Tamesaint

Andrew????

and Bodminsaint thinks your post is spot on !!! Amazing!!!

Do you reckon?? The best way to see if Sundance has changed will be to get Darren W to post. If it doesn't end in vitrolic abuse we will know that Sundance has turned over a new leaf!! ;-) :-)

Interesting view but I do not agree. When Pearson first arrived he did play the youth. Gillett for example had been at the club for several seasons and had only made one fleeting appearance as substitue under Strachan / Sturrock / Wigley / Redknapp / Burley. The first thing that Pearson did was to put him into the squad and he played several times under Pearson. A similar story applied to the likes of McGoldrick. Pearson stopped playing the youth after the defeat at Hull. Our backs were well up against the wall at that stage and he (rightly as it turned out) preferred to depend upon the experience of the likes of Lucketti, Wright and Perry. Blooding kids into the first team in August is one thing. Blooding them in the middle of a relegation battle with a handful of games left is a completely different scenario. I think Pearson's credentialsas Under 21 manager says a lot more about his ability with kids than making deductions from a relegation struggle. Nice to see the change in style Sundance.

It is a cause for concern if you spend time and money supporting your team on a cold winter's night, 70 miles from home. It was cold comfort walking back through the streets of Norwood last night to think "oh well , Palace are just a long ball team... we are a proper football team." To progress as a football club we need to win matches. We need to beat long ball teams. As far as I am aware there is no law of football which insists that you make 15 passes before getting the ball into the penalty area. If we happily accept defeats like last night's because Palace are a long ball team we might as well all give up.

He also made the common mistake of assuming that good players make good managers. Hurst & Peters scored 4 goals in a world cup final. They were rubbish managers. Moore captained a World Cup team. He was a poor manager. Bobby Charlton was the inspirational figure in a World Cup winning team. He couldn't hack it as a manager. The complaint against Poorteveilt is not that he was a good player. It is that he is an inexperienced manager who has spent his career scrambling around the fourth and fifth tiers of the Dutch league. After the abject failure of Wigley (and despite the attempt at rewriting history from Rinny and co you are 100 % certain of relegation if your chairman is so stupid as to have 3 managers before Xmas) you would have thought that Lowe would have thought twice about sacking an experienced guy for an untried noviice...but you clearly do not think twice. if you have an ego the size of Rupert's.

So who owns the most? Rupert with Lowe Holdings or Leon with his clutch of engineering businesses? Who is the more successful businessman?

and if it is Euros it will be worth even more as the pound plummets against the mighty Euro.

No it is not. The 45% you quote comes after all the expenses of putting on the game have been deducted & the away team's travelling expenses will not come out of the general take. Don't forget the knock ons. We should be able to make a few bob out of perimeter advertising, corporate hospitality packages,programme sales, food and drink sales,extra sales in the club shop etc etc - and these receipts will not have to be shared. If we cannot make the equivalent of 45% gross then our marketing team will need to be shot!!!

Yes - but for a normal league game, over two thirds of the crowd are season ticket holders who have already paid for their tickets. The extra revenue that the club receives from playing that game is small. For a cup game everyone has to pay. That's 15,000 extra tickets sold (our half of the gate). Assuming it is not budgeted for (and a prudent man like Rupert would not have expected a home tie v Man U) it is pure win.

Dave Hockaday wanted a high profile club in the FA Cup - someone who would get the stayaway fans back. Well he certainly got his wish didn't he!!!

You really don't get this football supporting lark do you Sundance? A true supporter of Southampton football Club just would not come out with this guff about Lawrie. Quite clearly you were not a supporter of Southampton between the mid seventies and mid eighties - which is surprising as you not so young that you were not around during that time. Here's an idea Sundance. Why don't you stop supporting one man (Lowe) and instead support a football team (Southampton)? It might change your outlook on life.

What does it say? Is it the beginning of the end for the Dark Lord?

Perhaps they could be put into the corners.

Don't get taken in by the PR spin or the weasel words. . The £3.5 million that we had on deposit conveniently did not include the amount at the same time that was in the overdraft. A good chunk of the £3.5 million that was in the bank had to be paid the day after Lowe and his cabal left to players as "loyalty bonuses" - ie The next instalment of their signing on fees. This would have been covered by contractual law. It would be a bit like you saying that you had x in the bank just after you got paid and just before you had to pay your mortgage, your rates and all the other bills. In theory you have the money ... but in practice you do not.

Does Rupert wear a Dutch cap when he watches Dutch football??? :-) :-)

Maybe someone other than Rupert doing the teamtalk is the reason that we won!!

Good point. According tio the Runnymede minutes the bank kept Lowe informed of the financial situation. I wonder why he didn't say something then.

Reading the annual accounts , I have a few questions for Lowe: 1. When Rupert left SMS,according to him, the club was financially strong. When he returned it was in a poor state. How can he therefore work with the catalyst for this change - Michael Wide? 2. Isn't it a little disingenous - nay, downright dishonest to compare the bank account on the day he left, 29 June 2006 , with the peak of the summer overdraft? Players are paid their "loyalty bonuses" / signing on fee instalments on 30 June. The bank balance would have been a lot lower two days after Lowe left. It is a bit like me comparing my bank balance the day after I was paid with the balance the day after I had paid my mortgage!! 3. Why does Rupert feel that he is unable to convert the "vocal,negative elements of our support base"? Why does it exist? Why even give them the oxygen of publicity in the annual accounts? 4. What are the "internal sources of finance" that the Directors may consider? Does this mean that Michael Wilde will cough up the long expected £2 million that he promised? Does this mean that Lowe and Cowen may repay some of the £600k they received when they resigned? 5. Do we have to pay that well known wit and raconteur Chris Iwelumo for quoting him in the accounts? I wonder whether he would answer these questions at the AGM??

Who do you have in mind Sundance??

What, pray,do you base this little gem on other than blind devotion to Lowe. The man had quite simply lost the plot in our last season in the Premiership. 3 managers by the start of December !!! No wonder we went down. Then in our first season down his "brilliant" masterstroke of cutting players wages by half meant that we missed our best chance of going back up. Instead of concentrating on doing what Birmingham seem to do so well of bouncing straight back up we spent most of the season getting rid of players who have subsequently shown that they could do a good job in the Premiership (Delap, Niemi etc ). 5 year rebuilding plan ??? You must be having a larff!!

... and there's the rub. Jan is only currently employed at a higher level because Nigel did such a good job last season!! If Nigel had bombed out and we had been relegated instead of Leicester he would now be at the higher level. You couldn't make it up!!!

So Crouch would have been a better bet in your eyes if he had blown agents fees , signing on fees etc on a couple of crocks. Hmmmmmm.

How on earth do the acquisitions of Pulis and Gasmi prove that Lowe is a good dealer in the transfer market ???? It would be nice to see them in a first team shirt!!!!

I need no lectures from anyone on supporting the Saints thank you very much. There was never a truer song than "Southampton till I die". That does not mean that supporting the team means that I have to give unquestioning obedience to everything that happens off the field. As a supporter of the club I can & will criticise what is going on off the field ... and still support the team. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to say to the luvvies that they were right and I was wrong when we re enter the Premiership under JP and Rupert.