saint1977

Saw that on BBC Gossip column - had to laugh!

Liverpool home?

India have prepared flat pitches and this Delhi surface is already starting to take turn at the end of day two. England should pack the side with batters and spinners (Patel and Swann as well as Monty as they can both bat well) if India are going to revert to their old tactics. Harmy and Freddie should have the new ball and pepper their batters with short stuff in short, violent 4 over bursts, give them nothing to drive unless they want to risk a hook shot or dig out a yorker. The medium pace part-timers like Colly can fill in for a few overs and bowl leg-side and bore Tendulkar out. It's a shame, India's away form has been quite good since they started preparing varied wickets at home but the dustbowls have come out for Australia and England. This pitch is so awful it won't even take reverse swing. Bore the crap out of India and get a 0-0 draw, it serves them right.

"We are now facing the problem of a £13m income and a cost base and infrastruture that is (and probably always will be) in excess of that." Spot-on and who built that infrastructure without ever having the means to pay for it? Yup - Rupert. SCW had some good ideas but we wasted the first parachute season in 05/06 on needless experiments and fast forward to 08/09 and he's at it again.

That wouldn't happen but we'd have to rent SMS back at a significant cost. I think we'll come back but we need the share deadlock to break and Wilde and Lowe to lose enough of their value to find out what other options we have. There's no way PFC would be allowed to play games in the heart of Southampton City Centre! People are very anti-Rupert Lowe and the club doesn't even have a short-term future with him involved and Wilde needs to wrap his thick skull around this fact.

That's the sad thing Nick, the club is just a local plaything to the various board members that have been through the revolving door in the last 20 years. Leon may not have done a great job - ie signing Safri and Euell on silly wages post-parachute but he's the only fan that's been involved at that level since Ted Bates. I rarely look at our results for away games these days and I've been an ST over the years and regularly gone to 8-10 away games a season as well so like you, I couldn't be labelled a casual.

Moreover, I don't think Barclays will support it much longer either. Why support debt if the people that have accrued it have no means of either repaying it or growing the organisation to be sustainable yet competitive in it's market? It's only the fact that football clubs have a community status and banks and the tax authorities don't want the bad PR that the plug hasn't been pulled already and with no sign of a viable business plan from Mike or Rupert, their chances of being there in January are looking slim.

You've hit the nail on the head, Barclays have backed Rupert so far due to the relationship built when SMS loan was secured but I think they will lose patience fairly soon as the JP and Wotte appointment is backfiring badly and neither Wilde or Lowe are going to put their hand in their pocket for the 2 experienced loan signings we badly need. The bank will not see that Wilde and Lowe are trying to bring in new business or repair fences with the fans and they may pull the plug. No investment and no new business = sale of any decent players left = certain relegation = administration and -15 in League 1.

Probably because JP is regarded as a lower league journeyman of a manager over there, albeit he was a very good player. Surprised Wotte with a higher profile hasn't been able to attract any budding Ferry Boddes over though.

We might ruin a good young midfielder too.

There is truth in what you say and I think 2 experienced loan signings would mentor these lads along. Look at how Perry encouaged and talked Lancashire into a good display at Sheff Utd (late red card apart). If Lowe and Wilde can't even (or wont) invest that, it's time they stood down ASAP. I think Crouch would have brought in someone experienced out of his own pocket and we'd be higher up the table IMO. JP is out of his depth, that's all too clear. Poyet might fancy a first crack at management and he knows the English game well. Bring him in this week and we might still turn this around.

Fair question Nick and I'm not sure Leon is a great option but him and Salz would be better than Lowe or Wilde. For a start, I think we'd have had the 2 experienced loan players that would really help the kids out and give some leadership. A takeover is what we really need but it doesn't look likely. Wilde and Lowe = relegation = administration.

I agree but then whilst the Branfoot protests got rid of Ian, Askham, Richards and Wiseman et al stayed and continued to asset strip. 2/3 are still there too. Mugs like me going to games only encourages them.

Trouble is, Wilde and Lowe might buy us back for a pittance and really finish us off. Be careful what you wish for. Worst case scenario is that a Simon Morris type villain buys us and yes that would be worse than Rupert. I'm no fan of the curent board but I'm also realistic.

Still better than DMG though! DMG is one of the laziest little ***ts to ever play for this club and I would loan him to Salisbury if I was JP - then again, I'm not sure he'd even score for a BSP side managed by our FA Cup hero from 76. He did naff all at Vale Park last year too and Paterson must be ahead of him, let alone SJ. I apologise in advance to anyone that has to listen to my foul language at SMS if DMG is in the starting line-up anytime soon again.

I thought they'd all rusted and gone to scrap. Having said that, last night I saw an even older and rarer member of BL's range - a Morris Marina!

I vaguely remember something about that. Vinny Jones would have been a good candidate for betting on for first booking when he was playing - I think he still holds the record at 2 seconds or something daft.

I had a couple of friends from Norwich at that game so I'll have to ask them if they noticed anything at the time. Trouble is, betting companies offer all manner of things that you can bet on now - first booking, first throw-in - that are easily controllable by players that spectators would just put down to carelessness, it would be easy to claim that a 40-yard ball to a wide player from kick-off had been misplaced. The fact it was also a CCC game probably tells you that the people alleged to be involved thought it would go under the radar so many PL and CL games are televised live.

Actually Prof, not sure I'm that bothered about the PL, I think it's become a bloated corporate balloon that may go pop at any time. Anything below CCC level for SFC is totally unacceptable however and the club is geared for Leagues 1 or 2 at present, even in the way that the academy is being run and that's very dangerous with the off-the pitch (albeit reduced) overhead level and sports science empire left from 05/06 which the club really couldn't afford post-relegation although Rupert and SCW's experiment might have fared better if we'd stayed up in 04/05. Still, that's where we're at and the system could be revitalised if someone of SFC calibre comes in and invests what's needed (not megabucks but beyond our current board and major shareholder base) to revlitalise it and make it sustainable. Just one top player a year could make it profitable although academies at £4-5m a year are not cheap to run.

Not sure we can afford to be too choosy Robbie. I'd prefer a takeover to get rid of the 3 Amigos and Askham but the bank has the most say. Also, if investment allowed us to rebuild the academy and buy 5 experienced players to help the best youngsters along, I'd support it, whether Lowe stayed on the board or not. If someone invested a decent amount, they'd call the shots anyway, not Askham and his mates.

Yes, but we didn't draw with Man U because we let Fletcher and Van Nistelhorse have free headers and frankly, if you are so appalling that you only collect 32 points over a season with a squad that started the season with some quality players, you deserve to go down and we did and we didn't deserve any sympathy. What Pompey did or didn't do at WBA is irrelevant, Palace would have stayed up anyway. There's already been a "where did it go wrong thread" but to sum up, poor decision-making at boardroom level did for us, worst of all Wigley when the board should have learned from the Gray debacle. I was preparing for relegation even before the Bolton game in August 2004 when Lowe forced it through without consulting the board and he should have resigned in late 2004 when Wigley went. The atmosphere at the Blackburn game before Sturrock went and at the Bolton game afterwards was really odd and you just sensed the club was in dire trouble. Pompey fans - you've had your debate now, you've got a lot of games coming up so back to your Pompey boards. I've never been on a Pompey fans board in my life and don't really get why they are on here when Saints are insolvent and we're in our worst postwar state. In fact, there's probably been more Pompey postings on this thread than Saints ones. To be honest, HR is old history and I'm just hoping SFC can survive and that we have a viable club at least at CCC level for generations to come. Pompey just aren't on most Saints fans radar or thoughts at the moment so you're wasting your time.

2-1 Saints for me. By the way, is Rasiak still injured? I know he probably can't play against us anyway. Let's hope it's the same linesman as the Reading game and that a McGoldrick cross is awarded as a goal.

If the board don't maintain the right number of coaches for each of the age groups, we won't even have an academy, we'll only have a centre of excellence and will only play the smaller teams - result, we won't attract anywhere near the calibre of young players that we are now. So this "youth" strategy is anything but, it is a short-term fix to keep Barclays from putting us into administration. Hull have actually had some decent investment, the sort Southampton FC (via SLH) has been starved of over the years after the "reverse takeover" so there's no valid comparison. We don't need an overseas sugar daddy, just a modicum of medium-term investment that bring the academy back to full strength (which would probably with the finding of another Bale or Theo gain the investor a return alone) and buys 3-4 experienced players to bolster the first XI and make us an established CCC level club at least (our current board would probably be OK at BSP or League 2 level but not CCC). The current board cannot offer us that and even the most hardened pro-Lowe posters now acknowledge that. I think those that are posting saying that increasing attendances will increase the prospect of such investors are correct to do so though, a 40% drop in attendances, however understandable, doesn't help so us fans need to do our bit to send the 3 Amigos on their way.

Sad but true, you do at the cricket (ie England games) but different market. About the best you'll get at any football ground is Marsdon's Smooth. OK, it's not brilliant but it's better than John Smith's or Carls****.