Baird of the land

Have to say i'm overjoyed by this three points. i was expecting 1 and to be relatively comfortable for the last 30 mins at 2-0 up was excellent. i still think ther'll be plenty more ups and downs but this is a huge confidence boost for the kids. also the manager asked for a reaction to the cup beat and he got it.

Alpine Saint wrote "Laughable you seem to think that if Lowe puts his hand up and says meekly "Please sir, Mr. Barclays, my manager thinks this player may enable us to have a more successful season, bringing in more gate revenue and in the really best case help us to compete for promotion, we'd like to keep him", that Mr. Barclays is going to say "FOOK OFF, the administrators will be round on Monday morning"." Your statement's the one that's clearly laughable. The bank will care sod all for vague promises of goals and will be corncerned with numbers. They will have wanted assurances that the wage bill will be trimmed towards a certain level and a business plan of how the club is going to reach that level. Certain players are exempt from being moved on, saganowski wasn't. Would you prefer Davies went and Saga stayed? As for this saga will bring in huge gate revenue myth of yours. Gate revenue is pointless if your wage will is inflated beyond its capacity. There's no guarantee he would score and we would walk the league. The club will have a curve of what gates will fluctuate between dependent on performance on the pitch and that will have factored into the business plan presented to the bank. the wage loss curve will be hegely steeper than the loss of income from fallign attendances. 15k odd a week of a big wage earner versus £30 odd quid every two weeks per seat lost.

I'm not sure if alpine is just used to playing games like championship manager where you choose who you don't want and others club snap them up in a heartbeat. The reality is that we had to make all the big earners available because we couldn't guarantee cherry picking which we'd sell. Saganowski was wanted first that's why he went. It's a case of getting a loan fee and a possible transfer later and not paying 15k a week till christmas verus holding out for someone to buy him outright now. I think the club made the right call, the market at the moment is dead with clubs tightening their belts against the lack of credit in the market. People aren't sure if they want to take on a huge wage let alone pay big money for the priviledge. if all three main attackers go we may all begin to side with you but most people seem convinced its a 2 from 3 philosophy and i can live with that.

We're in hock to the bank who want us to slash our wage bill, it's as simple as that. Personally i'm happier with that than administration. Administration would mean docked points at the very least plus total carte blanche for other teams to take whatever player's they want from us by administrators. aka davies, surman etc would be sold to satisfy debtors. People who think administration is the answer look to luton, where they had a good little team playing neat passing football. A year later all those good young players are playing elsewhere after being sold.At least now we can choose which players are off the market and try and build around them.

I have to say Killer's return is one of the few good things in modern football. A footballer who's put himself through physical and mental barrier's in order to get back to playing the sport he loves. However long it lasts in a game now dominated by lack of loyalty and money i'll be cheering him on. There have been nay sayers on this board for ages, knocking his attempts to come back. I can't understand their mindset. People should leave off second guessing him and just enjoy the sensation of having someone at saints who's playing for the love of playing and leave him to be the judge of his own body.

Chapel end saint wrote " By last Christmas at the latest any Saints fan with eyes in there head could see it was time for Burley to go , you were there you must have see how poorly we played for much of the 07/08 season . The manager must carry his share of the blame for the teams poor performances last season . It's my opinion that had GB not gotten the Scotland job we would have been relegated last season ." I would agree that i didn't see burley lasting past the end of the season and that i was disappointed that we weren't playing better. It seemed very mediocre scraping 1-0's and draws while occassionally being hammered. However to suggest we would have got relegated if he stayed is pure nonsense. Here's the records from dec till be left (A) Leic won, (H) Sheff W drew, (H) Hull Won, (A) Cov Drew, (A) Preston Lost, (A) Colch drew, (A) Barnsley drew, (H) watford lost, (H) Leic won, (H) scun won, (A) Ply draw. 37 points and ten points clear of relegation. No way is that form relegation form. Whereas dodd and gorman lost 5, drew 1 and won against mighty bury which is relegation form.

Chapel end saint wrote "I will remind you he took over after a humiliating defeat to Bristol Rovers on the BBC , that game being only the last of a dismal run of poor performances under both George Burley and Dodd/Gorman " How you can on one hand complain about people questioning Pearson's record and then on the other attack burley is comical. We were in mid table obscurity when Burley left after drawing games over christmas, hardly any more dismal than pearson's draws. Dodd and gorman presided over the slump to the edge of the relegation zone and pearson worked hard and kept us up. I'll give you that much. Whether he'd have gone on and done anything is pointless debate as its a case 'what if speculation'. you'd get a lot more sympathy from me if you'd tell it as it was rather than build up pearson and knock down burley. Both Burley and Pearson had mixed individual performances but under both we scrapped points while under dodd and Gorman we lost multiple home games and a cup game versus BR.

My view of Burley is that he was a decent manager, not god's gift just somewhere in the middle. Last season's collapse came after he left and i think if he stayed we would have finsihed in mid table mediocrity. In hindsight the most annoying thing is that he didn't have a strong chairman to challenge him over the wages of players he wanted to bring in. His first half a season was getting rid of high earning players lacking motivation and his first full season saw us lose in the playoffs. At the time i thought that was an ok performance. Last year's centre back debacle did damage him badly. I wasn't gutted when he got poached but wasn't hounding him out before as i felt he should be judged on the full season.

end of 03/04 season fans and directors block hoddle appointment. Lowe forced into compromise candidate 04/05 season: Bad signings by sturrock Lowe Bad Managerial decisions 05/06 bad management by redknapp, former pl players playing terribly 06/07 season: too weak in defence but still unlucky in play off final in hindsight burley's spending on wages was allowed to spiral out of control by weak board 07/08 wage bill was allowed to ascalate rather than being slashed. No cb at start of season, not replacing burley immediately