CB Fry

He was definitely sacked, I remember the Echo reports at the time described him as the first Saints manager ever to be sacked (fancy that, these days!). I think Nicholl finished fifteenth or so in his last season, but you're right apart from the brilliant season of finishing seventh we tended to be about 12th in his time with us. He put together a great little team and is responsible for me loving Saints to this day.

He might own shares still, but he'll be gone from the front line. For one Wilde will turn tail and hang him out to dry and probably end up back in bed with Crouch. He's not the Terminator T1000, he's just a tw at with a suit. He won't hang around for re-promotion this time.

Not everyone missed it, it must have been certain TV regions that missed it, I live in the East Midlands and I saw the goal. There was a two second cut out but it came back well before the goal.

I saw the goal. I fuc king hate liverpool so it was brilliant.

I think I'll enjoy a long glass of something cold, sat on the patio, drinking in the mid August sunshine thinking "well, they won't all be as easy as Walsall at home".

What a plank. Mandaric got through countless managers at Fratton - Ball, Claridge, Pulis and Rix before he got Arry in and still managed to lose him before going through a couple more managers. And he "learnt his lesson" at Leicester by getting through Kelly, Worthington, Allen, Megson, Taggart and Holloway in just over a season and relegating the club to league one. What a f uc king hero. Saints fans wetting themselves over someone who relegated his team to the lowest position they have ever been through chopping and changing the manager left right and centre. And he hasn't yet sacked his manager who has been at the top of the league all season. What a "brave" decision to stick with Pearson so far..... You really could not make this up.

You do realise apart from two wind up merchants on here no-one supports Lowe anymore. So you can stop frothing at the mouth about stuff that happened ten years ago because christ its been done to death.

This is 100% correct. The original post on this thread is ******** and yet more evidence of the club "historian" turning into a club "speculator", club "assumer" and heaven forbid club "stooge" for good old Leon. Lowe will be responsible for our relegation and then will be gone, I'm sure. These kind of threads speed up Lowe's departure not a jot more and they certainly don't help us get any more points on the table. But if Leon and his pet historian are happy with their efforts, fair play to you both.

I think the plan was to be doing that last season

If we do go down, and I think that is the most likely scenario, then the damage has already been done. You're taking three massive leaps - one that we would have got huge amounts of cash for Surman and Lallana, and two that the money we'd got in for those two would have been spent on better replacements and three those better replacements would have slotted into the team and played with the kind of conviction and spirit that for all their faults Adam and Drew do display. Last year's team was chock full of well paid "big name" players and where did that get us? Relegation out of our hands on the final day. You can get all upset about how we've missed an opportunity this transfer window by not buying many players, but I don't remember seeing that much on here about our lack of purchases during January itself. The rumour angst mill was all about who was being sold. So few of us realists ever expected a recruitment drive, and very few of the extremists expected one either. Most of us realists expected one two or three departures. The first happened as expected, but the second didn't, which is a small mercy. Be thankful for it, instead of getting worked up about a scenario that frankly was never, ever on the cards.

I don't really see the connection. If you are really saying "it wouldn't have mattered if Davies and Surman had been flogged" then fair enough, that's your opinion. But you and I know that had those players been sold on Monday you and plenty like you would not have shrugged and said "oh, well, they were rubbish anyway". You would have wanted Lowe's head on a stick.

Look out Premier League here come the super managers Martinez - maybe manage in the Prem one day Nigel Adkins - well... Steve Tilson - um.... Mike Newell - currently at Grimsby.... Paul Sturrock - well I like him but unlikely to trouble the Prem any time soon. Paul Jewell - okay, we have one. Peter Taylor - cast iron Premier League fu ck up. Dennis Wise - arf. Let's not expect any of these managers to be sweeping into White Hart Lane or Eastlands any time soon..... Let's not get carried away that winning League one is some passport to managerial mega stardom.

Sorry, where did I say he didn't? I know exactly what he did at Carlisle, you're the one making out he'd never managed before.

He was manager of Carlisle in the fourth division way back in 1999 back when George Burley was powering up to fourth in the Premier League. And then didn't get a managers job anywhere for eight years until his best mate's dad got him a nice little number at St Mary's.

It'll be tickets sold, so the real figure in the stadium is almost certainly smaller. I would venture a few ST holders can't or won't make it tonight as well as a few Sheff Utd fans who bought tickets and then decided against it.

Amen to all this. It's a tragedy we have had to let the likes of John and Rasiak slope off on loan, and let the likes of Skacel rot in the name of cost cutting when you see the pheonomenal amount of waste on the below average drivel we are shipping in. Players on players on players that are scraping ten games all season between them. Being that the whole point of the revolutionary structure was to bring the senior and academy teams together, I don't understand the need for these reserve teamers swamping in the middle. A solid 16 senior players with all cover provided by the kids. That wouldn't have been that revolutionary, but it might have bloody worked. An absolute disgrace.

I take it you've never read the work of SaintRichmond, then? We haven't sold anyone, which I think is a pretty good result and a lot better than many were expecting, including me. Why people can't just accept that as a "pretty good thing" is beyond me. Whichever way you look at it, there are plenty of posters smarting over the fact that we haven't sold anyone because it blows their prejudices into pieces for now and they can't churn out their usual one-note one-eyed horse-sh it. It's just a shame because some people just cannot see the world (and the world of Saints especially) in shades of grey.

Of course there's an element of truth in it. We are where we are and most of us know why. All that amuses me over the last couple of days is the desperate reformatting of arguments now that the accepted wisdom "everyone that could be sold will be sold" has proved to not be the case. People on here had Lallana and Surman "flogged to the highest bidder in January" after they'd played two good games in a row in September. And all the Hystericals decided that was truth and that was that. Anyone who challenged that accepted truth was shouted down. And when the club came out and said "no players would be sold" in the first week of Jan, the Hystericals said they were lying, it was Lowe propaganda and all the rest of it. But that is exactly what has happened. If it was Leon Crouch making and fulfilling a promise like that you wouldn't be able to move for the Hystericals queuing round the block to su ck him off. I don't expect anyone to thank Lowe for anything, I want him gone as you well know. But for pete's sake - all in all, a pretty good window. What's amusing is people aren't happy to accept that as quite a good thing, and instead have to weave silly new theories.

To be fair, the transfer window thing is more about hourly and daily predictions about "anyone of any value" or "anyone not nailed down" being sold "immediately" because "all he cares about is money" etc etc etc And that didn't happen. So all the hysterics that had been saying this would happen are frankly wrong. The same hysterics are now scrabbling around for a new conspiracy that they can fit into "Rupert's Plan to Kill the club on purpose" and it is quite amusing seeing the leaps of logic taken place. Here's a couple already doing the rounds: The idea that not selling players is more evidence of us going into administration - as opposed to selling loads of players which would have meant we wouldn't be going into administration. Or something. The idea that because we haven't sold anyone the whole administration thing is one big fat lie sold to us by guess who to keep the fans in line and relegate us on purpose for a laugh. Or something. And here's your leap of logic: Oh, I see. Now it is all about us failing to buy players. Even though we are actually skint. Not even the most feverish Hysterics were expecting significant signings during this window, but now there are no sales to moan about, lets pretend we had the opportunity to splash out on players after all. Keep it coming chaps. I'm loving the "all our players are rubbish" stuff, I really am. Look, we kept the squad together for the final push, which was as much as any of us expected on Jan 1st. Please stop wasting energy fitting in some bonkers Lowe is evil conspiracy around our current situation and worry about this team and this manager staying up. Unlikely, I know, but still.....

So you are saying Surman, Davies, Lallana are all crap then? If they're not "fit for purpose" I take it were they sold to Sunderland, Reading and Fulham or whoever yesterday you wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Right?

So what "certain clubs" has Pulis "fitted into" so far - how many more does he have to get through to get a regular game? I've never seen him play and I doubt I ever will. But my pre judgement is that he is cr ap. I look forward to him proving me wrong. And who was that poster a while back who was betting against all comers that Pulis would play 20 games for us this season?? Anyone remember?

If we had sold Surman, Davies and or Lallana then the likes of you would be screaming blue murder about how Lowe had sold our best players, ripped the heart out of the team etc etc etc. Or are you saying that we could survive just as well without Kelvin and Drew and co? They're just players, we're rubbish and they are all replaceable? You're beginning to sound like some evil money obsessed chairman..... In the hysterics wing of this forum there is so much having your cake and eating it going on its untrue. "We have no best players" I'd love to see the reaction if it was Lowe coming out and saying that as a justification for selling them.

You seem to think you're asking tricky questions, but all the answers are obvious and available - Pearson was jack sh it to do with money, we could have easily afforded him, it was about Lowe's dopey revolution. The loaning out of players was money related, because we are skint. Things aren't "so rosy" and I don't think anyone is saying they are. The only back tracking going is from the hystericals on the forum that decide that "Lowe sells everything that moves" "Lowe will cash in Lallana/Suman/Davies/everyone as soon as you can blink" and so on. Very few of those that are labeled Luvvies said we wouldn't sell players, but plenty of the loons said we would sell every member of the first team. And its them that are wrong. The truth is slightly more complicated than some on here can handle. But still, roll up for the new evil-Lowe-conspiracy theories - I'm loving the one that us not selling players is even stronger evidence we're going into administration!!! (Would the same people be saying "this is evidence of our financial security" if we'd sold five players this month? Unlikely....)

So what exactly was your opinion of Zoltan Liptak this time yesterday? Did you think he was a good player and would make a brilliant addition to the squad? If he'd signed for Sheff Utd today would you be on here saying what a cracking signing they'd made? Or......had you never heard of him? I don't get the mindset that just because we sign a player he instantly becomes a world beater. He was loaned out to, and couldn't get a game for, Stevenage Boro, LAST SEASON. Sorry for not dancing round the kitchen at this signing. If he isn't good enough for Stevenage Boro, or Southend, or Huddersfield then chances are he just might not be all that.

Funny Hertha could have tied up the transfer of this player they so desperately wanted long before Lowe even came back to power at Saints, i.e. before Skacel went off to Euro 2008 and dazzled the continent with his commitment, skills and workrate alerting all the major clubs in Europe to his red hot availability. Why didn't they do that? After all, the previous "non-evil" regime would have let them have Skacel for free, right?