CB Fry

Funnily enough I'm not sure that a comprehensive critique of Stuart Gray's reign as Southampton manager eight years ago is not really at the forefront of many Saints fans' minds at present. What are you expecting people to say? We have the worst team in our entire history, one of the most pathetic managerial appointments in British football history and a flood of excuses and garbage dribbling out from Lowe, Portalowe and their "but we're the most potless team, like, ever" apologists. Portalowe out today. Lowe out today. There was a threadbare team put out by a club with no cash, no decent infrastructure, no reliable income streams and a manager with limited experience in this division. The team was a combination of kids, loans and old hands, with barely a transfer fee paid for the entire squad. The club is in debt and is over spending at present. And the club has sold every single player of worth over the last three years or so, with those players making up a formidable team if they'd stayed. The name of that club? Here's a clue. They won two nil today against a shower of sh it.

Funnily enough I'm not sure that a comprehensive critique of Stuart Gray's reign as Southampton manager eight years ago is not really at the forefront of many Saints fans' minds at present. What are you expecting people to say? We have the worst team in our entire history, one of the most pathetic managerial appointments in British football history and a flood of excuses and garbage dribbling out from Lowe, Portalowe and their "but we're the most potless team, like, ever" apologists. Portalowe out today. Lowe out today. There was a threadbare team put out by a club with no cash, no decent infrastructure, no reliable income streams and a manager with limited experience in this division. The team was a combination of kids, loans and old hands, with barely a transfer fee paid for the entire squad. The club is in debt and is over spending at present. And the club has sold every single player of worth over the last three years or so, with those players making up a formidable team if they'd stayed. The name of that club? Here's a clue. They won two nil today against a shower of sh it.

Did this hankie thing actually happen? I vividly remember the Newcastle game and waving the red card and can remember bundling and protesting in the car park after that game (or was that a different game?). I remember Hope you die soon and all the rest of it pretty well. Anyone else remember the hanky thing because I can't. And to be fair it sounds a bit, well, camp.

If Chorley chucked those coins in the same manner that journalist hurled his shoes at Bush I wouldn't blame Lowe for wanting our own Che Guava banged up. Dear departing George had to duck out of the way pretty sharpish. Pendantry corner - Che Guava is a intentional gag. I am fully aware that the real name of South American icon plastered on under graduate bedroom walls worldwide is Fray Bentos.

My Christmas present to you is I promise never to mention our little bet about David Beckham where you told me he would never be selected for England again after that T&T match and he was playing against Fabio's will and only selected because the FA's marketing dept told him to play him. You told me Beckham would never be selected for England again after that once Fabio had his way. I begged to differ. But in the spirit of Christmas, lets never mention it again (to be fair to me, I've never mentioned it before today). Merry Christmas to you and to both people that like me and the many people that hate me on this forum.... Have a good one!

An organised boycott is the only way, and really is doable if everyone gets behind it. How do you do it - not that hard. Pick a TV game. Give the day a name "the big boycott", "stay away for change" something (without Lowe's name in it). Branding it makes it easier to get it noticed in the local media. In fact, make it positive not negative - "Save our Saints" is a million times better than "Lowe out". Enrol Lawrie, Mark Dennis, Benali, Merrington, Channon and assorted other local Saints legends and post them to pubs, clubs, church hall all over the city and the region to make communal events of watching the game on TV. Hire Central Hall as a key venue and get Lawrie to host it. The point is you make the boycott an event you have to make watching the game on TV a big communal event all fans can feel part of. You have to make the boycott something to actively do rather than just telling people to not do something. Instead of just saying "don't go, don't go" you have to tell people "go to this instead". Save our Saints. Twenty Locations in the city/region. Saints celeb at every location. Small charge to go to either local charity/or to the running costs of the event. Posters and banners for every other pub in city to run their own event. The local media would be all over it. Trust me the Echo might be up the clubs arse now but they love an event and they'd print a colour poster on the day before in their centre pages. 100 letters from readers would guarantee it. Papers love a campaign. Empty stadium for one game. Lowe would have to resign the next day. He would, not least because Wilde and co would bottle it. It can be done.

Lowe did not appoint Souness.

Steve Cotterill would be a million times better than Portalowe, and Steve Cotterill isn't really that good. Cotterill is a "motivating", "tracksuit", "players manager" (ie Lowe's kind of man) who has delivered a few seasons of CCC level mediocrity (ie our dream scenario at this stage). With Cotterill in charge, we have a slim chance of staying up. With Portalowe in charge we have zero zero zero chance of finishing anywhere other than stone, cold bottom. You're in luck Jan. Book your flight now and you'll be landing at Schiphol before Christmas Eve. Out, out, out.

I personally think the one think Lowe can near-as guarantee is us avoiding administration. Down to his very core he is a cautious cost cutting book balancer. That's why the squad has been cut back to the bone and the team is stuff with a load of never-will-be hyped up reserve teamers. As revenues drop, we'll just cost cut and cost cut and cost cut and sell players and sell players and sell players. And remortgage the stadium. Or flog the farm. Anything, anything to stave off admin. Anyway Alpine, I know a lot of people have ripped apart your pie in the sky notion already, but I do wonder if you can point to a real life example of a team that have gone into administration and are now rocketing back up the divisions powered by the unbelievable self belief that administration brings about? Leeds maybe, energised, super powered and....ninth in their second season in the third tier and sacking their manager. Or Luton, who club was so engerised and super powered by administration a couple of years back rocketed ummm down a division and then, well, went into adminstration again. And now are staring non league football in the face. Or Rotherham, a text book example of the healing power of administration who drew so much strength from their admin they are no riding high....in the bottom three of the bottom division. Look out Chelsea! Bradford? How's their European mission going? Now you mention it, Alpine, administration is going to be just brilliant.

I love you too. You were moaning about the appointment of a manager we haven't appointed and aren't very likely to appoint. And the hypocrisy of you making lots of silly threats if Davies was appointed against this idea that we should blindly support the incumbent manager for two seasons regardless of performance. We're not "doing ok" (equal to last year). We weren't in a relegation battle this time last year we were solid mid table. Preston weren't a long ball team, so you are just stone cold wrong about that. I was at the Derby play off semi too, and it was a bloody entertaining game which both teams contributed too, and Derby won the tie. This small fact of Derby winning seems to stick in the craw of too many Saints fans who drone on about Derby's style to secure some kind of pointless moral victory. Sorry, Derby had Matty Oakley, Giles Barnes and Gary Teale and others - that is not a long ball team. Direct, successful, promoted. This notion they were some pseudo-Wimbledon is just garbage parrotted out by a hand ful of sore loser saints fans who got all offended because Davies celebrated on the pitch when Derby beat us at SMS, like that was a "rude" thing to do. Fair play to him. You can call Davies football (three play off finishes in a row, two finals, one finall victory) "drivel". I call poncing the ball about to zero effect in our own half for hours on end "drivel". I call one home win all season "drivel". I call a striker with less than five league goals to his name as a nailed on starter week in, week out "drivel". I call EIGHT goals in ELEVEN home games "drivel". I call the worst home record in the league and one of the worst GDs in the league "drivel". I call less than a goal a game and less than a point a game all season "drivel". I call a win record showing nothing more than us winning games via the law of averages rather than any run of form "drivel". And, through a quirk of fate I have seen our two best performances this season, so I have seen us at our "best". Seriously, get over yourself, no need for the abuse. The fact is we're not very good and the sooner you realise that our sparkling, glorious entertaining football has frankly been unproductive pitiful rubbish almost all season the better. Davies Davies Davies IN IN IN!

Amen to that. I think that pretty much answers the question from the Original Poster. To suggest Lowe hasn't done anything wrong in this tenure is utter madness. On his return I went from defending him as probably a good person to be at the helm to manage us through our post-parachute phase to utterly despising the man. Lowe had a chance to be a lot less hated than he is now during the summer: Give Pearson the job, give him a budget (if it was a tiny one, fine) and let him get on with it. And then belt up. But as soon as he decided now was the time to create his silly little Dutch Camelot and it all came to the fore that "Rupert Lowe knows more about how a football club should be run than anyone else in British football history" then that was it for me. Lowe is ruining this football club. Lowe is a smarmy arrogant c*** and has to be removed. I'd like to see some fan power shift him immediately. Defeat tomorrow, and people with a bit of time on their hands might start a-rising.

If you think appointing a manager who in his three full seasons at this level has delivered three play off finishes, two play off final appearances and one play off final victory would be "the worst decision ever taken in the history of this football club" you're off your tiny head. You must have missed the appointments of Gray, Wigley and Dodd and Gorman the decision of Lowe to come back, the decision to let Pearson go, the decision to appoint a couple of Dutch non entities and lest we forget the decision to give the job of creating life-size bronze statue of our club figurehead to a woodcarver who specialises in small scale animal commisions and had never create a life size bronze of anything. Billy Davies might not be everyone's cup of tea, but his appointment would be understandable, justified and to many, bloody welcome. Being that I very much doubt you were campaigning for the appointment of JP before he was appointed (I seriously doubt you had ever heard of him) but now are happy to commit to giving him two seasons just on the strength of he is the incumbent (it can't be on results or performances), I am assuming you would give the same support to Billy were he to get the job? So if you are demanding of us blind support of whoever the manager is, you'd have to offer blind support to Billy, wouldn't you? So what are you moaning about?

Who cares if he doesn't show up. I very much doubt that if he did show up it would change the minds of the whiners, whingers and moaners like you two. I think I'd be waiting a bloody long time for a "thanks for coming to see us" post from the likes of you. I don't blame him for bailing out, and leaving the grizzling fishwives to carp on and on about how the club has been killed and all that rot. If you want Lowe and Wilde out, do something about it yourself. And make no mistake, I don't like Wilde and I certainly don't like Lowe and I have been 100% against the appointment of JP and co from day one. I want Lowe gone tomorrow, but know the only thing that will get them gone is someone with the cash to buy the lot of them out, or a probably managed mass fan campaign to get them out. The first is not on the horizon and the people who might organise the second seem to content to whine on here and do nothing these days, so that aint happening either. (Alpine, I know you have said before you have no desire to "do" anything which actually is fair play and I support it - neither do I) So enough grizzle, and maybe a bit of action, chaps.

Hang on, are you saying our manager changes the team simply because he is feeling the pressure from the fans? How does "the fans calling for the managers head" mean we can't have a settled team? We've chopped and changed the team non stop all season to the point of complete ineffectual confusion, but that is entirely the fault of the manager we have, a manager utterly incapable of achieving anything at this level. And anyway, there has been surprisingly little "calling for the managers head", considering the circumstances. Calling for the fu ck ing chairman's head on a silver platter, maybe. We are patently not "on the right track".

Fixed it for you.

But the fact that the pessismism has come a few games after Reading is significant. Remember the "learn from" bad results and "build on" good results theory. Well we've had two stand out good results - Derby away and Reading away and we've managed to build on neither of them and now we sit above the trapdoor with the worst form of our immediate competitors. So yes, after the Reading game, confidence was sky high, and after the Reading game everyone would have slaughted anyone who said we wouldn't have "pushed on" from there. But we haven't. This suggests nothing except the good performances are the exception rather than the rule. Or, if you like, the freaky fluke results that all clubs in this division benefit from. The fact that we've failed to build on either suggest the defeats and the aimless draws are the norm and the great wins are not the norm. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Give Saints enough games and we'll win the odd one. But fundementally we're not good enough. And, anyway, who was dancing the streets after a home goalless draw with Plymouth?

I wonder if you could name one player that was sold on against his wishes? (And I mean a player we would have genuinely missed at the point of selling, not bloody Brian Howard or Scott McDonald or Neil Moss or whoever)

Completely agree, and it is quotes like that really show that we can't go on with this experiment any longer. There are too many at the club from the chairman down that are seeing our tippy-tappy pretty pointless stuff as "brilliant football" and the belief is that this "brilliant football" will eventually see us safe in the division. But the "pretty football" is the fundemental problem. The opposition have worked us out, and we will never stay up by tip tapping it about in our own half while the opposition sits and waits to pick us off. And we certainly won't stay up with the "well, we absolutely slaughtered them after we were two/three/four nil down" story as happened at home to Wolves, and away to Palace and Burnley. Sorry, I think the people buying into this revolution are dwindling by the day and what is needed is a fundemental kick up the arse, not a belief that the boys will come good. It won't because the very heart of the experiment is the problem. Not "experience", not "luck", not "sticking with it", not "confidence", not "give it time". T This experiment of continental tip-tap with kids is not going to work in this division. You ask a plumber to fix a broken boiler with a banana, it doesn't matter how much "time" you give him, or how "confident" he is. He aint going to fix it.

This is my last contribution on this thread, but just to confirm, your original post was 100% just about your feelings about "for you" and utterly, definitely not about our uniqueness in the wider football world. No siree. Here's your original post again: Excuse me while I **** myself laughing. So who are these "everybody" and "everyone" people then? I responded to your suggestion that we were unique in the eyes of these "everyone" and "everybody" types by saying actually we are no more unique than any other bloody clubs. And I am right, and you are a muppet.

Oh, how I laughed. Seriously don't try and turn my gags about you into a weak gag at me. Pretty pathetic. And I have lots of good memories, and one of the memories I have is about our fantastic cup run and league performance five or so years ago - the memories you try to rubbish ("we never played anyone good, the cup final was all a fluke" etc etc whinge whine whinge) all the time on this forum! And secondly, I know you're not great for the English language, but the concept of "unique for me" is a bit of a non starter, especially when you pair it with our subsequent drop in performance, as in this quote here: So you are connecting our drop in performance with the notion that Southampton FC are not no longer unique per se but no longer unique in the eyes of John Smith? You can't have it both ways. Either this is a personal feeling that as a club we aren't unique anymore (which is a perfectly reasonable feeling) or that as a club we have become less unique and suffered as a club as a result (which is an opinion which I am allowed to challenge). A club can stop being "unique" (say, if Fulham moved out of the cottage). But a club can't fail because one fan thinks they are not unique any more, which is your bonkers argument. That was the point I was challenging you on (we weren't that unique in the first place) and there was the opportunity to debate that. Unfortunately you are too childish for that, resorted to a cheap get out (I meant to me to me to me, but of course not thinking it through) and then dished out a load of abuse. And finally, well done on possibly the most **** weak selective quoting I think I have ever seen. My original sentance refered to a particular timescale of our "glory years" at the Dell. But that is barely worth a mention.

I doubt very much the couple of posters who agree with me would describe themselves as "my lapdogs" as you have, esp Le God who I have never met but we have had some entertaining debates with on here in our time. I have absolutely no recollection of what our last debate was about, although I seriously doubt I was wrong. And for your info I am plenty old/young enough to remember the Dell and have seen more football there than any other ground, including SMS as I moved away from Southampton before SMS even opened. And as for "trolling you" and "following you around", maybe you should tell the readers of this forum the last time I responded to anything you posted, because I'd be amazed if it was as recent as six weeks ago. I can't remember a thing about it - apologies if you are still waking up at midnight with your sheets wet through getting in a tizz over it. I think you are a seriously damaged individual, and I'd strongly advise you avoid my contributions in future as you clearly can't cope with reason. Your risposte to my response is "I only said it was unique to me" which is just pointless isn't it. Re-read your original post, which is all about how unique Saints is and how much success the Dell brought us. Seriously, it is. You wrote it. If the uniqueness that you are moaning about losing is just uniqueness to you then what's the problem - if it is all about uniqueness to you, then just make out they are unique again to yourself and job done. Stop boring the rest of us.

Very true, but by the same token - and I say this as someone who saw faults in Pearson and Burley - if you ask some posters you'd swear the Burley era was one long unmitigated disaster and he destroyed the club etc...... If UP is right and we were tenth this time last year then that suggests something I have always said - the slide to relegation only really got going on Burley's departure and the lunatic appointment of Godd and Doorman because "the ship is steady" ("Football Man" Lawrie's words at the time) and then the appointment of Pearson just weeks later to "steady the ship" (again "Football Man" Lawrie's words at the time) were the things that plunged us into a relegation scrap. Burley's failure to do better than mid table nothingness is undoubtedly a faulure, but it was his departure rather than his presence that turned us into a seriously relegation threatened team. Burley was awful on what he was there to do (promote us) but he was good enough for us to finish solid mid table any day. Anyway, the point is we are currently rubbish and the past is the past. This "revolution" is creating a team that flatters to decieve and is more than likely to be relegated come May unless serious changes are made. I had to laugh at a few posters who said we would have won the Palace match "on points" if it was a boxing match! Nil-three, FFS. "Propaganda football" is working on some, no doubt. That is all!

Even if we sell all the players you've decided we're going to sell Lowe won't make any money, because SLH won't make a profit so there will be no dividends anyway. Of course you don't care about that and just want to whine about stuff that hasn't happened and may not happen. Just like you did when you started about six threads over the summer congratulating Pompey on how successfully they have built on "their cup final success" not at all like we did and why didn't we learn lessons from Pompey and do what they do etc etc moan moan moan. All this of course before a ball had been kicked and of course before their manager walked out, replaced by a rookie (sound familiar) and the owner putting the club up for sale amid rumours of a mass clearout of their playing staff and zero prospect of a new ground or training ground. And as is on another thread, we were fourth in our season after our cup final - doing better than Pompey are now. After all your bellyaching about how fantastically well Pompey had built on their cup final success, not like evil Lowe, I am expecting Portsmouth to finish at least sixth in the league to prove you right. Somehow I think they might struggle to scrape the twelfth place we managed, but lets see.... Anyway maybe you might learn from yourself, sunshine - try not to second guess stuff that hasn't happened yet and then whinge like a *****. But I......very.......MUCH..........doubt..................IT................:cool:

I must have missed the glorious days of success the Dell brought us when we narrowly avoided relegation for four of the last five seasons before 1997. Saints at the Dell weren't that unique, plenty of grounds could claim to be "packed in", with crowds "on top of the pitch", WHU being the best example. And we were only "ever as good" as Sunderland and Norwich beforehand anyway - your post is just blinkered fandom. Plenty of clubs the same size as us had success blows our apparent "uniqueness" out of the water - Ipswich and Forest won European trophies FFS, and Derby won the bloody league twice. Norwich finished in the top five in the Prem era and had a better run in Europe than our solitary match post Heysel. And making out Saints are "unique" because fans "get behind our team". Wow. Unheard of. Basically we're big also-ran club, with a par level ranging from the bottom half of the Prem to the top half of the CCC - when we were 4th under Strachan we were at the peak of our level, we're now near the depths of our level (but lower isn't beyond us either, and not unlikely these days). But spare the "we're so unique" faff. We're as "unique" as everyone else.

So what? No-one is going to expect us to win. Remember Arsenal's kids spanked more or less the Wigan first team the other week in the league cup. It won't be humiliating even if we lose five nil. The media will hype up Man U, not kick us. Locally, there might be a bit of **** taking, but hey ho. Quite. This is a little lottery win for us, and as such we can't lose.