Ken Tone

Presumably Forest etc are 'monitoring' because they might yet want to pull the same trick! Even if this cunning plan does work, you still have to wonder why we (sorry ..they) didn't go into administration a week ago to cover all possible outcomes. Why risk it? K.

If the pain is no worse than that I for one would agree with you. Relegation is not such a big deal in the long run,and the points deduction would not be so big as to necessarily send us into another relegation. But the danger is that we also end up with no players worth mentioning , no training ground , no academy, and at the very worst extreme no home ground and even no club ..though I can't really see a club as big as saints not finding some sort of buyer somewhere somehow. Michael Knighton anyone?!!!! ;-) K.

Hear hear. K.

If the club had tried to sell early season tickets as they normally do at this time of year, even though the income would no doubt have been much lower than in previous years, surely just that process alone would have brought in enough cash to keep the overdraft down? Pretty much everything that has happened this season has been weird. As someone who has frequently warned of the unpleasantness of administration I am worried today, but even I am not so gloomy as to predict the end of Saints' existence yet. There is a faint chance we'll come out of this relatively ok and a *good* chance we'll come out of it surviving but badly depleted after a fire sale of assets. K.

Am not an insolvency practioner, but we've been through this before. In short the administrator's first priority is to see that the club's creditors get as much of their money back as possible. He or she runs the club for the time being as cheaply as possible, with that in mind, whilst looking for a buyer.... any buyer. Second priority is to keep the club running as a long term entity, but really only as a way of ensuring the creditors (which may include unpaid employees) get paid. Sentiment, history, tradition, all count for nothing. IMO administrator would sell off training ground, and even stadium if there is a buyer (admittedly unlikely), cancel as many players contracts as possible, selling off any that will raise a fee. Run with smallest squad possible....quality irrelevant. Results irrelevant. Stop any non-essential expenditure such as reserve/youth team/academy. The possibility of Lowe buying back the club is hard to quantify. How much money has he elsewhere? Would he want to? I don't know. No one on here is likely to be sufficiently ITK to answer those questions I'd have thought. All we can say is that it is a finite possibility. The administrator will take whatever offer seems best for the creditors .. not best for the long term future, let alone the fans. If no buyer is found in a reasonable time and debts remain with no prospect of improvement, he would eventually close the club down and sell off all assets. End of Saints. K.

Well you may be right. Who knows? I empathise with the 'falling out of love with football as a whole' feeling. I've been a regular attender at matches for some 38 years (christ! ..only just worked that out!) and am now increasingly depressed about the way money drives eveything in football, the boring dominance of a few big clubs etc. I wouldn't even look at the premiership results if it weren't for hoping portsmouth might be relegated ;-) I turn over from sky sports when yet another man u game comes on, couldn't give a damn about european football, hardly care about England games any more, etc. But nonetheless I know myself well enough to recognise that this feeling is not unlike the drinker with a morning hangover saying 'never again'. If (no *when* ..let's have a bit of optinmism) Saints start doing well again, I'll be just as hooked as ever before. And btw I'll be renewing my season ticket next year regardless of which division we're in --which is why football gets away with being run as badly as it is. We aren't 'customers' who will go to a competitor if we are unhappy. I'm not suddenly going to start watching rugby instead! K.

This is based on the premise that administration is inevitable eventually anyway. If we aren't quite that skint the argument falls apart. I don't know how many times those of us who know a little about business have to explain to explain that administration is a very unpleasant process and not something to wish for, however much you loathe lowe and wilde. And btw I don't agree that fan will desert the club next season in droves. We seem to be down to a pretty loyal hard core of 16/17k home fans. I reckon the numbers would be similar next season if we stay up -- better if we stay up and do well. And if we go into L1 numbers will fall a little but not much further ..and will recover dramatically if we have a good run even in a lower division. K.

Putting aside all the pro and anti -lowe arguments over how our situation was managed, in general a team that has come up and is well-supported will be better off than one in decline like us, because they will be paying mostly lower division wages, rather than carrying overpaid dead wood who've been relegated from a higher paid division. And even if they are not better off on a day-to day basis they are likely to be carrying less debt from previous duff transfers etc, since by definiton they have been successful recently or they would not have been promoted. My personal opinion of Blackstock is he is an ok striker at this level but nothing special, so he won't take QPR up to the premiership, but I'm still surprised at them lending him out now when he is a regular for them, and they don't seem ot have bought a flash replacement. K.

Blackpool's manager said after our game that they'd wanted a point from us, and that was what they achieved. He apparently thinks they need 2 more points to be safe. That would give them 49 points. Meanwhile we of course have 40 points with 7 games to go. Last 7 games: 3 wins, 1 defeat, 3 draws. Repeat that and we'd be easily safe IMO, and with 52 points, well above Blackpool's safety target. Just a pity it doesn't read 1 defeat, 3 draws then 3 wins, so we were on the up, but even so all is not yet lost. K.

Youth team?! He was in the first team for a while when we were in the premiership ...and looked really promising too. Unfortunately, since then he's looked rubbish! We seem to have a bit of a track record of spoiling good keepers. Paul Smith also looked good when he first came, and we completely detroyed his confidence. In fact Davis is the only one in recent years that comes to mind that has bounced back to good form after a 'down' period with us. K.

Sorry. Hadn't seen. Mods please lock. K.

So who will we play at right back? http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=11510 I know a lot of posters on here slate him and will presumably therefore be pleased he's out for 2 games, but actually he's grown into the RB role and more significantly who else is there? K.

No way am I confident about predicting the score. 2-1? But has anyone any idea what the crowd will be? Will our recent run bring back some of the fair weather fans? (Not meant as a dig at the anti-lowe stay away-ers) Any inside info from the ticket office? K.

From the very clear web site http://www.footballgroundguide.com/birmingham_city/ Record & Average Attendance Record Attendance: 66,844 v Everton FA Cup 5th Round, February 11th, 1939. Modern All Seated Attendance Record: 29,588 v Arsenal Premier League, November 22nd, 2003. Average Attendance: 2007-2008: 26,181 (Premier League) 2006-2007: 22,274 (Championship) 2005-2006: 27,392 (Premier League) So actually this 16k was well down on what they might have expected in a promotion season. K.

Yeh, but Benali had a fantastic scoring record as a youngster too! At the risk of being smug, I did post in Poortvliet's time that I'd rather see Euell as the hitman strker and McGoldrick playing behind him. However Wotte has gone one better and put both Euell and Saga in front of him! I've always thought the criticism of his work-rate unfair. He tries hard, but simply isn't suited to the sole front man role. K.

Not sure, but think his Abbots Worthy house is still for sale. K.

Quite. So technically the pedantic one who waited until the players had run like hell, risked injury in a desperate sliding tackle by the defender etc, and then finally blew up as the ball was touched, was right. But it's a damn silly rule. Meanwhile on the tv that morning before leaving for our game I watched part of the everton match, where their goal was allowed even though a player ran forward in an offside postion in the 6 yard box as the scorer headed in. He didn't touch the ball and didnt actually get in a defender's way, but if he wasn't distracting the defence and gaining an advantage then I'm a Dutchman (but not necessarily a very good coach ;-) ) It's no wonder non-fans dont understand the offside rule. I've been watching live games for nearly 40 years and I can't bloody understand it now either. K.

The way I look at it, we are on a winning run of 1 game. Next stop, promotion. ;-) K.

Who are these 'influential posters'? When I first started visiting the old forum it was to hear transfer gossip. Most of it was rubbish but it was at least entertaining. This forum now seems to be obsessed with pro- and anti- Lowe arguments, and now the takeover threads have finally petered out, the only gossip is about imminent disaster. "Influential posters" have told us that Surman and Lallana were in effect already sold in November,then that they would still go in January, then that they will go on loan soon. "Influential posters" have told us that the club is going into administration at the end of whichever week we're in on several occasions. I have very little idea what is going on at the club. We might go into administration today for all I know -- or never. What I do know is that no one with any influence or knowledge, and even half a brain, wouldn't be blabbing about it on here. K.

This is probably getting boring for everyone else Stu, but see particulally Brighton who *did* have a points deduction, The all time league table reference above showed Brighton having a 2 points deduction for crowd misbehaviour. viz 11= Brighton had two points deducted during the 1996-97 season for crowd pitch invasion and in addition, a random selection of other penalties for you:- Turkey must play all their Euro 2008 home qualifying ties behind closed doors, and in a neutral country, after Fifa handed out the most severe punishments ever to a European country. La Repubblica - Italy | Monday, February 12, 2007 Football matches behind closed doors in Italy "One strange Sunday", is how the journalist and writer Emanuela Audisio sums up Sunday, February 11th, when football matches took place without spectators in all of the country's stadiums. Club sanction European football's governing body say they are awaiting the match referee's report before deciding whether to hand Celtic another fine over the incident. Uefa had previously warned the Glasgow club about the behaviour of their supporters, after a fan confronted AC Milan's goalkeeper, Dida, during a Champions League tie last season. As a result of that, Celtic were ordered to pay a fine of £25,000, half of which was suspended for two years. Airdrie face fine for fan invasion - TelegraphAIRDRIE will be hit by a massive fine after a pitch invasion by their fans at Somerset Park caused Saturday's game against Ayr United to be abandoned. Fulham launch pitch invasion probe | Premier League | Give Me FootballYou are here: Home > Premier League > Fulham launch pitch invasion probe ... are examining the scenes with Fulham likely to be punished with a large fine. ... Cup success marred by FA Barnsley's FA Cup celebrations could be marred by the Football Association's decision to investigate the pitch invasion either side of the final whistle in The Reds historic 1-0 victory over Chelsea. Fans rushed on the pitch before the final whistle after thinking referee Steve Bennett had blown for full time when in fact he had blown for an offside against captain Brian Howard. Then seconds later when he did blow for full time joyous fans ran onto the pitch to celebrate with their heroes. The party pooping FA are likely to investigate though and could fine Barnsley for "poor stewarding" They are waiting Bennett's report before taking any action Sorry to be so slow with these. Had some work to do ;-) K.

See http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/uefa-charges-celtic-over-fans-pitch-invasion-394358.html when a *single* fan ran on. http://www.free-football.tv/news/Leeds-pitch-invasion.html http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=745340.html http://www.geocities.com/clasglenning/Europeiska_fotbollstabeller/ENG4.htm which show that whilst a points deduction is unusual it does sometimes happen ( I did say *even* a points deduction, and that a big fine and other sanctions are very usual. Playing the next game behind closed doors is a fairly common punishment for FIFA in eurpoean gsames with bad fan behaviour, for example. Finding the exampoles above took me about 2 mins on google. I'm sure there are more. Were none of you around the 60's and 70's? .. before CCTVand the change in the law made crowd trouble so much less common than it is now. K.

Jeered by those that realise that a pitch invasion will bring the FA down on us like a ton of bricks .... a big fine and possibly a points deduction and/or a ground closure. I do sometines wonder just how many of the posters on here are actually adults. K.

he's playing today k.

Lol. Though personally I don't think of the players in that way ;-) K.

Of course Le Tiss didn't cheat and then be proud of it, or become addicted to illegal drugs, but otherwise the comparison is spot on ;-) My more serious point is, what reason do we have to suppose Matt would be any good as a manager? The 'messiah effect' would wear off after a few matches unless we were winning, so he would actually have to be able to manage. He has no experience or track record -- less even than Poortlvliet! Talk about a risk! And why on earth would he want to leave his present cosy commentator position to take such a risk with his reputation? Let's face it he never was exactly consumed with ambition -- always chose the easy life. On the whole, leave heroes alone I say. Don't spoil them. K.