SaintBobby

No one thinks he's going to spend all his £2.5bn. (just so I get this right, that £2,500,000,000, yes?). BUT: 1. He will spend some of it. I'm hoping and expecting that we will be the biggest spenders in League One by some margin. If he spends £10m on new players and associated salaries this year, that amounts to 0.4% of his personal fortune. That's barely worth even acknowledging in his book-keeping given that his exposure in stocks and shares, currencies, property etc must be 100s of millions per annum. 2. It seems unlikely to me that we will ever be within days of liquidation while he is in charge. Or that the staff will go unpaid. Or that we will have to sell players in order to appease Barclays Bank.

All very historical, as others have said. But here's my 2p... I was very supportive of Lowe until the 2003-2004 season and moderately supportive of him until about November last year. I've reached the conclusion that he's like Gordon Brown - he preaches prudence rather than practices it. The "unforgiveables" for me are: 1. Botching going into admin so we start next season on -10 rather than taking the hit last season (even if Lowe believed there would be no penalty, he should have pre-empted things and gone into admin 48 hours earlier) 2. Greater prudence should have been practiced to avoid administration. I would have swallowed a viscous austerity package if this had succeeded in fending off administration, but it didn't. This is just incompetent business practice. 3. I'm sceptical about how serious and proficient the SLH board were in attempting to sell the club. Although the 98-day nightmare was protracted, it does seem that there were several parties willing to buy the club. Why were SLH's efforts so pitiful for so long? Even if their aim was to try and maximise their own share values in their own narrow financial interest, they did this very incompetently. 4. Presiding over two relegations and a -10 starting point is a pitiful performance - even if others have contributed to our demise. I know a lot of people are saying that any mention of Lowe should be banned and we should all look to the future. But I'm beginning to take a different view. Now that Lowe is out for good, I find it easier to talk about him rationally. I even find it pleasingly cathartic.

Well, that wasn't the only reason. Just because the fans "blocked" Hoddle, didn't mean we had to endure the Sturrock and Wigley fiasco. And even having done so, relegation was not inevitable.

True enough - the polls aren't a vigorous mathematical analysis of opinion, but I'd have thought twenty minutes on this forum would lead the reader to the following (broadly accurate) analysis of the views of the fanbase. Namely; Very popular: Strachan Popular: Pearson, Keegan, Coppell Some honourable mentions: Boothroyd, Tisdale, Gross Some measurable resistance: Hoddle, Wotte (RIP) Monumentally unpopular: Tony Adams Of course, there are literally dozens of possible candidates not on this limited list of ten. But these are the ten who - at present - are "testable" in this curious court of public opinion.

If I was Mark Fry and some loony phoned up to ask whether St. Mary's could get planning permission for a rollercoaster, an ice rink and a petting zoo, I'd probably hang up too.....

No, the fans shouldn't pick the manager. But yes, fan opinion is important. A manager who has "lost" the crowd is nearly as screwed as one who has lost the dressing room (e.g. Branfoot). And there can be less black and white consequences too. if we get a popular choice - such as WGS or Pearson - they are likely to be forgiven more easily than, say, Tony Adams who will be labelled as a useless skate b*stard unless he wins game after game. One area where i think a forum like this might have some influence is in managerial appointments. I find it laughable that some argued that negative comments on here could somehow derail a multi-million pound takeover. But it seems to me that this is as good a measure of "fan opinion" as you can find. The latest "next manager" poll has nearly 1,000 votes cast. If the appointments panel can't decide between, say, WGS and Adams, the statistical evidence on here might just help tip the balance.

He's not on the shortlist, he won't be the next manager of Saints. End of story.

WGS, Coppell, Pearson, Keegan, Hoddle, Tisdale

According to a representative at Skybet, people were trying to put four figure sums on Strachan. That's a lot of wishful thinking - or some inside knowledge. It may be that people misinterpretted WGS's visit to Staplewood I guess. You're right though - it doesn't take much money to shift the odds. Maybe a grand on Adams would have been enough to put him to evens.

This is the key point. It's not NP's performance at Saints that is totally decisive, it's that he has shown he can do it in League One with Leicester. If Leicester had finished 8th or 9th, I wouldn't be as keen. But they stormed the league. If one of the interview questions is "What evidence is there that you are able to help a medium-sized club that is at its lowest ebb fight its way successfully out of the third tier?" .....then it's hard to imagine that there is anyone who can provide as compelling a reply as Nigel Pearson...

Tell Kelvin Davis to f**k off back to West Ham, then???? :smt039

I would pay £35 a game to watch Saints in the premiership, no question. However, that's only about 50% more than League One. But Premiership salaries are, what, ten or twenty times as high?

Is it really £1900 ($3000) for the best seat for a single Yankees game???? On salaries, I think the ludicrous numbers at the top levels probably ARE sustainable. The very top footballers are beginning to catch up with top American sportsmen and world famous pop stars. Btw, the argument that John Terry isn't 200 tiems as good as a £1K per week players doesn't hold much water. Wages - in every field - go up exponentially as you reach the far (talented) end of the "bell curve". I reckon Jenson Button is probably only about twice as fast as me in a F1 car - but I wouldn't expect to get 50% of his wages if a Formula One team signed me up! Ron's question - how does the meltdown manifest itself? - is interesting. My feeling is that once one biggish team collapses (Newcastle?) a domino efefct could kick in. Ashley has lost (or will lose) £40m more on Newcastle United. Football will at some point become less attractive for the hyper-rich and less palatable for banks to finance. One thing I just cannot comprehend is why footballers aren't paid - in large part - based on performance. This is a business with transparent results. Win bonuses, final league position bonuses etc. should be a far, far bigger part of a player's salary than at present. Some people have mentioend the American model - theer's an article about it and Saints here http://www.liberal-vision.org/2009/07/06/is-football-really-a-free-market-sport/ I don't see how there is a legal problem re:restraint of trade if the FA or UEFA were the "employer". Ronaldo could choose to ply his trade in the "independent Screwfix Sunday league" if he wanted. But would probably choose the UEFA "brand" instead.

We need a manager who can get us from League One to the Premiership in about five years. If (mind wanders off to dreamland) we get to the Premiership and want to build within it, we need a different structure to the team (pace and technique becoming comparatively more important than physical strength). I wouldn't want to overplay the assertion that you need to "kick your way" out of L1 and the CCC, but there's some truth in it. I was initially attracted by the Dutch experiment - but it's not the sort of football that works in the lower levels.

Not gutted if true - but highlights the need to get in a pacey striker. Preferabky one who understands the offside rule.

I know Euell isn't a fans' favourite, but I'd retain him. He's a commanding presence and shows leadership on the pitch. I think he could do a good job as CM or CF in League One. His wages should nosedive though. Saeijs would be a great signing. We desperately need a tall, strong centre back.

My match report is here: http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/news/loadnews.asp?cid=TMNW&id=453359

There's probably about 99.999999% of the human race that I DON'T want to be manager. Of the candidates listed on skybet, I will not renew my season ticket if it's Tony Adams. It would be a farcical and crushing let down after the last few days, and I'd be paranoid enough to believe that Liebherr was some Blofeld character in a skate plot. I'd need to stay away for my own sanity.

He's my second choice. He'd be okay, but not quite as good as my first choice - the hugely underated Tony Adams. Adams has the drive, personality and footballing brain to unite the fanbase after a few good results and show that in the new era of our club, we will not turn to the past, we will not hold irrational grudges against those who have worked for our footballing neighbours and we can look forward to a brighter, successful future. Saints have been granted a second chance. We owe it to Tony to grant him a second chance too. (P.S. I don't believe any of this)

Without wishing to disrupt the "let bygones be bygones" feel-good factor, I can say with 100% certainty that your statement is untrue. It's amazing that there wasn't an inquest into this nonsense, but probably reflected how utterly dysfunctional the club was at the time. Paul Allen NEVER had any interest in purchasing Saints, never instructed anyone to engage in any talks, never looked into any preliminary investigations etc. His level of interest was zero. If not lower. If anyone is remotely interested in how I know this, they can drop me a PM.

Want WGS, KK or Coppell (in that order). I also think the chances are WGS c. 30%, Coppell c. 20%, Keegan c. 5%. I think WGS is the most likely of any named candidate, but is still odds against.

Sort of. But what people think will happen and what's likely to happen aren't completely different things. A 12-1 shot in the Grand National is simply a horse that has had a lot more money put on it than a 200-1 shot. But that is good evidence that the 12-1 horse is much more likely to win than the 200-1 shot.

Someone calculated that it's cheaper to buy a SH if you're going to attend 14 or more games. Given you're saying you will attend 50%+ (i.e. 12 or more), I'd recommend a season ticket. Also: 1. You get an Ajax ticket for free. 2. You may well need a ST to get away tickets - by memory, some of the away allocations are less than 1,000. You may find a ST is prerequisite for getting in to a lot of away games. HTH.

OMG.....that is quite an enormous shift - surely prompted by knowledge rather than just a bunch of Saints fans putting on £20 each. If it was the latter, wouldn't the odds shift more incrementally? (to, say evens, then 4/6 then 1/2 etc...?)

There's a limit to the amount of good news I can consume in a week... Not convinced about this story, but would def cream my jeans if this is true...