St Marco

As i said all pre season people need to keep their feet on the ground. Some people honestly believed what was being said on the OS, some believed Wilde and Lowe when they said promotion was our target this season, some even said we will be like Man U when they put out their kids, some honestly felt we were going to quite comfortably be mid table. Now a lot of you are realising what most of us already knew. Were a club using the kids not because they are great players but because we have no choice to. There is only 2 games gone and we are in for a tough long season, but we stand a better chance of surviving if people don't expect us to perform miracles and still turn up and support the team. This season is a season of simply battling to survive because if we don't we will drift off into oblivion. The whole Lowe return thing will not change the fact we are a sinking ship, it just has a different driver. As fans we can do only what we can do and that is support the team and manager.

Gamespot got a decent preview up from the Leipzig Games Convention http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/operationflashpoint2/news.html?sid=6196275&om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;title;3 Pretty interesting info, nice to see the mission/map editor returns also this was interesting As we'd hoped, Operation Flashpoint 2 is as scarily realistic as its predecessor. The damage system is incredibly realistic and modelled on each individual bullet, so even if you're only shot in the arm, it will be enough to send you into shock unless you haul yourself to a medic. With such a high level of realism, we were concerned about the difficulty and how the developers would make the game accessible, especially to a console audience. The key, they say, is in the squadmate AI, which will mostly take care of itself even if you march your squad into danger Can see a video interview with actual gameplay footage http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/operationflashpoint2/video/6196274/gc-2008-operation-flashpoint-2-first-look-interview?tag=videos;title;2 Only like 6 months to go.....

The stadium would of come no matter who was in charge and we did get to those places with Lowe here. However an FA cup final does not make up or make the failures any easier to accept. Nor do they mean that it is acceptable to think it is ok we got relegated because we had a good season a year before! It is easy for everyone to blame it all on Lowe but truth is he isn't to blame for everything as he did do some good. But the problem is he set up a club that was reliant of the Premiership pay packet with the attendences that come with that. He concentrated on expanding that empire in various places such as radio,food,sports science centre etc.. etc.. when really he should of been concentrating on the team. The club lost a few good players and a decent manager and from then he just made error after error. He was the one alone who made those decisions and is why he must accept some of the blame for it. Of course he would never do that. The ironic thing is i can see a bit of history repeating already. The comments on the OS talking up promotion, players being sold, fans getting ****ed off, team doing bad results wise and so on. But we can spend forever looking back, better to spend the time looking forward.

Exactly but the difference is all those people are losing their jobs while Lowe and Wilde keep their own. And yes it removes every single board member. If a company/club is a PLC and goes into admin the administrator will deal 1st with the people owed money, if after that there is money left at all they split it with the shareholders. Then they lose their shares/company and it is delisted. In most cases shareholders will get fook all. This is the gamble of investing in shares. When the process is complete the only person left is the administrator, he listens to nobody but the courts. Ask yourself how many clubs have gone into admin and then when they have been put up for sale have come out with the same owner/board? Even in Leeds instance you can't say Bates because it wasen't him who created the problems it was Risdale. I do not recommend this course unless it is as i said near certain we are down because if we go down we will be in it anyway. But by going into admin will change the club. We will no longer be owned by many people who can't get on, we will be put up for sale which attracts better potential investors then our current plight. We will have a fresh start like other clubs such as Forest,Leciester,Leeds etc. have had. It is my opinion we will never go forward as a club or buisness while we are in our current fragmented state. And i believe because of that state we will never be bought out. So our slide will continue. If we go down and don't go into admin we will just keep prolonging the inevitable which the further u fall makes it harder and harder to get back up. Make no mistakes if we are losing as much as we think we will have no option but to go into admin anyway. As our old board said a year ago, if we don't get investment this club is headed for admin. The only problem is people didn't agree with them. So that board and even Crouch's board activley looked for investment. They put some offers on the table (Sissu) and were in talks with others (Fulthorpe). So if we don't get investment or can't sell of more of the players who are orth something we will go into admin.

Of course as you only ever really hear about admin when a club is threatened with it. People have to remember why they bought in the points deduction in the 1st place. Sometimes going into admin isn't a punishment like people make it out to be. The 10point deduction is a punishment. Look at Leeds if they didn't have that deduction they would of been up last season.

Saints fans really **** me off at the momment. Another player who when fit gave his all for the club but now he has gone all of a sudden he is "no loss" "we got some profit" "he wanted to leave" "he cost us to much money" "he only played 13 games" and so on. He played 23 games last season and was our player of the year. He was a huge piece in the future of this club and is a massive loss. He was a future club captain. I can just see it this time next year if Morgan goes it will be the same thing. Looking for reasons why we don't need him when in reality we do.

Im a media analyst for flemedia and i know majority of this is pure ********. People know i had a few friends in the club who have now been made redundent. One was a secretary and one was part of the resources department. It is common knowledge that we have made loads of people unemployed, in many cases have merged departments into one thus to cover 2 sectors in 1 go. One of my friends worked there for 15 years. He has a new job after being sacked and has no problems. Majority of those who have been layed off will be the same. What you fail to realise is that right now we are in the shadow of a recession. The pound is falling fast, the housing industry is in reverse and to top it all off the banks will no longer lend anyone money (credit crunch). Add to that mix the rising costs of fuel and gases means everyone is worse off. So while i feel for the 63 year old stacking shelves i also feel for the hard working guy who has worked his ass off for many years only to be fired because of the current climate. I'm sure most of you all know someone from a company that has been made redundent recently or is on the verge of it, i wonder how many themselves are in that situation. So i feel sorry for the cook in the club that he/she might be about to lose their job, i feel sorry for the people at the merchandise shop that are being asked to work fewer hours, i feel sorry for the kitman that worked for 20 years and was fired and so on. But i feel the same sorrow for the people who are 15 and trying to fund their own way by working at Mcdonalds and might lose their job, the same sorrow for the family that work so hard but can't afford to have a place of their own, the same sorrow for the old person who worked all their life but can't afford to pay for the heating in their house and so on. So while the people at the club who have lost their jobs have it bad they don't have it horrible and i think that is pretty naieve to paint that picture. No job is 100% set for life and about 99% of us accept that. As for the administration thing about getting the best buisness again i am thinking you don't know what your talking about as Administration is a legal procedure used by many companies that have it bad. The next step is liquidation but very few get that far. How many football clubs have actually died after admin? An administrator is set by the courts to look after the company and the creditors. It is his job to get the club running again within it's limits while negotiating with the people who are owed money. They will in some cases accept a lower debt or even in banks cases postpone the debt to a later date. The job is to get the company out of it's current financial trouble and bring it back from the brink. When that has happened and the bank is happy and the club is solvent the administrator must apply for a release from the court. The court has to look at it and see the company will not fall back into the same situation. After that has been agreed the company is then put up for sale. This is just like how it is normally except the club is free of most debts and no longer has to sell to meet targets. This makes it far more attractive to potential buyers. In the case of Leeds they were initially bought for £10m but had to go to court to have this bid accepted. The second bid by Bates was not released but you can be sure it was higher. In that instance he was the best man for the job, he had his own money and has spent quite a bit on new players and paying journeyman's wages. If we find ourselves in that situation i can tell you right now from a analyst perspective they would never agree to Lowes bid if he did unless he was backed by a financial group/consortium. Because what would the point be of selling the club to someone with no money? They would just be getting into the same practice as before. If you know as much as you claim you would know administration is known as "rescue remedy" by companies. Which translated means if your in the **** and you have used all your other options that is the only in house process that can save you. Many people see the word administration and they think all doom and gloom, even you are only talking about the negative sides, hate mongering if you will. But their are many many positives from going into it for companies that are fragmented and in strk terms just headed for oblivion. Right now we are one of those companies. For so many years we have relied on selling one of our youngsters or stars to stay a float, was only a matter of time before that buisness policy falls apart when the stars dry up.

To use this quote WHAT IS ADMINISTRATION AND WHAT DO ADMINISTRATORS DO? They're accountants whose job is to try and get the best deal for the business and the creditors, by trying to find a buyer, or minimising the losses. Going into administration is a legal move, which carries legal obligations. Responsibility for running the club goes to the men in grey suits, instead of the sheepskin coats. They look at how to improve revenue streams, often by selling off assets, and using their contacts to try and pull in new investment, and do deals with the creditors. It's an admission of failure by the club's board, and once the administrator's in, he's in charge of pretty much everything apart from coaching the players and picking the team http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7305998.stm So going into admin is bad for the current but it doesn't always mean bad in the longterm. The sad fact is a lot of small clubs in football have spent more money then they have for a period of time. That time ran out and thus 1 or 2 no longer exist. The problem here is if they had stopped messing up their finances they would still be active. If our club continues to go further and further into debt we will have the same problem as those clubs. Lowe and Wilde will never admit they failed in terms of finances and because they both own shares they will never go into admin unless forced to. But if we did they would not get the club because the admin team HAVE to support the club/company and it's best interests and will choose the bidder best for that. If we went into admin we would have far richer people then Wilde and Lowe bidding for it. So in your example of Leeds you are right about Bates as he won the bid twice. What you forget to mention is Leeds had a 15 point deduction for CVA. If they didn't have that reduction they would be back in the CCC comfortably, they still got to the playoff final. Think it is safe to assume they will go up this year and the bad times are over for them. So don't get me wrong we should avoid admin at all costs, but if we look relegated we will go into admin for sure. If we are relegated we will have no choice. People need to understand that by selling players decreases our already slim chance of avoiding it.

Very true however no offence to those clubs we are a better prospect then them. We have not only more supporters but better infrastructure i.e stadium etc..People have over looked clubs that have gone into admin and actually gone on to do better e.g Hull City,QPR, Portsmouth etc.. You have clubs that were on the same slide as us and have stopped the rot by going into it to get rid of certain areas of mismanagement i.e Leeds,Forest. Plus add to this fact some people don't even know what admin actually means, it is a legal procedure were a buisness in financial trouble is allowed to oporate without having to sell off assets to cover debts. If people want to read what really happens then read http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/2336289.stm So as i said if we look a dead cert to go down i would rather have the 10point deduction for next season and be rid of the people who have failed the club and continue to do so and start again. Plus you have to ask why have we not been bought out, our financial situation and compexity of our ownership is deffinatly a reason why we haven't been. Would people be more interested if they didnt have to pay £20m+ debts? Of course they would.

Well that is a well educated mature response thank you! The problem is the club has to many people like you who are living in a fantasy land. I bet in your world you think we will get promoted and have the cash to buy players like Gerrard right? .....

...for all of you who think it is the answer to rid this club of the current management. First, staff will be laid off - not the board or players, but groundsmen, ticket hotline operators, etc. - Already happened Next, will go the catering staff, cleaners, etc. - Already happened Then any pension provision for those people will be wound up. - Doubt it Then all the obvious assets will be sold. - Already happening Then the Administrators will take their fees - FWIW Grant Thornton charge £130 for a secretary to type the letters to fire the ground-staff... (oh, the manager who oversees it, try around £600 per hour) - Then the taxman will be paid. - Already happening The then secured creditors. - Already happening Then the unsecured ones. - Already happening Then what remains is sold to the former management, who have overseen the demise. - Already happening Who take back on the previous staff. - Already happening On lower salaries. - Already happened And reduced benefits. - Already happened And fewer of them. - Already happened To work twice as hard. - Already happened STILL think you want to inflict this on the people who ACTUALLY run your club?? What is the difference from what is already happening? No offence but you seem a little bit in denial. The club has/is doing everything it can to cut costs. We have a squad of youth players, a low level manager, loads of staff within the company released, loads of admin staff fired, loads of club staff released including popular members. All areas have been reduced and asked to cover other areas for the same or in some cases even less pay. The banks or any creditor is activly seeking their money returned and has been for sometime, it is what happens when you can't make your re-payments. Now we looklike we are at a stage were our already thin team will be made even thiner thus further reducing our chances to survive. All these are signs of admin and i think we can now start to assume this amazing financial strategy Wilde and Lowe span on the OS has failed. But what do you expect from 2 people who didn't actually say 1 thing about how they planned to change things before they returned? This club is in freefall and any staff will have been told if they want a new job then go look for one. We have set ourselves up for another relegation battle and everytime they remove 1 of the better players our chances to survive decrease. So if we get relegated we will go into admin and then all that will happen is the admin will come in and start to cut the remaining costs. But we will no longer be a team that has 3 owners and could potentially be bought out for nothing. Remember Pompey were bought for £1 and they went on to survive then went forward after that. In this games climate as with all the other clubs we will get bought out. So if this continues and things remain as they are and we look dead cert to be relegated going into admin will be best for this club in the longterm. We have dragged out our financial problems for 2 years now and we are in an even worse state, that tells me the people who are in control of the finances have failed badly.

Be interesting to know where this £4m by end of transfer day comment came from that the echo printed. I cant believe it is true for 1 minute because what happens if they dont make the £4m? The bank go "we want our cash or we send the heavies round!!". The banks are not stupid, they know they have a better chance getting their money back by giving the club the best chance to survive. If we go down we will go into admin and the banks will lose everything. This just looks like classic Lowe selling off anything that has a value. If we are in the situation where we still need lots of cut backs after all the ones over the past 4 months then it raises the question where has the money gone from that? And here we are again back to where we were 2 years ago.

The thing i cant get my head round is that sure we all knew this would be a tough season and we would have no money to buy anyone. But the 4 months Lowe has been back we were all lead to believe the finances were getting under control. We had the many comments from Wilde telling us the bank agrees with their vision and so on. We released quite a few players and even spent a bit on a few signings. But now all of a sudden things seem to have got worse from out of nowehere. We have a young squad that must be on peanuts, in fact a few must still be on youth contracts. We have a manager who comes from the dutch 4th league so he can't be costing much. We have shipped a few players out on loan, made loads of people leave within the club/company to cut costs, shut corners and so on. So if we are now in such a bad place we must sell off 2 of our youngsters then to me that just doesn't add up. But if this rings true then again i can't imagine it will be long before the Lowe out protests restart especially if we go on a really bad run on the pitch. I was confident we would survive before i read we could lose those 2. But selling them i don't see how that will increase our chances of surviving so thus i find it baffling anyone would think that is good buisness practice.

I get what your saying Nickh but i think we have to be honest here rather then try and run damage control as such. He came here on loan 1st and went straight into the side which he was motm. He then played really well helping to stop our defensive rot we were in. We then took up the option to sign him when we had no money. He went on to be 1 of only 2 players to really do well last season winning the player of the year award (other being John). I see nothing in his personality that would make me think he is the type of player who would demand a move or anything like that, on the contrary he has made many comments about wanting to play here for a longtime and even looked dead cert to be club captain. Obviously when it happens the OS will put the usual "we couldn't stand in his way of playing Premiership football" like we have seen so many times. Which translated probably means "£1.5m or about £1m depending on sell on clause was too good to turn down!". So where you say 20 games that doesn't make much sense to me because in those 20 games he was majority of the time our best player....

I think what a few people are missing here is that it isn't just losing a player it is losing a massive chunk of our already thin defence. Svensson cant play every game and when we get those weeks were there are 3 games he could maybe only play one. It is likely he will get injured at somepoint then we are left with just Perry. This season we were always going to struggle for goals but if we start shipping loads of goals too then we really will be up against it. If this happens and is for the numbers quoted i would assume things must be really bad and that nothing has actually changed financial wise sine Wilde and Lowe returned.

Yes he did..... Thomas cost £1.2m and Davies joined on 3 month loan deal with a view to a £1m permanent fee. Seeing as he joined and the actual fee was classified as undisclosed that would generally mean less was paid because if they had a deal for £1m why would it increase all of a sudden? So yes Thomas did cost more then Davies.

In all honesty i think they deserved to win simply because they had better chances of which 2 goals were not given. If John had scored then who knows what might of happened. What annoyed me was when we went 1-2 down we didn't venture forward much at all. In fact at 1 point i think i only counted 1 of our guys DMG in their half. Also i think Jan's tactics when we went behind were a bit strange really as should of tried to make it more attacking. The boys did well and they gave it a good shot. I still don't think we will get relegated and i think with more experience we can go on to win games like this.

Indeed, the fan who doesn't see it with his own eyes doesn't actually know what happend or how we played and can't offer an opinion because they have nothing to base it off. Example one of the moaners said Davis played bad, Davis again made some quality saves today but they somehow forgot those, true example of looking only for the negative things and missing the actual reality of the situation. Today we deserved to lose, 1st half we were great and second we were crap. Birmingham will be getting promoted this season this year we won't. Now we have people realising that we are not going to get promoted, so many of us told people to keep their head out of the clouds and ignore the OS and see we will struggle this season. So only those who had high expectations are the ones who are disapointed. The moaners will be disapointed even if we had won 10-0.

If Lowe has sold him for £1.3m then i am in total disbelief. Sure he has been injured for a few months but he is worth a hell of a lot more then that, christ even Thomas cost more then Davies. Total shock if this happens.

Make no mistakes this season we will struggle. I have said we will finish in the bottom 7 for many months. The point is even with these so called Pro's we would be finishing in the same place. For our club right now we have to stop the bleeding money situation we have found ourselves in. Is it worth paying say £10m a year on player wages to finish 20th or to pay £5m a year to finish 20th? That is what people forget. Not once last season did we look anything other then a relegation battling side. We were there because we were not good enough. How many people felt after we went 1 down the flood gates would open and we would be well beaten? Now we have a young squad who are playing their 1st season. They will be far more useful to us in the future by following the current team ethics then they would if they followed the 2 seasons before's. We have a few players in place that if given the chance can develop and actually help our situation both on the pitch and financially. There is a long long season ahead for these players, and i'm just shocked 1 game into the season some are already wishing it would fail. News flash, if this fails this club will most likely slip into oblivion for many many years. There were no other options for this club and the players of last season deserve the way they have been treated now, they let the fans down, they let the club down. Only a handful deserve to play for this club again.

Well i tried to play last night but the servers were down i have been reading a lot about it in the beta forums and it sounds very unique indeed. I have until monday to play it as that is when the new FM live season starts for my league. If i ever get any beta invites and you guys are not in yet i will send them to you.

No offence Alpine but i saw most of the home and away games last year and have seen all of the games thus far this season. I can tell you right now our system we played last year even under Pearson was luck football. Nobody played in a team it was individuals playing for themself and when things start to go bad majority of them went and hid. Rasiak isn't a bad player, John isn't a bad player, Skacel isn't a bad player but Viafara,Wright,Euell,Safri,Licka,Saga,Idiakez,Thomas,Vignal were all crap last year. Majority of the games John and Rasiak played they were crap but they would score a goal. The story doesn't mention the amount of chances they would miss. Point being they were not working as a team and that is what bought us close to being relegated. They were not interested in playing for our club and the stats show that. Now that does not mean the youngsters are better because they currently are not but they have something the others don't have, time to improve. When we went 1 down at Cardiff most of us thought we would cave in and be thumped like under Burley. But we didn't we as a team came back and scored a well worked team goal. Again i don't mean this in a nasty way but the key word here is "Team", and right now we are playing like a group of people who all want to play with each other and do well for the club. They work as a team not individuals. If they make a mistake they don't argue with each other, if they can they get into positions to help each other, if they lose the ball they try hard to re-get it. When they have the ball they don't take the easy option and just launch it up the field. Now anyone who is a fan of football would be more happier with their team the way we are currently trying to play then the way we tried to play last season. And any fan of this club and more importantly any fan who has seen it with their own eyes knows we have a better chance of staying up with our current system then reverting back to how we played last season, i hope i never have to witness football like that again. Lazy football.

Anyone who knows me knows i am not a Lowe fan, add to that mix Wilde and well i could moan all day about it! However i think we have to be realistic here. I said long ago if the kids work then fantastic, but if they don't then what is plan B? We don't have a plan B and that is why Plan A has to work and be given the full support by everyone even the moaners. As i said you have to be realistic, we have no money what other routes were there? Use the same squad that put in no effort or desire for the majority of the season and only survived by the skin of their teeth last season? Or try a new approach with people hungry to succeed at the start of their careers? For me that is a no brainer. I would much rather struggle relegation with people who will run and try for 90mins then people who simply can't be botherd and are only here to get one more pay cheque before they retire. I don't think many or if any expect us to get promoted this season, i don't think many expect us to battle for the playoffs. I think only the deluded believe we are a team that has to be promoted no excuses. Where as i think the far majority know this is a season where we have to ride out the financial situation we are in until we are back on our feet. As i look at the team i see a few good players who a future team can be built around. We have Morgan,Davies,lallana,Surman and potentially DMG. We have a far better chance of getting somewhere in the future with those guys in the team then we do with a squad full of Euell's etc.. And that is why i agree with Lowe on this issue and why i think it is the right thing to do. For to long we have paid overated and underperformed players who have been poor which has lead us to our current financial problems. If things go wrong then the question is maybe your expectations are what has gone wrong. I expect us to battle relegation this year. But i'm realistic enough to know that without any money your options are limited.

Got accepted into the closed beta yesterday was wondering if anyone else got in from here? (if you did remember you signed a non disclosure agreement!) Will fire it up when i get home!

I think really it will be a case of damaging limitations. Birmingham have a good squad but more importantly they have lethal finishers. It would be great to win but i think we might play for a draw like last saturday, and in all honesty i would be happy with a point. My heart says 0-0 with Killer taking motm again but my head says 0-4