Topcat

1. Who hired the Manager (Burley) that recommended all these expensive players? Answer Rupert Lowe. 2. When Lowe left the wage bill (run rate) was already growing again, the Wilde period just added more Burley expense. 3. We have had the same Fin Director through all of this, he even voted for the new players! 4. Lowe is basically slagging off Wilde (his supporter) and Jones (his former employee) whilst trying to smear Crouch. 5. Crouch seems IMHO to have a good grasp of the finances, was willing to make sensible cuts, is able to hire a good Manager and is willing to put in some of his own money to save us. Barclays should take note.

Frank's cousin "He tries different things that he believes will help generate a competitive advantage - Radio stations and other commercial activity designed to improve our media presence and generate income long-term, advertise the corporate facilities (including the catering )to try and generate greater revenues and above develop and further invest in the academy and sports science to give us an edge where possible - all very laudable and rational -" Frank you try and come across as all reasonable and that we should all give poor old Lowe the benefit of the doubt. So what have all these Lowe experiments achieved? Answer; facing relegation to L1 and bankruptcy. Lowe has made mistake after mistake dressed up as "innovative thinking" whereas they were just amateur decisions by someone playing with his "toy". Only a fool would invest in the training ground and the Woodward circus rather than the 1st team to get us back up in the 1st season down from the Prem. Why a fool? Well because statistics say that the best chance of promotion is in the 1st and 2nd seasons. £1.5m spent on the 1st team could have given us the extra striker we needed. Lowe of course believes he knows better than statistics. Only a fool would get rid of a Manager (Pearson) who knew the players and had just saved us from relegation and then replace them with a foreign manager unused to the CCC. All to save £100,000. Step forward Rupert Lowe our resident idiot. Only a fool would raise a profit through transfer dealing in a January transfer window when we should have been desperately clinging on to our Premiership position and the £50m+ it was worth. The list of Lowe's stupidity is long and you, Frank, need to wake up to the real record of Rupert Lowe.

If Cowen was any good at running a Club why has he supported Lowe and his mistakes?

Barclays will view us 1) as a Business and 2) a means to improve their own corporate image. Taking each of these in turn. 1) As a business we will be in the category of all the other likely bankrupts. We have lost a large chunk of customers and are led by someone who is trashing the brand image of the company (Saints) through his actions of reducing the quality and delivering poor customer service. Lowe is the Ratner of football. Barclays millions in loans are at grave risk of default and they need to act. Forcing the Club to raise £3m+ in this transfer window and result in an increase in the chances of relegation and administration is not in Barclays best interests. 2) Regarding Barclays corporate image in Soton. It is being damaged by association with Lowe and they are increasingly viewed in negative terms. Both of the above will force Barclays hand if their Roger Fry has any business sense. His boss ought to be asking him some very blunt questions.

The Echo is suffering in the advertising down turn. It had clearly decided from the summer to treat Lowe as if there was no past and give him the benefit of the doubt. Bearing in mind the fact that "good news does not sell papers" that was brave of them if a foolhardy business decision. The Editor does have some explaining to do to his bosses at Newsquest. The economic reality is that Newsquest in this area is in trouble and the Echo desperately needs more readers. Now that they see that the former Prem Club is being driven into a L1 or L2 status they have to turn on Lowe and report the bad news. Meanwhile Barclays will read all this in the Echo and wonder how safe the millions lent to Saints are under Lowe's Chairmanship.

Rudy and others have made it quite clear that it is Lowe who is handling the Manager/DOF role and it is Lowe who talks to the players and their agents about their terms and future at the Club. Cork was one of our better players this season and yet we failed to make him feel that he was really wanted. A shocking indictment of Lowe and Barclays should act and tell Saints that Lowe has to go.

and this idea of leaving the senior players to rot and playing 9 kids has got us to 2nd from bottom. Duh. Lowe has saved a few thousand and brought us to the risk of relegation and bankruptcy. Also the missing 5,000 would have covered the senior players game day wages if they had played. It is all a monumentally stupid plan.

We are 8 weeks away from March and the start of ST renewals. A boycott of that will remove Lowe. Now all it needs is for the Saints Trust to step forward and lead the fight...... Problem is, they seem to think life is ok with Lowe.

LTC is right, time is running out. But Lowe and his backers seem to have a death wish for their investment and are plowing on into relegation, administration, a points deduction and L2. Was there ever a more incompetent bunch of businessmen? They rival Northern Crock's ex-Board. We lose the Club and they lose their shares.

re Fitzhugh fella, thanks, the Trust needs a Leader with the vision and the time. A retired person maybe best. There are thousands of those amongst the supporters. re influenced.com, the issue is that it should be the role of the Trust to grow in influence and evolve to the point that it owns the Club. We are where we are becuase of who owns the Club. The Trust should gear itself up to be ready to buy the Club (when we go into admin) or buy a large chunk of shares if we avoid that horror.

The Club is on the verge of relegation, administration, docking of points and dropping to L2. Washsaint writes as if this is not imminent and we just have a little local difficulty, a mere bump in the road. Yes washsaint in your eyes it is "only a mere flesh wound" and not a decapitation. Unbelievable.

Judge people by their actions. Where has the Trust been in the worst year for Saints (so far)? Answer Missing from the Action. They went to sleep and failed to provide any Leadership. They are not to blame for the dire state of the Club. But most of the Trust's Board are to blame for failing to represent their Members and failing to communicate. The Trust has shown no sign of any coherent alternative proposals for a better run Saints. When Lowe returned they did not set the SLH Board any clear targets against which they should be measured. They failed to warn about 5,000 fewer attendees due to Lowe. Nick Illingsworth should resign for failing to lead at a time when the Trust desperately needed an able Leader. He has become almost an apologist for Lowe saying that others need to share the blame. No they do not, all others have done is to back the idiot. Misguided they maybe, but Lowe took the decision to remove Pearson, shed experience, select a dutch experiment and squander wages on some very duff players.

To spend money to get rid of Rupert and then to back him and remove a decent Manager for another Lowelife experiment beggars belief. You could have sold your shares for half what you paid for them back in the summer. Today they are almost worthless. Backing lowelife has caused that and you were the mug who switched sides. Are you just a cr*p businessman with no spine?

Lowe has made a tough situation worse through his appalling management decisions. Ending Lowe today could bring in £2m more from 5,000 more supporters for the 11 CCC home games left. Ending Lowe now has the bigger gain of bringing back support to help keep the team up. Crouch did very well with his first football Manager hire after the mistakes of supporting the internal appointments of D&G. However what I fear is that we will continue with Lowe and will be relegated. We will then go into admin, be docked points and then get relegated from L1 to L2.

Is it true that Lowe has sacked JP and appointed as a new cunning plan the top coach from the Arsenal womens team as they are the best in their League? The rumour is that we can also expect as part of the experiment the use of females in the first team as Lowe says this is an untapped source of talent?

The only benefit of administration is that Lowe will have lost his "pals" many hundreds of thousands of pounds. That will serve them right for backing him.

The real cause of this is Lowe and we have yet another one of Lowe's experiments unravelling. Yet Lowe will then pick the next coach and continue to hand the limited pick n mix squad for that poor coach to choose from. Barclays need to act and tell the Board that any continued support is dependent upon the removal of Lowe as an Executive Director.

The problem with removing Jan is that the Chairman with the worst track record in appointing Managers will decide who is Jan's replacement. Will Barclays finally act and tell the Lowe consortium that Lowe has to go?

Wilde is clearly an inadequate businessman and he has helped bring back the architect of our relegation from the Premiership. The quickest way of throwing away the couple of millions he paid for shares in Saints was to reduce attendances by 5,000 and get relegated to L1. Maybe Barclays can talk the Saints Board into removing Lowe and attracting back supporters. PS Who picked Jan Portaloo....? Answer: Rupert Lowe. A person who gets 80% of his Managerial appointments wrong. He would be better using dice to choose them.

I said at the start of the season that since we had; no defence, no leadership in the team and an ill-equipped coach, that relegation was a high probability. I also said I hoped (prayed) that I was wrong. Halfway through the season and we still have all 3 of these problems. After January we will have an even weaker team. Exit2 makes the right call with "I feel the remaining 50% of the season will be more dire then the first". Again, I hope that we are wrong, somehow I doubt it.

More like an old uncle who squanders the family fortune through their inept decisions and bankrupts us. The estate workers then have no homes and no pensions.

OK GM what substances are you on?

No not unbelieveable when it might keep us out of administration and provide cash to progress. Better to share a ground than to see the Club die.

I would rather he spent his time focused on creating a team that goes out and wins. I do not need him spending time with people in pubs, we tried that with Burley.

CHAPEL END CHARLIE, thanks. As to others views, it sadly look like we are entering the dangerous stage before our collapse. I hope that someone at Barclays with half a business brain cell makes a business decision that recovery is impossible under Rupert Lowe. Watching a sick relative dying IMHO. Correct. If only Barclays realised it. Yes you have from previous sites. Do not blame yourself, this was created by Lowe and his supporters.