Wes Tender

It might have been Lowe's dream to go down the road of having managers like Wotte and Poortvliet running the club in the Dutch style, utilising home grown players brought up through the ranks of the academy, foregoing the need to import players from other Clubs or leagues. He might have had this dream for some years and the golden opportunity to put it in place may have only just presented itself as a result of us being pushed into a corner by our dire financial circumstances. Whether it is true that JP and Wotte indeed cost less combined than Pearson is only rumoured. The fact that Pearson was Crouch's appointee probably makes it all the more delicious to Lowe that he was able to spite him by terminating Pearson's services. But as it is purely and solely Lowe's experiment, he and he alone either gets the plaudits or the brickbats for its success or failure. Nobody knows how Pearson would have fared under the same circumstances, but it is at least indicative that not only had he shown some promise here, turning around our demoralised team, but seemingly getting a Leicester team that ought to also be demoralised following their relagation, off to a flying start. I was of the opinion with Pearson that he was destined for greater things in the English game and I still stand by that. It could well be that JP and Wotte also have a future in the English game. We will have to wait and see what the season brings to both Leicester's manager and our management team. We may be playing them again next season, but whether that is because Leicester have been promoted, or we have been relegated remains to be seen.

Well, if you go back to the first post on the thread by the originator, you'll see that it isn't about that. If you wish there to be a thread about that, then perhaps you'd care to start one... PS. I'm also incredulous that you claim to know what Lowe believes. Can you explain how and whilst about it, explain what he plans to do if somebody offers money for his shareholding. What price would he find acceptable?

Spot on. As stated, virtually everybody in British football knows of our financial predicament, so it could well be that here was an opportunity to put forward a ridiculously low price, gambling on picking up a bargain for not a lot of money. It is the opposite side of the coin from the situation that we were in when in it became known that GB had £7/8 million to spend on players and clubs could anticipate that if we wanted a player of theirs and others were also in the frame, they could hold out for a much higher price. At least under current circumstances if we are buying or loaning a player, clubs know that we do not have the ability to pay over the odds. Pedg: Why? Because Lowe turned down what was probably a derisory, opportunist, speculative offer? I don't see many taking this necessarily as proof that Lallana is a player key to our plans and not for sale under any circumstances. If he continues to improve and becomes a really good player by January, then I suspect that we will have a few clubs sniffing round. Whether Lowe would deserve any credit for refusing offers for him at that time, rather depends on the level of offer on the table and whether any monies received by him are used to improve the team, or whether it all disappears into the black hole that is our debt repayment.

I'll happily put myself in that band whose opinion is that Lowe will sell anybody for a price, as there is little evidence that he will not accept a good offer for any player. Notice the use of the adjective "good". In the case of Lallana, he may well be key to our plans and he has been good enough to sign a contract meaning that he will command a decent fee should he be sold later. But the situation with us is blatantly clear to every other manager in British football; we are totally and utterly skint and in such dire straits that certain players could actually go for free, as it is enough for us to just get them off the wage bill. Not exactly bargaining with a strong hand, are we? Against this background, it is a perfectly reasonable scenario for anybody to have the opinion that any player who shows any real talent will be off and we have pressure on us from the banks to sell to just keep afloat. I'm not about to adjust my opinion of Lowe just because we refused what was probably a derisory offer from Fulham.

Do you disagree then? Alpine was only being realistic about the situation, whereas unless you are going to argue the opposite position or agree with him, you are just being snide.

My best memory of him was shortly after he arrived. I can't remember who we were playing, but was in the Northam when he pulled off probably the greatest save I've ever seen. The ball was struck hard and was arrowing for the corner of the goal. Seemingly Niemi was too far away from it to do anything about a certain goal. Somehow, time seemed to pass in slow motion as he leapt across the goal and tipped it clear with his fingertips. For a second there was silence as the incredulous crowd could not believe what they had seen. Then the ground erupted with spontaneous and prolonged applause as they realised that they had witnessed a moment of true greatness.

Thanks for a well reasoned response. I think that the nub of the matter is that I wondered what had been the catalyst all of a sudden for all these euphoric outpourings. I can well understand that some prefer to see players who play with passion and commitment rather than overpaid older players resting on their laurels and seemingly not committed to the cause. Fair enough. But what brought all of this about? Was it the obscene amount of money that washes around the higher reaches of British football, provided by billionaires and SKY? Is this attitude going to prevail if we fall down a division, or failing that we have to sell all of our best youngsters, constantly replacing them with the next crop? I don't necessarily want to be taken over by mega-rich owners. It will be quite sufficient to have enough cash to keep us afloat, having just enough to put ourselves back in control, rather than the banks. I think most would agree that the best decisions are taken when there are several options to choose from, not when you are backed into a corner with no alternatives. Perhaps this thread is an attempt to look for any positives, because the reality of what might happen quite easily if it goes pear shaped doesn't bear thinking about. Perhaps that's it.

And let's not forget the number of fans that Brum brought down for that match. How many of that 4k difference was Brum fans? Quite a few, I'd say. Attendances in future aren't just down to how well we play; they also depend on the rival club's ticket take up, which will also depend on the distance to here, how that club is faring and its general level of support. For whatever reason, whether it be the return of Lowe/Wilde, selling off the quality, playing the youngsters, ticket prices, the credit crunch, etc, it is plain that we will require attandances at a certain level to sustain our financial position even in these straitened circumstances. It does appear that unless things pick up in the next few weeks, we are well short of that attendance figure, so our debts will increase.

I read the excited sentiments that whether by accident or design because of our dire financial situation, we somehow have our club back. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we were told that we had our club back when Lowe was ousted by Wilde. Now the two failed ex-chairmen are back in control, we have been forced to sell everything that has not been bolted down and are asked to accept the concept that we have our club back because all of our higher earning players are gone, giving the youngsters a place in the first team. Apparently this feeling comes about because we can only afford the wages of youngsters or ageing journeymen, but they are mostly local lads proud to wear the shirt, the youngsters full of idealistic endeavour and the older players just happy that somebody still wants them. Currently failing to arouse any pertinence in the euphoria is the background of how this situation came about and the motivation for the return of Lowe and Wilde. Whereas there might well be elements of restoring bruised egos, ultimately most would attribute their return to protecting their investments rather than just purely for their love of the club. But their motives are irrelevant in the face of the position that it produced, that somehow because of the circumstances that they were both largely guilty of introducing, we apparently have our club back. Although of course it is far too early in the season to make judgements in any particular direction at the moment. Why the euphoria quite so early? Is it because the transfer window has closed without us losing any more players? That situation is only fairly short term. Any player who shines will quickly depart for the promised land of the Premiership as soon as an agent from a big club waves his chequebook in front of him. Will some be as happy when we just become a conveyor belt feeder club like Crewe? We can't afford to develop players and keep them if reasonable money is offered for them and because of that, we will almost certainly never regain promotion. Whereas it is great to see a bunch of our spirited young players playing with passion and commitment, it is too early to know whether a match like that against Blackpool was an off day or the shape of things to come. Whether they had sussed us out and beaten us by strategy, or whether JP has the nous to make adjustments himself to overcome rivals and whether the youngsters have the ability to play to that plan. We don't know how many of the squad will succumb to injuries when we do not have deep cover in the squad. But as pointed out by somebody already, the feeling might be very diferent if a takeover were to take place by somebody with enough spare change to buy in some well known quality players. It is all very well celebrating the joy of watching the home grown talent develop and I wonder why most did not avail themselves of the opportunity of watching it all for free when these players were in the youth teams or reserves. Unfortunately, it costs the same to watch the youngsters at a match here as it does at many Premiership clubs to watch the World stars of the top teams and we might be getting entertainment, but we sure as hell aren't getting value, which might account for the half full stadium.

I wouldn't moan a bit if our manager had been presented with Robinho, or the historical equivalents like Eusebio, Pele, Socrates, Cruyff, Maradona or players of their ilk. For crissakes, players of that category are household names; who needs to see them play to know that they are good? But even at our lowly level where we haven't two beans to rub together, we are signing up such footballing luminaries as Anthony Pulis. So don't fret, our troubles are over.

It just feels to me that we are paying to see Gielgud and being served up an unknown understudy. Not only is the cost of watching the youngsters the same as it was to watch established names the season before, but there is no longer any differentiation between watching Blackpool, Doncaster, Swansea rather than Birmingham, Sheffield United and Reading who were in the Premiership last season. Regardless of how attractive the football might be sporadically, it is simply not value for money when it is costed at the same level as it was in the Premiership for watching youngsters that could have been seen for free last season, playing some teams that would have been priced as "tin" in the old system of Gold, Silver and Bronze pricing that we had for games against Premiership opposition.

Taksin only took over Manchester City because it was a way of laundering all the money he pocketed with dodgey deals and corruption in Thailand. Most of his assets are in his wife's name to avoid being taken back. The benefit of taking over Man City was also because the Thais are avid watchers of the game and the name of the other Manchester club connects with them and the appearance of the City stadium on their TVs each week makes him out to be a much more important and influential figure in the World than otherwise. Although he would be put on trial on charges of corruption if he ever set foot in Thailand again, his party continues to do well in the polls because it bribes the voters in the poorer agricultural areas. But like Adrian, I'd rather have somebody in charge of the club with money that they had obtained through honest endeavour, rather than from fraud, bribery or extortion.

Nice one :smt082

I had questioned JPs excuse that having played 3 games in a week, some of the players were tired. Yes, it is valid to say that tired players make fundamental errors, but the reason that I had highlighted the tiredness issue was because JP had said quite clearly that having beaten Birmingham, the next match couldn't come quickly enough. It was therefore a bit rich him using tiredness as an excuse 4 days later. I don't think that it is conclusive yet whether the loss against Blackpool was because of tiredness, lack of application of our gameplan, them having out thought us strategically or any other reason that might have excused it. All I do know is that having beaten a team like Birmingham who had just been demoted from the Premiership but had kept most of their players and are considered to be the best team in the division, we typically could not beat a team who most consider will be at the foot of the table come the end of the season. The management changes, but that scenario seems to have remained annoyingly constant. I hope that JP fixes that.

Taking Derby as an example, they were a team who managed promotion playing a strategy of playing to their strengths of having very big defenders to muscle the strikers off the ball at the back, whilst hoofing the ball quickly over the midfields of passing teams, so that mobile big strikers like Howard could run forward quickly and get amongst a defence before they could reorganise. It was generally effective in this division against teams like us, but not in the Premiership where clubs could cherry the pick the quality of player to counteract it, hence their speedy return. But I hadn't mentioned the physical side of this division; I had pointed up the speed of the football, which is a surprise for many continental footballers and in order to adjust to it, they need to get used to much quicker thinking and action. I agree that a good manager will analyse matches played by his forthcoming rivals either through Sky or by attendance at matches to assess what squad to name and which tactics to play against them. But in the same way that the longer somebody does a job, the better they become at it, the managers that have been players or managers in this division do have an advantage over somebody with no experience, unless that person is a very quick learner. It remains to be seen whether JP has the tactical nous to deal with the other teams like Blackpool in this division. If he can't, then we are in for a hard time as others suss out our shortcomings. Until we have evidence on this, any doubts expressed by Snowballs are perfectly valid.

The ref got the blame when it became clear that Blackpool had sussed out how to beat us tactically and frustration increased. He became a scapegoat figure. The only three things that I would criticise him for were the finicky nature of his decisions instead of letting the game flow and I didn't feel that he had been even handed with his cards and also allowed Blackpool some blatant time wasting. All very well to say that 4 minutes were added on to the end, but it slowed the game, which was to their advantage.

I have booed some teams off the pitch when it was clear that they had not put in the effort and didn't seem to care. There are two aspects here that are valid. One is that we have paid for entertainment and therefore have a right to show displeasure if what is returned is a very below performance from extremely well paid, so called professionals who don't give a stuff. Secondly, if these players have any pride at all, then they might just well take it as a kick up the rear that they need to buck up their ideas. If the poor dears can't take criticism for poor performances and improve, then we do not want that type of player here. I haven't booed any of the youngsters, as although they sometimes do not produce the goods, I accept that they still do seem to care and try hard. If you think that there are fewer moaners in the Northam, then you are in for a surprise. There are many and they are very vocal when things aren't going well. And then there are naturally some idiots amongst the yoof. But for all that, now that the Itchen corner is gone, the Northam is the only place with any demonstrable passion and atmosphere.

It's a perfectly valid opinion, debateable maybe, but still arguable. And anybody with intelligence would also see that neither was it xenophobic. The style of football played in this country is different from that played on the continent, in the same way that it is even different in this division from that played in the Premiership. Whenever a player comes here from abroad into the Premiership it is often an excuse for his poor performance during the first few matches that he wasn't used to the speed of play in English football, or often the physical nature of it. Even Ronaldo took some time to adjust when he first arrived.

As I said, my perception was that the wider the pitch, the more width you can use and that by stretching the play out wide, the more gaps there are between the midfield players to exploit with a passing game. If my perception is incorrect, perhaps somebody will kindly explain where my thinking is wrong.

Were either of those two games televised? Had they also had a match on Tuesday too? What did those matches cost per ticket? And also a factor possibly, is the winning streak they have been on. PS I attended all home matches myself, but perhaps these were some of the reasons that might be given.

Ah, the erudite and intelligent response! Cut to the chase and straight to the nub of the matter in a few well chosen words. No debate required, no opinions that aren't praising the club allowed and the couple of dozen responses received on this topic are all a total waste of time. Only your contribution, with its awesome command of language is the definitive response. Might as well close the thread now mods, as saintkiptanui has rendered any further debate pointless.

The thread was about the attendance. I wouldn't begrudge the expenditure even though I could have watched the match for free and saved £72 had the game been a real entertainment. Regrettably, the match wasn't very good entertainment and although I will continue to attend home games, I can well understand others deciding not to the next time when the match is televised, unless in the interim we improve again, or prices are set at a more reasonable level.

Not one single person has mentioned the price of the match. I paid for me, my son and an old friend of mine who was down staying with us from Worcester. That cost a total of £72 to watch a match that we could have watched on the TV. When are the jokers who run the club, (who some allege are astute financial experts) going to finally have it sink into their blinkered craniums that under the circumstances of that match, a competitive price might well have increased numbers though the turnstiles, increasing revenue through the shop and the concourses at the same time, as well as making for a better atmosphere in the stadium? This is always the sort of problem in any organisation run by somebody from a financial background. They can only see the bottom line on a balance sheet and have no understanding of concepts that might increase revenue streams, but where it may be more difficult initially to quantify the benefits in terms of £s.

Why should he be ashamed, Scabby? It was a perfectly reasonable analogy bringing some much needed perpective to the debate. Sometimes it is obscene the amount of money paid to footballers compared to those people who do stirling work for the maintenance of a civilised society, the doctors, nurses, firemen, servicemen etc, who earn a pittance by comparison. You should be ashamed for saying that he should be ashamed.

I was not advocating that we play the hoofball game, merely pointing out that there are teams who have players in their squad who it suits and who use it to good effect to counteract the passing teams like us. The best teams are those who have in their armoury a mix of good players who can vary the tactical play to suit different situations dictated to them by managers astute enough to plan the strategy most capable of getting the three points. Hull was a good example last season when they bypassed our midfield by hitting the ball over it for a very quick striker to run onto it and by this method they hit 5 past us for no response. Unless I'm mistaken, Hull aren't known to be a hoofball team by reputation, so I surmise that they employed a good game plan and reaped the rewards from it. They obviously had a decent gameplan to beat enough teams in the season to gain promotion and had learned the lessons of the defeat by us earlier in the season. I look forward to seeing whether JP learned the lessons that Blackpool taught us and makes adjustments to turn it around on the return away match. Agreed that we didn't pressure the ball, but whether that was tiredness or something else, who knows? I'm finding it a bit hard to believe that the youngsters would suffer a decline in their prowess after three games in a week at their age and standard of fitness. Unfortunately, being so strapped for cash, I don't believe we have enough variety of player to effect this sort of strategic gameplan, unless the new striker Pekhart has that potential. I agree with most of your assessments. Why Cork wasn't played at right back or midfield is a mystery. He looked a class above most of our young defenders last time out. I'm not keen on Surman at left back and would be pleased if Mills made the slot his own in time, but in the meantime, if Scacel is here still on Tuesday, I'd prefer him to play there and move Surman into midfield.