Frank's cousin

Which is why it becomes so impossible to support anyone - its such a paradox really -= because they all want teh same thing - admitedly perhaps for different reasons - a successful SFC - sopome believe LOwe only to 'line his pockets', but like many if we make teh champions league he can fill his boots as far as I'm concerned, MC, Crouch as fans want that success to so why the feck dont the recognise what they have in common for a chnage rather than what is pulling them apart... but being honest, us fans are no different really are we?

Brown noser ;-) Someone else who seems to be taaking this way too seriously...jeez....

I bow to your expertize seeing as you are a Lady like and can judge the male barnet on a more appropriate scale...but between Wilde Crouch and Lowe?

'Behave yourself you fool' ..... I suspect when you calm down, you might see that you are making yourself look rather foolish with this OTT reaction. Talk about Paranoia?

'insect CRouch' who said that? Come on own up ;-)

Boom Boom!

Oh for f*cks sake get a grip and lighten up - I suggest you re-read your first line because a suggest 'due respect' and then the rest of the diatribe suggest hypocacy... This was intended as you surely are intelligent enough to recognise as a light hearted response based on our recent verbal jousting - hens ethe ;-) - but obviously if you take this and yourself so very seriously... due respect forbids me from mentioning what I now have you down as,...

no not quite... a mistake in this case was in employing somone who was so directly involved in previous failure, not in appointing the 'risky' candidate - there will always be a high degree of risk involved at the pricepoint we can currently afford.

Duncan, I think Jonah makes a fair point above. This could be considered an accustaion of somesort and unless its backed up or the details supplied, if its left hanging like this is particularly cynical. Either its in the domain or not, leaving its delicously ambiguous is a below the belt really.

Wilde has the best haircut?

Agreed , but i think that was more to do with the fact that Peason was a fesh face - untainted by the previous incumbants - which is why I struggle to see LOwes appointment of wotte as anything other than bizzare...

I believe all 3 major parties have something to offer if combined....arhrr avoiding the sarcasm bit and pointscoring is doing my head in though....;-)

Clever response but then the best PR is equally subtle and as a gret man once said, 'just because your paronoid.....' ;-)

Same could be said about Wotte and the dutch U21s? Look, I m not saying Pearson is not good and yup would b more than happy to see him here now, but its a bit rich crediting Crouch with some kind of foresight when the reality is it was also a gamble.... afterall Lawrie Mac was involved a number 2 with England and that was frankly a disaster, Wigley was with the U21s etc... bothh Gray and Wigley were very highly thought of ion coaching circles......Just got be consistent in the judgements thats all... This is not syaing JP and Wotte are not feck ups, just that Pearson was equally a risk when appointed...

In your not so humble opinion naturally

Come on uP , we are not that naive, I suspect its a subtle (or not so subtle) intended dig at the current Lowe policy of JUST relying on the academy .... eg 'The academy is not as good as Lowe likes to believe'?

Would agree if Pearson at the time could be considered the appointment that was a firm and decisve statemnet for survival - he was an unknown quantity, untried with no first team experience at the time... The fact is it woprked out....just and so we can rightly say it was a good choice, but at the time it was no less a gamble than gray, wigley or even redknapp? It TURNED out to be a good appointmnet but to assume Crouch had some sort of superior forsight in this is just PR ******.

Come ...wheres your spirit, this site satisfies our daily lust for morose banter! :-)

UP, I know what you are getting at, but I dont believe the intention would be to use JUST academy players if we could afford others - The reason why we have them now is because the board rightly or wrongly believe that we can not afford the more experienced contracts -If still in the prem and all things being equal we would have had the blend - if you add the best of the kids to players we had in 2003 that are still playing we would more likely have... Davis Baird Crainie Higgy Bridge Walcott Delap Svensson/Surman Bale Beattie McDonald Still light in defence and centre midfield - after the end of Claus and Svennsons carrers but we would surely have bought 2 or 3 prem quality replacements if the academy was not bringing these through on time... As you have said the best approach would be a blend, and thats what we used to have, albeit some mangers resisting the inclusion of the kids, but as sated the current use of kids is considered a necessity by the board.

You make a very valid point, and I have always argued that it was this lack of funding that restricted what we could do...especially with constant rather naive 'back the manager' calls after the cup final... we spent all we had, but it would not have been enough to purchase Saha and Malbranque and break the wage ceiling... The other issue with raising capital is the share dilution, LOwe himself was only a 6% shareholder and it would need the backing of all shareholders if say someone came in with a 20mil or so - the minimum really, yet out market cap at the time was only about £8mil (27p a share) so it would in effect have to have been a takeover and there were simply not those types about at that time...

Of course you can view these things in this way... but the problem with LOwe was that he never built a relationship other than a negative one with the fans - which means he was never seen as anything positive... as they say, 'we are far more forgiving of the beutiful people' - Swap beautiful with 'in touch' and you get the picture.

UP... Do we need a spirit of unity and togetherness to have success though? I think we need leadership, sound financial management and money! (fotballing nous naturally) - because Although its accepted that Lowe will forever divide us, success is what unites more than anything. It whether you believe the current or other candidates in the ring can deliver any success on teh pitch whenever that may be that is surely more important than the unifying powers of the man in charge or lack of them... alll that will do is speed up the return of the punters, who will take longer to come back if relying purely on the on teh pitch performances improving.

NO such thing as luck - just our perception which is biassed. Eg when we win, we tend to forget about the missed chanced, poor ref decions missed penalties or hitting the post, unless its to indicate how LUVKY the opositio wre for it not to be more, but our 'fortune' is considered more to be about our supierior skill. When yyou lose regularly, we clutch at whatever [positive straws we can... eg the fact we focus on the nmissed chances, dodgy decions and woodwork, conveniently forgetting the dodgy decisions that went for us, the missed chances of the opposition etc ... and put this down to bad luck...

Think that is true - its also a squed perception. When we win or do well you forget those occasions when we missed pens, hit posts or had dodgy decisions - when you lose regularly, we tend to clutch at straws to draw some positives if possible so inevitably you focus on and remember those things that went against us, not those that went for us which we interpret as luck...

Personal favourite is smoked streaky with Mayo and ketchup on a toasted ciabatta roll - maybe that explains why I saw positives in the Dutch experiement at the start? A kind of warped perverse mind set? who knows ;-)