sadoldgit

Need More Time

Killer is not the first player to play when he shouldn't have and will not be the last. Perhaps it is best that we find out now if he is likely to make it through the season. If he can't play two games a week then maybe we need to find someone who can. As great as he was in his prime, we can't carry passengers now.

Ah, I see the doom mongers are having a field day. It is not as it we have never lost to a lower league team in the cup before (under every manager we ever had). Rotherham unbeaten at home - away team low on confidence...hmmmm Instead of writing the team off we should be getting behind everyone at the club, what have we got to lose? Sadly there are those who can't wait for the club to fail, they are on here like a shot the minute anything goes slightly wrong. Strangely enough those same people idolise our last maager who only manged 16 points out of 13 games - a record that if it was produced by Burely or JP would have people calling for their heads. Think back to all the slaggings that Burley, Davis and Wright used to get yet we were a mid table side then with a number of decent pros. There are certain posters who were even slagging Burley off when he made the play offs....still think those days were cr*p do you? We are where we are, the club needs support. All this slagging just makes matters worse, but hey Alpine and chums, it is what you come here for isn't it?

Perhaps it is about time that some fans realised that no matter what a manager/coach does and says through the week, when the whistle blows it is all about the 11 players on the pitch. For all the maoning and bleating about Burley and JP now, they can only do so much. If the players do not do what they are told or fail to deliver, they should bear a lot of responsibility. It was not Burley who gave that stupid penalty away it was Pele, nor did he miss any. Did JP actually say he was going to deliver "total football" or was it just the fans who read that into his CV? To the best of my knowledge only one team ever produced "total football" and that team included the likes of Cruyf. McGoldrick is hardly fit to lace his boots. And why is it that a manager nowdays has to produce the goods after half a dozen games? It took Ferguson ages to start to build a winning side. Give the bloke a chance.

So the witch hunt starts again......

What is going to be worse? Oh yes, I forgot, you have crystal ball. I think most rational people realise that it takes time to build when you don't have shedloads of cash and need to get the most out of what you have got. We were never going to be world beaters this season but if we can keep the best of the young players together and pick up the odd bargain, eventually we might just build a decent side. Because it hasn't happend by the end of September it doesn't mean it will not happen in the future. Of course the doom merchants can't wait to see JP fail....how many competitive matches have we played? Managers at our club get written off earlier each season. If you have no patience go and support Manchester City.

I think it is a bit early to write him off. The team have put is some decent performances and some poor performances. No different then to teams managed by Pearson, Burley, Strachan etc. The big difference is that JP has less resources to call upon than the others. The club has little choice but to try and get the most out of the younger players, it is not going to happen over night but in these days where giving a manager a chance means lets see how he does over 6 matches, any chance of bulding for the future is always going to fall foul of many of the "I want it now" fans. I am not sure who our Director of Football is, but if you mean Lowe, what else can he do? Magic up £10m? If the bank are calling the shots re our finances, perhaps the bile should be aimed at them?

We have proved we can be dire in both divsions! Surely the point is that you support your team ,where ever they are. I started supporting Saints in the old 2nd divison and have enjoyed seasons in both divsions and not enjoyed season in both divisions. When you are pants your pants and when you are good you are good, whichever division you are in. Frankly I would rather support a team like SFC where you are happy if you win the odd back to back matches than ManU where you are expected to win something big every year, year in year out. Look at Arsenal in our final, no joy at all for their fans yet our lot were delirious, and we lost!!! We might miss our Premiership status, but for many seasons we were rubbish and fans were slating the team as much as they do now, it is just the the numbers were swollen by the good time fans who only pitched up because we were a Prem club.

It didn't take long did it? Maybe if things were still like this at Christmas I could understand it, but the knives are out after only a few games. What is also odd is that the same people sing Pearson's praises and he only managed to win three games? Give the bloke a chance, he needs support and it is only September.

The fact that he hasn't seen them or us doesn't stop him making his profound judgements.

There was a very good article in The Times the other day which laid into the Newcastle United supporters and ripped to shreads the myth that Newcastle are a "big club" and any more deserving of success than anyone else. We are no different. We are not a big club and do not deserve anything handed on a plate. If wasn't for a certain MLT we would probably have been here years ago. For all the bleating about Lowe, Burley etc. we have no right to be higher than we are and it seems like many fans are unable to adjust their expectations accordingly. Of couse we all want to be up there playing the best and winning things, but we are SFC not Manchester United and these days when money is king we have to cut our cloth. If people want to bail out that is there choice, but football clubs, like dogs, are for life, not just Christmas. I hope that the present set up are given time, and by that I don't just mean a few months, but I fear that if things don't improve win wise very soon the witch hunt brigade will be out again in force.

Assuming your description of our former manager is accurate, at least when he wakes up the next day he is sober, unlike some posters who are still the same abusive negative doom-mongers they were the night before.

How long to you stand by anybody. You are rigyt, our most successful managers held their posts through thick and thin and were given a chance over a long period of time. Burely has been written off as a failure after one full season? It is all instant success or the sack nowdays. I am not saying it is right or wrong, just interesting that our most successful managers were given support even if they had a poor season or two. There is precious little time now to develop a team, if you don't do it in the summer transfer window and get it right you are pretty much stuffed for the season. Managers are constantly waiting to be replaced, even after a handful of games. Who can blame them for not uprooting their families and moving them across country when they could be out of a job any time. Yes I do hark but to old days, that is because I think those days were better and more condusive to building something. It is well know that both Ferguson and Howard Kendall were on the verge of the sack before both taking their clubs to great success. It goes to show that things can be turned around, even if us fans think otherwise. At what point do you give up and try something new? It might be just at the point when that particular manager starts to get it right. It is like on here, some posters think, if you actually try and get some balance going, that you have a love affair with these people??? I don't think that Lowe or Burely were the "disasters" that some people would have us believe and somehow I am having a love affair with them, LOL. I point out that Redknapp and Branfoot were far more deserving of the scorn rather than Lowe and Burley but a certain poster completely misses the point and starts with the name calling (very mature Steve). There are no guarantees in football. Chelsea have spent a fortune in order to win the European Championship and have failed so far. Who'd have thought England would turn on a performance like that against Croatia after recent performances? Things can chaneg in a moment yet some fans throw their toys out of the prame if we don't become world beaters overnight? George Burley is written of as a failure when, in one full season, he achieved his target (and I get accussed of loving him when I poin this out). One minute our young inexperienced team are hailed as the new Holland, the next failures because they lost to Blackpool. It is funny, but the ones who come on and slag others off most often are the ones who have ended up with egg on their faces (still think the Wilde Bunch were worthy of your unqualified support Steve?).

Clough was an alcholic, Ferguson drinks, I am sure a lot of managers do. There is still no hard evidence to back up the third party claims made against Burley. I see Um Pahars has woken up. My point about Redknapp and Branfoot is that I think they did more damage to the club than Burley is supposed to have done but to read some of the stuff on here you would not think so. I fail to see how reaching the play offs in his only full season is seen as a failure? I am not obseesed with Burely, not do I think he was our best manager ever, but he was certainly far from the worst - again, something you would find hard to believe if you follow some posters on here. I don't know how old you are UP, but your constant use of those stupid little smiley things make sme wonder. You and Alpine make a good team. You both miss the point by miles and turn things round in order to try and make your own points more substantial. As you are so keen to dissect every word that people you don't like say, feel free to go back through all of my posts and find where is says that I think Burely was the best manager and Lowe the best Chairman/CEO. Off you go now and I shall be waiting. My points has always been that these people have pluses and minusses but neither were, or are, as bad as some of you like to make out. You might not like the stats, but they speak for themselves. Burley might have failled to take us up, but it took LM several seasons and he had the likes of Channon and Osgood to call on in the second division. Ted Bates had the likes of Martin Chivers and Terry Paine. If want to compair like with like let's do it. None of the players that Burley had to pick from came close to that calibre. All any manager can do is win the games he has with the players he has at his disposal. The simple facts are that George Burley did that more successfully than any one else here. If you feel that makes him useless or a failure, fine. Guess what, I don't cry over the Lowe and Burley debate, although I fail to understand why some people need to have to blame one individual for everything when there are 11 players out there each week who are actually responsible for our success or failure. The only time I have over cried over football was when West Germany knocked us out of the 1970 World Cup. So then Steve and Geoff, off you go and come back with some hard evidence to back up your claims. What you are looking for are posts where I say that Rupert Lowe was the best ever Chairman/CEO and Burely the best ever manager.

Burely had a better record than Strachan. I didn't say he was a better manager. Although I think that after Christmas Starchan was on the wane.

Of course there are posters who have never played football and never managed a football club who know better than Saga.... Despite the fact that he has the best record of any Saints manager in my lieftime, he will be villified by many who need to blame someone because we have not got promoted yet. One full season, aim the play offs, made the play offs. Any reason to take every opportunity to slag the bloke off? There are others, such as Redknapp and Branfoot, far more deserving of scorn for the way they approached the job here. But we have to have our pantomine villians don't we, and Lowe and Burley fit the bill. Burely had a tough job when he first arrived but did turn things round. Okay, last season he failed to find any consistancy, but if you lose players of the quality of Jones, Bale and Baird you are always going to be on the back foot - not helped by that ridiculous press release by Hone which virtually said that we had given up on promotion. Where is the splenn directed at him eh? Burley did a job and failed to get us back up. Hanging offence? Apparently so to many despite the fact that there are lots of good managers who fail to achieve anything of note each year. He did a great job at Ipswich and Hearts, gave us a season to remember the year before last and is now managing his national team...does that make him a failure or a useless manager? Apparenty so....go figure.

Why? I said "alleged". It was alleged that Hall left the club because Strachan wanted him out (along with two others) due to substance abuse. That is very different to dragging up the tired old cliche used to denigrate Burley at every opportunity. And back to my main point. If Hall was such a loss why has his career not taken off after he left us?

What he did to us? Take us to the play offs? What a b*stard eh?

Here we go again, the unfailing crystal ball. It was sorted by Hone and Crouch so why not vent your not inconsiderable spleen on them? It had nothing to do with Lowe, who sorted the deal out in the first place and got a lot more out of Arsenal than were willing to pay.

No Scotland does not mean anything to us...but some posters (you know who I mean) seem to take great pleasure in seeing someone fail. Still, most of us realise that one competitive game does not make a career and our former manager should be judged when he ends his stint up north. What is it about some of our supporters eh? Ok, so we didn't get promoted, but the manager than some people vilify had a points per game record with us of 1.54 per game against McMenemy's 1.52, Hoddle's 1.50, Bate's 1.42 and Strachan's measly 1.35. Yet he was rubbish. doesn't say much for the rest does it? I bet Alpine prays that Scotland loss every game so he can come on here and tell us all what a failure Burley is (as he did after ONE game). Really, how sad is that? Are people's lives so pathetic that they have to take crumbs of comfort in seeing other people fail? The bloke did what he could and it wasn't good enough. So what? It is not as if we have been overwhelmed by success every year is it?

We are all doomed, doomed I tell you. Tell me again Alpine about the brilliant career that Fitz Hall had when he left us (as part of the gang of alleged druggies as I recall anyway). And how did Scotland get on last night? Black, black, everything is black....you are only truly happy when things are not going well, so I guess you are even more miserable tha usual as we have so far won three out of six competitive games. Still, lets hope it all goes pear shaped soon eh?

Mistreated how? By getting the most win ratio since the war? By getting us into the play offs. Bastard! Get some perspective, you can't tell me he did worse by this club than Redknapp or Branfoot. Of course he made mistakes, every manager we ever had did. Perhaps he should have walked when his best players were sold from underneath him? At the end of the day we have had two successful managers in goodness knows how many years...perhaps you should slag off the other slackers too?

Why are we talking about the Scottish football manager's first competitive match on here? If we are going to talk about international football why not talk about the rubbish England served up with a so called top manager at the helm? So what if he fails at the Scottish job? He had one full season here in which he fulfilled the target of the play offs, and but for some individual errors which were not down to him, might have made the play offs. He has moved on and so have we. For goodness sakes get over it.

How can you have pride in your local team when it is populated by the best money can by from all round the world? It just becomes a game of monopoly. Far better to see players that have been nutured coming through and doing well. Yes, a few years ago I would have said A, but not any more. It is all about who has the biggest cheque book now. Who cares? Let the super rich go and form their own super league and let the rest of us get on with it.

We are still waiting Alpine.................................