He also lost the confidence to tackle after that awful knee injury V Boro and IMO hasn't quite been the same player since despite some useful cameos for Derby when Davies played him further up the pitch. Claus I actually think was underrated - we always gave the focus to Richards or Svensson. yet Richards struggled without Claus reading the game alongside him. Claus's distribution was underrated too. Jo Tessem was a super pro and was excellent under Hoddle, WGS wasn't so keen. Paul Williams was a reliable stop-gap for us. Dave Beasant actually along with Super Ken turned out to be a rarity - a decent Branfoot signing. He was excellent in 95/96 and one of the reasons we just about survived. Pity his distribution wasn't so good with bottles of salad cream.

Phil Parkinson and Graham Potter, the latter I think played one 10 minute stint as a sub at West Ham. I'd forgotten about Paul Hughes.

Big Sam I reckon. Top choice was Brown but he's loving life at Hull and feels loyal. Sunderland have even considered making Big Sam DOF if Brown joined but Big Sam would do well for them. He's bound to want to prove a point to Newcastle IMO and did fantastically well at Bolton. I did hear an interesting non-Panaroma rumour (nothing to do with bung allegations) though which allegedly may be putting clubs off him.

Totally agree but hopefully the fact he's over 30 might be a deterrent. If he was 23 or 24, he would certainly be gone.

I think Keane will join WGS and Keegan in being an impact manager - you bring him in for 2-3 years to re-invigorate your club with his aura but then he will lose some of that impact from the players. It is his first job though and he'll have learned a lot. I certainly think he'll be a better boss than say Bryan Robson but I think for his next job having to improve players he has without lots of money to spend at another medium-sized club would be good for his development. Strangely enough, if we got our finances stable we would be that kind of club, not that I'm suggesting replacing JP you understand. Keane would want to be the big fish in a medium-sized pond as WGS and Hoddle (and Lawrie) were for us.

That's true also for Wilde and any of the board members for the last 4 years. I want all of them gone and that puts me in a majority of Saints fans. Can't they (the so-called 3 Amigos) get that into their heads?

What this comes back to is what I said in the summer - Lowe's strategy should have been "Right, I'm returning to sort out the finances and stop the company going into administration. This is going to involve some difficult decisions but I do ask the supporters to back us. Andrew Cowen is going to be Chairman and I will not be involved on a daily basis in running the football club so all enquiries and the day-to-day running will be Andrew's responsibility. I will retain my shareholding until the club is financially sustainable and moreover, able to attract a buyer which is our stated aim as soon as is feasibly possible". This would have got a majority of fans on board, me included but Rupert just can't help himself. I'm not particularly ITK but I do know that he has been an obstacle in the past and his comment in the past of "If someone wants to buy the club they can put up £25m" was not for him to say as he only owns what 5-6%? I'm with Dubai Phil, I want all of them gone and their playground politics via Charles Sale, the Echo etc and we will not move forward until they do. Um is right to state the facts about 05/06 though, we were left in a mess by Rupert, not least leaking a lot of money on SCW and paying off people from that failed experiment and wasting the first season's parachute money. I'm not nearly as anti-Lowe as most on here but Lowe's supporters cannot hide from that fact and he (or it may have been directed by Wilde) does paint a misleading statement Jonah in the recent summary. Still, as I've said before I've got a lot more respect for Rupert than I'll ever have for Wilde - I have 0% respect for Wilde and he's on a par with Redknapp, Branfoot, Askham, Richards, Wiseman and Mandaric for me.

Cork I can see staying unless Bolton come in as he doesn't look like he has much chance at Chelsea, as for Pearce, he's been excellent. Can't see why Reading would loan him out! Smith was going to be the next big thing 3 years ago but has faded and we haven't really seen anything of him, waste of a loan IMO. Robertson has been largely injured apart from that one corker V Norwich but has featured more recently and Pekhart bar one lovely finish V Ipswich has done little to justify an impressive pedigree. So I'd keep Cork and Pearce, let the others go. The new lad from Everton sounds very good and buys Mills some development time as he's a bit young for the CCC at present although looks good for 2-3 years time (ditto Gobern). On the loans side, I suspect the fate of Kelvin and Bart may have a say, Kelvin may attract clubs as his form has been unrecognisable and right now he'd win Player of the Season by 300 miles and Bart seems not to be fancied after a flapping session at Rotherham.

Skates, Fulham, Wigan, Bolton - all fanbase smaller than 30k WBA, Stoke, Hull - grounds hold c27k but if Hull stay up for a couple of seasons they could get 35-40k IMO. Their catchment area is massive. Villa have got over 30k again since Learner bought them but I can remember being there 5 years ago or so when we beat them 1-0 and it was only an 18 or 19k gate. Their average was below 30k that season Boro - they have the stadium, fanbase can top 30k but only occasionally does these days. Saints have got a bit more history and profile than Boro historically.

That is a very good point. Many of the Skates I know are not convinced that even if they build their ground at Tipner, they will actually be able to fill it. These are their halycon days of the 21st century - FA Cup win, AC Milan at home and yet they only got 18000 on Sunday. They can say that their fans don't want to sit in the rusty, prehistoric Milton End but I loved that Saints team WGS built in 2002/3 and would have watched them from the roof if I'd had to - and I suffer from vertigo. Hence St James's Park is not my favourite away ground! Still, this isn't an anti-Pompey post. Brum were barely getting 20k last season in the PL and Bolton and Fulham regularly fell below this level. I won't even start on Wigan. It just shows the fanbase is still there and we still filled it for Sheff Utd last season so it isn't exclusive to the PL. In 2006/7, we got quite a few gates at 25k and above. Geography may play a part, Norwich have a very solid fanbase but no buy-out either. That said, they've come closer than us. They also got rid of their hated Chairman, Robert Chase and that has really acted as a glue even though it was more than 10 years ago. In the old Div 1, their gates were only 12-13k in the 1980s.

You gradually build it up but there does come a "boiling point" where an investor either can only take the club to a certain level or the club has to be satisfied with continuing to invest to stay at that level. This would be true of us in 2003, Bolton under Big Sam and the Skates currently. Once medium-sized clubs take their foot off of the accelerator slightly, relegation and the devastating impact follows. If an investor was satisfied with us being a PL club that finished between 7th and 14th with the odd foray into the UEFA Cup - I think we all would like that as fans - I can see it would work. The investor would take their dividend. The other big benefit of investment would be the survival, rebuilding and growth of the academy. If the Academy was full-strength again with matched but modest-investment in the first team, you'd have a strong club again so any player sales could be on our terms, as they have been before. After all, we've always sold our best young players, even Williams when we were title challengers but we haven't had to sell them for buttons before with no hope of replacing them, leading to League 1.

Most sensible post here. Crouch was probably responding to the comments in the annual report, some of which were true, some were inflammatory and some verging on the daft.

Add Askham to the list and put him at the top. Actually, it's a shame that there is antagonism between Leon and Rupert as actually, along with Cowen (never met Lee Hoos), they are the only boardroom figures post-Bates that I have had any respect for. I'm not a Rupert fan but I do recognise he's had his good moments at SFC. Leon is a fan, I don't agree with some of his decisions but actually, if Leon and Lowe had have shaken hands in summer 2006 and cut Wilde out (who was seen by most of us, me included, as someone with SFC's best interests at heart. How wrong we were), who knows things may not have got this bad. Rupert may have restrained Leon a bit and likewise, Leon may have curbed the worst of Lowe's flights of fantasy and experimentation. In reality, they'd probably have been fighting in 5 seconds flat but it isolates why we're in a mess that we expect so little of our major shareholders. Wilde has actually sunk even lower than Guy Askham in my all time Saints hate list. The man is a weasel and I respect Lowe even if I don't like him for fronting up and taking stick from the fans. Mike just hides when the going gets tough and was clearly full of egotistical nonsense in 2006, there were no investors and the board quickly saw that.

Nothing needs to be added to this - sums the situation up perfectly.

He was at Huddersfield when Bruce was manager there, possibly in the late 1990s. May have played for others at CCC/League 1 level but can't recall them. Decent player from what I remember the season Huddersfield had a push for the PL, Marcus Stewart was part of that side as well and a Dutch striker (Wijnard?) from Leeds. Then Bruce left and the wheels seemed to come off.

My mother actually told my old man that if he didn't quit playing hockey on Saturdays and went to the Dell with her she'd meet someone else. So if it wasn't for Saints, I wouldn't be here I guess!

Love Saints but can't stand that twee "Stand Up if you Love the Saints" song - pass the sick bag. More of a COYR and Oh When the Saints man myself, plus a bit of banter with the opposition.

Wouldn't surprise me if Cameron eases Osborne out of the picture - he really is a liability. I'm not a Gordon Brown fan either but Osborne is worth 60-100 seats for the Labour Party every time he opens his mouth.