Alanh

Not personally convinced, but can't prove it one way or another. I think if we really wanted to shift Saga for the second half of the season we could have done. He did after all score in the Champions League so someone in Europe would have taken him for the second half of the season. I think that Peckhart and Robertson failing in the first part of the season meant that another loan up front was too big a risk so we decided (possibly in the absence of a good enough offer) to keep Saga and his wages from January.

To anyone that is saying that we didn't speculate with a view to improving the team - performances - attendances, I would argue that bringing back Saga from his loan and not simply shipping him out again was essentially the final roll of the dice. On paper getting him back should have been a much better option that someone like Scowcroft both financially and in terms of ability. We did speculate, but as is always the case, there are no guaranteed proven, cast iron means of securing success and unfortunately that specific one didn't work out for us.

Massively hypothetical question given we won't be able to afford him, other clubs higher up the leagues will be interested and will be able to offer bigger wages, and I'd be surprised if he was interested in dropping down a division. Assuming the decision was with us and we had a choice on what to do with him I'd sell him. He might score goals in this division, but I think the money that we could get in from a fee and the savings that we make on wages should enable us to get in a couple of hungry players with a couple of successful years experience in L1 - ideally strikers or midfielders who have scored a few in the division already but fancy the idea of playing for a bigger club. Next season we are going to have to be scoring for fun from the very start and we won't be able to rely on one player to score the goals we will need, especially one who has been acccused (rightly or wrongly) of being lazy, immobile and slow for most of his time with us.

Skacel came here because Burley convinced him to join, same with Rasiak. Neither of them performed after GB left - in fact Rasiak hasn't played for us since GB left.

Mind games. Wotte was talking up Smith's abilities I an effort to inject a bit of belief into the kid. He's obviously got pace and must show some ability in training, but struggles to make an impact in matches. My take is that Wotte was just trying to boost the kids's confidence.

The club will be sold as an asset of SLH and the debts of SLH will either be assumed by the buyer of the club, or will be paid off with the proceeds of the sale. SLH will probably be dissolved after the sale and so will not 'come out of administration'.

Potential. Everyone in football will agree that a financially solvent Southampton (and let's face it we will need one of them before any new manager arrives) are a bigger proposition that Exeter will ever be.

I'm gonna diagree on this one. You're right that actions last summer have contributed to us being in admin now, but the actions that caused us to generate the level of debt with Barclays that eventually resulted in them pulling the plug go back further - giving rasiak a 4 year contract in 2006, signing Euell and John on effectively Prem wages in 2007, not cutting more high earners like Idiakez, Lundekvam, etc from the squad when the parachute payments stopped in 2007, not being able to sell Skacel, Rasiak, Saga, John or Euell at any point in the last 18 months. With hindsight the only thing that would have helped last summer was the the last item on that list above. Perhaps the loaning out of several of those players and the freezing out of others in an effort to get them to move was, while unpopular with fans, the only means left at the boards disposal of getting the main huge overhead - the wage bill - under control. Overall the summer of 2008 was 'last roll of the dice' time as a series of decisions made several years earlier combined to put is in an untenable situation.

To put it into perspective, Coventry did their deal with SISU 30 minutes before their winding up deadline. We haven't got an official winding up deadline yet, but I would not be surprised if this story goes down to the wire just like Coventry's did.

2006 is important because of the way we could plan for the impending end of the parachute payments and start to make decisions on cutting the wage bill. In the summer of 2006 we could effectively plan to spend the last of the parachute payments for the coming season. In the summer of 2007 we should have been cutting the wage bill but instead Wilde's board spent specifically on John and Euell on Prem type wages thereby increasing our wage bill massively because they believed that a bid was about to come in which would cover the costs. The bid never came and we were left with the overdraft that has been called in. Crouch knew it was a problem and that's why Rasiak and Skacel were loaned out in January 08. As said above Lowe is culpable for multiple poor managerial appointments, poor communications with the fans and some poor player acquisitions, but at the end of the day it's our overdraft that has got us in this situation and despite efforts to reduce it - loaning out players - the bank have finally got cold feet and called it in.

Semantics IMO. They actively stated for months before yesterday that they supported the idea of admin.

The two most vociferous advocates of admin were Stanley and Alpine. Both felt that it was inevitable and so we should proactively pursue it voluntarily. I'm pretty sure the likes of SaintRobbie and SaintRichmond have also been fully supportive of the admin.

I hope that everyone who has stated that they wouldn't go until Lowe left now is true to their word gets a ticket for the last three matches. Personally I don't believe that there are more that 1000 who genuinely held that stance but if there are more and they will come along now it will be to the massive benefit of the club in the long run.

Because the board in charge at the time were convinced that there were real investors out there (SISU being the only one that actually made any form of offer) and that when these investors bought in we would have the funds to pay the high wages. The decisions taken in the summer of 2007 were the ones which set us on the course that brought us to where we are today. if anyone wants stringing up over this it's the likes of Hone, Hoos and Dulieu and anyone still connected to the club who let them make those decision - that could include Wilde, Jones, Crouch, McMenemy, Lowe etc.

The overall premise of this thread is that administration is inevitable if we go down. Personally I think that's an false assumption and there are enough costs leaving the business in the form of big money contracts expiring to enable us to cut the cost base enough to survive even on L1 revenues. IMO, and I'm not ITK at all (but then nor is anyone else on here), provided the season ticket numbers hold up at about 9K and overall gates remain at around 13 - 14K it will be possible to construct a viable budget. The things that are most likely to send us down are the salaries of Rasiak, Skacel and Saga if we have to pay all their wages next season on a L1 budget. No fault of the players, more the fault of whoever signed them, although I doubt they envisaged us being in L1 at any point in the duration of their contracts.

They only lose anything if they want to sell their shares and I think Crouch is the biggest loser having bought the largest amount at the higheest price - should we be laughing at him as well? Also, the quoted share price is largely irrelevant to the current or future ownership of the club as there are not enough shares in open circulation to enable anyone to buy a meaningful quantity at the published price. We are all pretty sure that none of the main shareholders will sell at the market price because of the hit they will take on their investment. If we were looking for the share price to be a lever in ousting the current majority shareholders surely we would want to see it rise in order that selling for a profit was an attractive proposition for them. Unfortunately that's unlikely in the current climate.

Fair enough, this forum is all about opinions. I reckon there is something in BWP that hasn't quite been realised yet. Perhaps he hasn't found the ideal strike partner, or the right system of play yet but given who else is going to be leaving I'd keep him. I would only keep him on reduced terms anyway and if we go down I think he'll find another club in the CCC.

There isn't a single club from the CCC that has gone into administration since the FA's rules regarding points deductions came into force and have subsequently improved their position. I select CCC to give a comparison to us rather than using comparisions from much lower down the leagues. There is a chance that Leeds might be the first to do so if they win promotion this season but all the rest are suffering more after admin than before. Rotherham and Luton have been in admin three times each and have fallen further each time. Is there a reason why Saints would automatically bounce back stronger post admin? Haven't we learnt from what happened last time an 'anyone but Lowe' strategy was followed? From what I can see the primary goal of those advocating admin is as a mechanism to remove Lowe. If that is your aim use an alternative strategy - lobby shareholders with a rationale why he is not the best person to run the club, buy shares so that you have a voice at shareholder meetings, write to the papers, protest outside the ground day and night, find an alternative CEO. IMO admin carries far more potential long term risks than short term benefits. For those saying that admin is inevitable if we are relegated just think about our cost structure. The wage bill takes up the biggest chuck of our costs and with many players contracts expiring in the summer, including the big ones of Davis, BWP, John and Euell we have an automatic reduction in that big cost regardless of which division we are in. Couple that with revenue from selling the main playing assets - Surman, Saga, Lallana - and I believe that there is every chance that the cost structure of the club could be managed to accomodate L1 revenues. Whether we could be competitive in L1 is entirely another matter, but I don't believe that admin is inevitable at all.

If we stay in this league I hope that the club can keep the decent performers on an affordable salary, keep the youngsters with potential and get rid of the players who have shown that they aren't up to it. From your list I would say they split up as follows: Keep on affordable salary Kelvin Davis BWP Poke Perry Lloyd James Youngsters who still have promise Jamie Hatch Jake Thomson Jack Boyle Joseph Mills Jeffrey Imudia Andrej Pernecky Jamie White Michael Byrne Release Stern John Euell Ryan Smith Svensson - Surely he'll retire as a player at the end of the season Surely we'll also have to move on Skacel and Rasiak to anyone who will pay their wages

Some similaritles, but as Chez says, last season was much more like our Prem relegation season. This year has felt more like a continuation of the last 3 months of last season despite the change in management at boardroom and team level as the team has struggled to develop any confidence and our performances have stuttered as a result. We have gone backwards as a club this season thanks to the need to cut costs and the poor appointment of JP who could not put together an effective team for this division. Even with the constraints of the players who were out on loan a better manager than JP would have been able to get more out of the squad available. Ultimately you are right about one thing though. If we go down this season it will be firmly because Lowe decided on the relatively high risk strategy of appointing JP as manager and the risk did not pay off.

There are loads more to add to that list, but it's the same at just about every football club. The list that you have put up are all justifiable - either the player wanted to leave or we had better in the squad at the time - was Scott McDonald worth keeping when we had Beattie in the squad and on fire? Managers make decisions on how they want to play and the players that they want to achieve that. Get used to the idea of a revolving door as we'll have one pretty much the whole time we are in this division as players come in on loan, others leave for better clubs, youngsters get promoted to the first team but aren't quite good enough, or journeymen retire. I predict that next season we'll see another 10 new players start a match for Saints that aren't at the club now at that's just a fact of life for a club in our position regardless of the chairman.

Based on the principle that we would be desperate for money because of the likely drop in gates and so would be more liiely to do a deal to get some money in.

Three wins in a row and there is positive stuff to talk about - decent performances, goals, decent decisions by the manager. After the last two frustrating draws there's not so much to talk about apart from general frustration that even though we weren't outplayed we couldn't seem to create anything.

Agreed, we won't know until the accounts are published, but remember that the 15 or so players brought in weren't just to replace those loaned out, they were to replace all the players that left at the end of last season as well - Lundekvam, Wright, Ostlund, Powell, Viafara, etc, etc. Also, I think it's fair to say Rasiak, John and Saga have combined wages of around £40K per week. Do you really think we were paying that much combined per week for the likes of Peckhart, Robertson, Schneiderlin, Holmes, Smith - the attacking players who have been brought in this year and who could be loosely considered replacements for those three?

How can the argument be dead in the water. We know from the last accounts that outgoings exceeded incomings so our overdraft is increasing. we have read statements in various reports saying that the club would have to raise money or reduce costs to keep the bank happy. Just about everything written about the club in the media since the end of last season has mentioned that we are cash strapped. We might not have definitive financial information but I think we've got enough to believe that Saints have needed to raise money / reduce costs since the SISU deal was vetoed. Crouch started the process by loaning out Rasiak and Skacel last January and it just continued with John, Rasiak and Saga going out last summer. I'm guessing we would have preferred to sell at least one of them but there were no offers. I don't think the new players coming in either permanently or on loan would have brought costs to the wage bill any where near the combined wages of the three above that were loaned out plus the other players that left at the end of last season that they replaced.