CB Fry

Okay. The figures in this link are pretty eye watering and probably over-egged but do go some way to illustrating my point that Spanish football is run on fairyland money so any real comparison with that kind of set up in the UK or specifically with Saints is pretty fanciful. http://www.goal.com/en/news/722/la-liga/2009/01/07/1048072/new-report-reveals-massive-debts-in-la-liga The presidential elections in those clubs seem to me like a bloody circus of over inflated promises followed by disarray and fall out. The bottomless pits and reputations of the big two mean of course they get success but it always seems on a knife edge most of the time. And Germany - everyone knows the old chestnut that you can buy a season ticket for Bayern for what you pay for a bag of chips in Woolston, but again, that aint going to happen here, co-operative fans collective or none. So, great, you can read up about fans collectives all over the world, but you have to start one here. In Southampton, in 2009. You're not starting one just after Atlee swept in to power. When the leading lights and ex members of the Saints trust can't seem to agree on the font for the letter head the chances of anyone getting a mutual society off the ground in Southampton in 2009 is pie in the sky. You can carry on looking at "the trees" of how they do it across the pond, but all I can see is "the wood" of reality of why it can't and won't happen here. So you can accuse me of myth making, but let's say this in response. I will whole heartedly sign up to a fans collective running Southampton FC once you can show me five more clubs from the top two divisions in England running one first.

Might be worth starting a list of players at one time the media (and some of the fanbase) had decided were much, much better than that washed up Beckham primadonna who should never play for England again.... Aaron Lennon, anyone? Shaun Wright Phillips? Kieron Dyer? David Bentley? Must be a few others I'm missing... Beckham is an absolute legend who will only be truly admired in a decade's time when England are lumbered with the arrogant baby bentley tw ats coming through the ranks now.

Can I take that as a compliment, then Um? Funnily enough I think you have hoisted yourself on your own theory a little here. Your 75% rump of fans could, easily, dominate every EGM and every decision. Your 75% could have fans on the board, fans on the touchline, fans in the kitchen, fans under the stairs, fans everywhere. Your 75% could have kept Pearson or appointed any number of eligible managers. But they don't. It's not active ownership, is it? What the original poster is suggesting is the old chestnut of the Barcelona style super-fan-ownership and by default fans running. You get enough umbridge against the anonymous suits "taking our money and not listening" when fans are "only" stumping up their £600 season tickets. If they are ploughing in another grand, two grand to own the thing that level of shoulder chippage and inflated "we're the lifeblood" importance is only going to swell. Sorry, a fan-led mass buy out could only lead to fan leadership. I find it almost impossible to envisage x thousand saints fans all stumping up a grand each to get their club back only to hand the whole lot over to some rent-a-Hone-or-Hoos. And even if they did the disillusionment would kick in within a fortnight. Plus the very fact that some fans would have to lead and run the mass buy up already would create enough egoage to puff up a fleet of balloons to cross the atlantic and those self appointed saviours are hardly likely to decide to stop there and give up their created empire. Sorry Um, got to disagree - fan ownership would lead to fan running and the dogs breakfast* that would ensue. *current dogs breakfast at club does not make this alternative a success by default.

I'd forgotten this quote but it is worth remembering when considering Crouch's level of delusion. He said this at the appointment of Dodd and Gorman that the playoffs were in reach. Meaning he can't really crow about how successful he and Pearson were when all we did was stay up because some other teams failed. If all three of Leicester, Cov and us had won on the last day we were down. I don't doubt we would be doing better under Nige now were he hear, but top six is I think pretty ga-ga.

Five hundred will really be there, with the Echo probably rounding up to a thousand and some people on this forum rounding it up to ten thousand. 500 would be a pretty decent turn out and is a realistic target for the organisers to aim for. Any more is going to be going some.

Would be a total disaster. Exhibit one - the Saints Trust has never really got off the ground and now seems an irrelevence. Exhibit two - the clowns that were responsible for the Ted Bates Statue calamity, the only thing in our history that really did make us a national laughing stock. (I don't remember the Steve Wigley appointment appearing on Have I Got News For You) Run entirely by fans/football people/"us"/etc, for fans. And it was one project, not a multi lateral business. They only had to put one statue up. And those "Saints people" totally co c ked it up. Totally co c ked it up. Why - the utter obsession that if you are "passionate Saints fan" that out ranks any other qualification. That's why we ended up with a wildlife woodcarver who had never in his life done a life size human sculpture or a large scale public space commision and never worked in bronze being handed the biggest human sculpture comission in the city of Southampton since the war. To be made out of bronze. What was his qualification? He was a "passionate Saints fan" and owned a chisel. Brilliant. When can you start? We do not need these people anywhere near the running of the football club. We don't need good old Mick from the Northam social club appointed executive in charge of media relations because he used to run a paper shop and he's had a season ticket for forty years. Fan ownership? No, no, no, no, no.

There isn't £6m being touted about though. There's Crouch saying "I'll put £2m if you two do" which is just a convenient way of saying "I'm not going to put £2m in but I can make a fan-friendly point that makes me look good". He might as well say that to me, because I'm just as likely to put £2m in as Lowe and Wilde, and Crouch damn well knows that. (not about me, Wilde and Lowe). There's plenty of people witholding their twenty quids and not turning up at present, and they have my blessing to do as they please. But one can hardly blame anyone else for not putting in two million pounds.

And its fair to say we don't really know what gates would be were we, say, five places up the table bimbling about not doing anything of note (like Plymouth, say). We may not have got the kind of gate we got for the Forest game if it were more meaningless than it was (and we might not have run the ticket offer for the same reason). If the last game of last season was a meaningless play-out would we have packed them in? Unlikely. Glory and peril increase gates. Middling mediocrity is pretty dull sometimes and I think we'd still find plenty to moan about on this forum. I'm not saying the "Lowe effect" doesn't exist, it clearly does, and being awful and winning one home game is not going to help, but its a bit dangerous to make too many wild predictions about how fantastic it would all be under Crouch with regard to gates and glory. I think we need a bigger change than another deckchair shift.

We have no such choice. Crouch is making grandiose statements (if he did say as described) with the comfort of not needing to do anything. There was no sign of new investment or a spectacular up turn in fortunes during his admittedly brief tenure at the top*. Also, when the time came to make a big decision our "multi millionaire Saints fan" bottled it and appointed Dodd and Gorman to appease the gigantic ego of everyone's favourite FA Cup winning manager who really didn't want a big name coming in and running the team and everything. He got Pearson right, but that was risky and touch and go at the time too (and again, was a McMenemy ego appointment). Let's try not to believe Crouch's own hype too much. These kind of outburst confirms my view that none of them is better than any of them. *don't bother with the "where is the investment Lowe is bringing" stuff, really. Lowe's failures do not make Crouch a success by default. He is full of it too.

Well I am pretty sure of this. This theory that we couldn't quite afford Wotte as manager so we paid him as assistant and then promoted him that you are trying to peddle is nonsense. If Jan wasn't Jan and was, say, Steve Cotteril, or a visibly English "compromise candidate" then your conspiracy might have some legs, but what you are suggesting is conspiracy purely for the sake of conspiracy. If at the start of the season, we couldn't afford Wotte and Jan with Wotte as manager, but Lowe really really wanted Wotte as manager, then why didn't he just employ Wotte as manager with an even cheaper assistant? It's not like the fanbase would have risen up and said "but where is Jan Poortvliet? you can't have Wotte without Poortvliet". They were all complete unknowns. Basically your conspiracy theory doesn't add up at all. It's a "scheme" with absolutely no point to it whatsoever. And don't try and twist things to suggest I think things you want me to think. We're not talking about Pearson here, and I was saying in June that we could afford Pearson, and we could and we still can now. From your post it looks like you at one point swallowed the Pearson lie, I neve did.

You mean like you, then? If we go down we won't be able to move for smug posts from you blaming "the rest of us" for the departure of George Burley and "the rest of us" reaping what we've sowed. (you've never been too fussed by the fact he was offered an easier, cushier, higher prestige job stuff. We drove him out, didn't we, SOG?) Mark my words. You'll enjoy the "being proved right" thing more than anyone, despite being possibly the wrong-est contributor this forum has ever seen.

Amen.

I really don't get what you are so upset about. Jan isn't/wasn't experienced in this division regardless of age, so having Wotte to help had to be a good thing. He was the metaphorical 37 year old running around. He didn't have a bloody clue. And Jan, as a more tracksuit manager, was the logical choice for Head Coach, and Wotte, with his recent history as academy director was the ideal choice for academy director*. Both appointments were retarded, so I don't know why you are getting quite so upset about the intracacies of it. And, you started the thread about Jan being "set up to fail" which is just conspiracy ********. *again, pedants, in the context of stupidly appointing them in the first place.

Cue some pillock saying "I'd rather be relegated than that awful man Davies and his horrible football philosophy of getting to the play offs in every single full season he has managed in this division".

Don't be silly - Wotte and Jan are both nobodies, its not like Wotte is/was head and shoulders above Jan. Wotte's recent history is as an academy director, so appointing him a an academy director is pretty sensible isn't it*? Just stop going on about three years ago. Three years ago Phil Brown was washed up as a football manager. We appointed Jan, now we've got Wotte. Both unqualified, both nobodies, neither would get anywhere near a job at any other club in the English league system. Stop making out Wotte to be some managerial giant. *sensible in the context that the entire Dutch project is lunacy. Well, sorry, you started it. "Jan was set up for a fall from the start". Re-read your first post on the thread. How could he be, as you've cast Wotte as the most over qualified assistant manager in history? Surely that's pretty helpful and hardly setting someone up for a fall. Basically, what I am saying is the things you are grumbling about don't add up. If Wotte was so fantastic, then surely Jan was at a fantastic advantage in terms of help?

Interesting, because when Le Tiss said this yesterday, the response was... What now then, girls? Are we to say that Crouch is "now in Lowe's pocket" or that "Lowe has got to him". Has he been "threatened" too? Maybe Crouch is one big Lowe luvvie after all? Confusing this conspiracy stuff, aint it?

"Absolutely clueless" and "totally outplayed" so says Five Live at half time. Even though it was that bloody awful woman Jackie Oatley, I think she has a point from what I could hear of the first half on SaintsTV.

It was a suicidal decision when it was made and I said so at the time. The chances of the experiment paying off were very slim and it is safe to say it is failing now. Dutch inexperienced coach with decent blend of yth/exp squad may have worked. Team of kids drilled and organised to death by an experienced English league specialist may have worked. Team of kids + Dutch inexperienced coach? No chance. It's a failure.

Well, it does add up. Three years ago was three years ago. Jan got the job, now Wotte has got the job. What doesn't add up is people making out Lowe gave Jan the job with every intention of sacking him a few months down the line so he could give Wotte the job, "the man he wanted all along". It's an incredibly attractive conspiracy theory until you realise it is utter, utter pointless nonsense.

So why would Wotte take the job as assistant to someone not as good as him on less money than his market value? This is just conspiracy nonsense using the oldest conspiracy theory trick in the book - wait for stuff to happen then fit the conspiracy around it going backwards. Jan got the job to coach the first team, Wotte came in to oversee and assist, Jan was failing and had to go before someone from the Northam knocked him out, now Wotte has the job. It's not a conspiracy. It's one rubbish manager being replaced, for the sake of continuity with another rubbish manager. Oh well.

If he keeps us up from here, I think we will have had a pretty successful second half of the season. I can't see how he could be sacked were he to keep us up - it's all about taking your chances and if he takes that chance he deserves a real go. People saying he should be sacked even if he does keep us up really need to have a bit of a think as I am sure they were spitting blood, as I was, over Pearson's removal. All that said, I don't think he will keep us up and I expect us to enter mid March with Steve Cotterill or Ian Holloway or a similar knee jerk English experienced head in charge. (Steve Cotterill would be fine by me).

Err - there is barely any difference in "tone" content or anything from those sets of quotes. How the fu c k is MLT blandly saying "get behind the team" evidence that he has been "got at" by the evil Lowe machine. Both sets of quotes are just rent-a-quote punditry and both represent what MLT thinks. Because frankly, what he thinks is what most normal people think. We don't want Wotte, but we're stuck with him now. Ditto Lowe. Nevertheless, not being relegated would be quite nice. What do you think MLT is going to say? "let's all burn down the stadium on Saturday" "I wish I could rip Lowe's throat out and sh it down his throat, and then make his wife eat my excrement from her dead husband's neck with a spoon made from Wotte's collarbone" Some of you people are just fu c king deluded.

We will walk these games.

I find it amazing that all the giant European football clubs that the greatest Swedish players play for (you know, the players that England would normally be up against in an international game) have all agreed to release their Swedish superstars to play an utterly meaningless friendly in a football backwater in a different time zone and not during an international fixtures weekend. Oh. They didn't. When this yank actually does score a single goal against Sweden (real Sweden) let us know then.

Although I generally get what you're saying I think it worth mentioning that Jan's resignation was announced at 8:30ish on Friday night which is pretty close on the deadline for lots of Saturday papers which go to print earlier than the weekday editions. And it was FA Cup weekend so plenty of preview filler everywhere, and if they had space for late news, they had the Forest game to cover. It was, if you wanted to keep Saints out of the papers, an excellently timed release of information. A great way to "bury bad news". Almost like they planned it.... It would have got more coverage had it been announced 11am on Wednesday, say. But, in line with your general point, not much more.