CB Fry

Keegan would be brilliant, and we'd power through League one with him at the helm. The criticisms of him are fair enough were we a mid table Prem team looking to finish sixth. But we are a L1 team looking to make the play offs against Yeovil, Oldham and Swindon. Keegan could deliver that stood on his head, pack the stadium (for L1), play some good football and keep our profile sky-high in the national football consciousness. Keegan would be fan-bloody-tastic.

It's unbeleivable he wants to stay, I doubt anyone would have begrudged him a move to the Prem, especially as he had been training at WHU. So for him to stay is just fantastic. Probably player of the season already.

This is probably about right. Let him run the academy. I really don't get the fawning over Wotte and his dignity etc, he did what anyone else in his situation would do, especially as he wasn't working for free and clever enough to know this represents his best chance to make a name for himself. And whatever anyone is saying now the vast majority of people would have bounced Wotte out the door on the back of a Keegan appointment two weeks ago. Wotte is a relic from the bad old days. Let the new good times roll, and lets appoint a dynamic exciting manager to unite the fanbase and drag us into the CCC. Or, failing that, appoint Lawrie Sanchez.

Is it f*ck. Sorry for dredging this up but I've had dogs abuse for daring to suggest two things a) the league were not lying b) and as long as deal was done with satisfied creditors we'd be deducted ten points. No more, no less. Why that offended so many people I will never know. But I was bloody right all along so I am ****ed off at the response I kept getting for saying something which to me was just clankingly obvious. This is my last contribution on this subject.

This just in from the the good Doctor Mawhinney at the Football League. As expected, the additional points deducted and reasons as follows: 10 points - the much anticipated "Catch-22" punishment where SFC can't produce CVA because they were never in administration in the first place even though all debts have been cleared by SLH that was in admin. Or something. 5 points - the League have activated their "we were lying all along" as the highly educated and more perceptive posters spotted. They were clever enough to understand that their six seperate denials across four different new agencies that they planned to deduct any further points was just an elaborate porkie pie pie. 2 points - because the league "backtracked" (oh, we're good) from really deducting them, and then did some more. God we hate stripes. 5 points - because sanctions had a "s" at the end and everything. Stands to reason. 10 points - activated by Neil Doncaster from the board of Norwich City on the grounds of "if I can't deduct points from rivals what am I doing on the FL board? Screw em." 7 points - activated by Robin Norwich from the board of Doncaster Rovers on the grounds that being fictional does not stop me from having it in for Southampton Football Club. Everyone else in world football does. More than anyone. 4 points accrued on a point for every 100 contacts from Saints fans bombarding emails to the league waiting for "clarification of the rules". Final total 417. 1 point added for the 311 fans complaining they didn't get a personalised telephone reply from Mawhinney and instead recieved a standard email. 10 points becuase LUTON GOT POINTS DEDUCTED!!! I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT THEY DID THEY DID THEY DID AND WE WILL FROM THE BACKTRACKING LYING LEAGUE. THEY WILL THEY WILL THEY WILL. Okay, you win. Call it Eleven points. 1 point for Fialka and his unfortnate ears. And TWENTY SEVEN more points suspended for a year on the grounds the self persecuting conspiracy ranters will be lost without some higher evil to moan about. We'll call it the Lowe toll. All in all, I think we deserve it. Bring on the brighter tomorrow, and a day with no bloody paranoia any more.

That article doesn't say anything additional to what was on South Today and the BBC website. Just waiting for the funds.

Unlikely. He looked like a single figure (that figure being one) billionaire. It would keep you in cuckoo clocks but its not mind blowing in British football. And I am assuming Randy Learner restraint over Man City loopiness. Plenty for us though.

I think you'll find the fans were there when we played Man United in the cup. There was no Lowe out boycott beyond a couple of hundred people and you know it.

Newcastle have been up for sale since September 2008. So if by "a matter of weeks" you mean "ten months" then yes, it is amazing they have done it in a matter of weeks. It's frustrating ours has dragged and dragged over, er, four months. Oh, now it is all "wrapped up", who has bought them, by the way? I think I missed that on the news.

Did he? Can't remember. I'll forgive him for producing such a beautiful post in the same way we all forgive the King of Pop for taking twelve year olds up the helter skelter because he wrote such wonderful music.

That post is a thing of innocent wonder and simple beauty. Marvellous and definitely the medal winner.

Well, If I'm right we'd be on 10 points, so you can hardly accuse me of wanting the worst for the club, can you? The catch-22 was one of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories on here, and it won't happen. There's a small chance the creditors still won't be happy and we don't get a CVA and then we would get minus fifteen, but that isn't the catch-22 people were talking about. But happiliy enough, that looks unlikely now. But we'll see won't we.

Just have to wait for the league to activate the "catch-22" minus ten points. Oh, and the additional fifteen points they are going to take off us because Alpine said they would because he said the league are no good lying liars who deduct points just for a laugh.

Sorry mate - reading it again I can see it . Bedtime for me then.

To be fair the Football League haven't "moved" any "goalposts" since this entire process started. That's just in the heads of Tony Lynam and a few paranoid delusional conspiracy theorists on a web forum.

That's my guess. It's a little project for junior. No you can't have one of those big Premier clubs. It's Southampton or nothing. Now, put your Nintendo DSi down and eat one more piece of broccoli before you get down from the table.

If they care enough to bother to buy us, you'd think they'd care enough to want their own manager in. Surely they can't put that effort in to buy us just to dish up more of the same?

I thought it was all the league's fault? Or was that last week. Sorry, I can't keep up, I'm not nearly as intelligent as some people on this forum. Not nearly.

We're in endgame on the takeover - neither league nor creditors will let this go on until the first game of the season. And its not about buying our way up the league - we're only in League one, we don't need a multi million pound squad you know. We just need a competent manager, and Wotte isn't that. You've written a few lengthy posts on this thread and still the only compelling reason you have given for keeping Wotte is this paralysing fear of "not being stable", like changing a manager is a shortcut to destruction. You haven't actually said why Wotte is the best person for the job or any boring details like that. But anyway... Everton sacked Walter Smith and went into chaos disaster and doom under his replacement. Arsenal sacked Bruce Rioch and never ever recovered from the spiralling crisis with the fans never forgiving their trigger happy board. Portsmouth took the suicidal decision not to stick with Graham Rix, a decision that has haunted them for many seasons since. Remember. Never, ever change manager. Ever.

If you honestly think he honestly thinks he'll get first team football at WHU then apologies but you are the idiot. Kelvin knows well enough what he'll be going to at WHU. And anyway, Green is hardly a stranger to the treatment table is he? For all we know his choices may well have been uproot everything to go to, say, Sheff United or Preston or Cardiff, or keep his current home and go to West Ham for Prem wages. Whatever he does its his choice and none of our business really. Good luck to him.

Why on earth do we have to wait an entire season for a "decent fresh start". Why can't we have a "decent fresh start" next week? Come next April we could be eight points of the play offs and people will still think "if we win the next couple we could be in there", which is fair enough. It's called belief, and it happens every year. But you are writing off the whole of next season before we've even played our pre season game at home. 128 points to go for but you've chucked the season in the bin. We can get in the play offs next season. But I don't think we can with Wotte.

Correct. The only reasons people are giving seem to be a) "stood by us" in difficult times. b) "stability" is the greatest gift a football club could ever be given and the next managerial appointment is definitely going to be worse than the current incumbent. Neither reason stand up to any scrunity whatsoever, and neither stand up to the cold hard fact that Mark Wotte is a proven failure everywhere he's been, has no relevent experience of the division we now find ourselves. And he played a massive part in our relegation in the first place. Boot him out and fresh start with a new broom.

Err - I love the way you have just made up a load of opinions on my behalf and then had a go at me for them No "pinning of all our problems on Wotte" from me, son. Where did I even sugges that? And No "changing the manager will solve the problems of the last five years" either. Where did I even suggest that? People writing off the whole season because we are in a bit of turmoil now is laughable. Roy Keane took over Sunderland in September at the foot of the table and still got promoted. Since when were league placings decided in the first week of July? If next season is a write-off anyway in your opinion, why don't we just give a new manager the whole write-off season to bed in and get settled in, giving him a whole season of oh-so-precious stability to build on. You accuse me of thinking changing things will magically solve things but you have an equal delusion that giving anyone "stability" somehow guarantees success - doesn't matter how bad they are, give them five years and they'll turn into Sir Alex. It's garbage. Every successful manager in Prem-era UK football have delivered at their club within one year, or they haven't succeeded there. From Moyes to Wenger, from Redknapp to Jewell, from Jol to Curbishley, from Darren Ferguson to Martinez, from Paul Ince to Gordon Strachan, from Tony Mowbray to Phil Brown, from Alan Irvine to Billy Davies. With the single exception of Sir Alex twenty-five odd years ago. And still people go on about "go on, let him be rubbish for three seasons, stability's the main thing". Get over it, it's nonsense. Wotte out.

Very true (if not really on topic). And funnily enough it's also true the other way round when it comes to journalism and sport. We are now drowned by the half thought-through, tossed out banalities from ex pros in all sports. But it is often the journalists, analysts and experts that may never have played the game to any significant level that can provide the real insight. I'd rather listen to someone like Mike Ingham on Five live, or read David Lacey or Hugh McIllvenny giving his considered view on football than a thousand and one Tony Cascarinos, Micky Quinns and Ian Wrights who change their view with whatever the story happens to be that day and just talk air head guff off the top of their heads. Of course there are exceptional individuals that can do both - Richie Benaud, or John McEnroe - but they're pretty rare. The person in a job is not the best person to do it just because they happen to be the person doing it.

This is perfectly fine journalism for the newspaper in Blackburn or wherever they got the story from. Good story, good quotes, good local angle. It's lazy of the Echo to make such a hash of rewriting it. I'll say it again. People in Shirley, Millbrook, Bitterne, Midanbury and elsewhere do not care about the three schools this man went to in Heaton, Lancashire some thirty odd years ago. The "journalist" in question is not "doing his job better than those who chose to criticise them" he's just doing his job very quickly on very low pay, which is why you get this laziness. Local journalists are paid barest of minimum wage and are short staffed to the bone. This time of year it could even be a student working for free during the summer.