Fowllyd

Close, but no cigar. I think a psychiatrist is the chap he needs. And yes, I shudder to think about the diagnosis!

Sadly, this is true - Jonathan King just hasn't got the money he used to have. I did see him in Hedge End the other day though (true story) so you never know... Do you have a source for this, or is it gained from personal experience?

Funny that; I recall comments to the effect that Pearson was on £300k, but I also remember them being challenged. What I don't recall is any proof being offered in the face of said challenges. Where exactly did the £300k claims originate if not from anonymous sources? Double-edged weapon, I think you'll find.

Not sure about that. To keep a lead you have to take one first - precious little sign of that happening in recent games!

Good to see you back, FF - hope you keep on posting. And a Happy New Year to you too!

Do you have a reason for thinking that Poortvliet is paid £50k? I'd be very surprised if this were the case. The club made great play about his having paid his year's notice with Helmond out of his own pocket. According to the Echo, this was about £60k. I find it hard to see why anybody would leave a (reasonably) secure job paying £60k for one in which he's totally untried for £10k less; I can see even less reason why that same person would pay in excess of a year's gross salary in his new job purely to be able to accept said job. To me, that doesn't add up.

Do you have a reason for thinking that Poortvliet is paid £50k? I'd be very surprised if this were the case. The club made great play about his having paid his year's notice with Helmond out of his own pocket. According to the Echo, this was about £60k. I find it hard to see why anybody would leave a (reasonably) secure job paying £60k for one in which he's totally untried for £10k less; I can see even less reason why that same person would pay in excess of a year's gross salary in his new job purely to be able to accept said job. To me, that doesn't add up.

If it gets held over the heads of a few supporters it could be seen as doing them a favour!

Keep up the good work - we'll wait for you to get back to us. If it's as good as the theory you propounded a while ago (and there was me thinking that one was the truth!) then it'll be worth the wait.

I hear what you're saying, but they need to be upper-case Ds - like this :D:D I'm all heart, me.

Now I don't want to be argumentative, but I think that this http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=11124 is a better comedy article. Just look at this classy quote: A glut of goals? Now that's comedy!

I fear that the first part of what I've highlighted says that the second part won't happen. Lowe appears to have an unshakeable belief in his own judgement, no matter how much the evidence to the contrary mounts up. If anything, this is a trait which has grown stronger over the years. So no, he won't be changing in a hurry.

Thank you kindly, and merry Christmas to you too. I'm touched by your devotion. I'm pretty sure I wasn't actually born then, but touched I am nonetheless. Nice to find somebody who knows that the word 'farther' exists too!

I prefer the term messiah complex, but I reckon you're spot on. Lowe won't resign because he knows he's right - even if this means that everybody else is wrong.

Look on the bright side - you'll have lots to talk about while you shake him warmly by the throat! And after you finish him off, you'll soon be released on grounds of incontrovertible sanity.

It seems crystal clear to me that Lowe genuinely believes that he is the right man to be running this club, and that his way is the only way. Nothing that he has said or done over the past three years and more has done anything to dissuade me from that point of view. I've used the phrase before, I know, but messiah complex is the only term I can think of that fits the bill. If you accept this, then everything else falls into place. Anything that works is down to Lowe's brilliant and visionary stewardship of the club; anything that fails is the fault of somebody else; the rest of the board, the manager, the players, the supporters... The level of wrath he has often displayed when challenged is another indication. So my vote goes for (a), though clearly (b) applies as a result of (a). Has the chairman of any other football club quoted a journeyman Championship striker in support of his chosen course - and this not in reference to football matters, but in his statement which accompanied the annual accounts? After that, anything else would seem positively sane and balanced.

And that is where your method of argument always disintegrates. Did I say I was accepting the status quo, or the football that's being served up? No, I did not. I merely pointed out that administration is not the panacea you think it to be. It seems to me that your preferred method of debate is to put words into others' mouths, refute the points which they didn't make in the first place, then congratulate yourself on winning the argument. It's exactly what you've done here. There's a term for this form of argument - it's known as building a straw man. Perhaps you'd like to address the points I actually did raise, rather than ones you raised on my behalf?

And there, in bold, is the point where your argument falls apart. You're basing your wish for administration on one big 'if'. And you're ignoring, or at the very best glossing over, the other effects of administration. What happens to the stadium? The training ground (or the part of it we own)? Other assets such as Jackson's Farm? The players, for god's sake? If we go into administration, none of these will belong to us any more (unless I understand it wrongly). To top it all, it's by no means impossible that Lowe and his mates (almost certainly not Wilde though) will emerge as the owners of whatever's left. As the old saying goes, be careful of what you wish for...

They're working on it now - site preparation, or enabling works as they term it. My living room windows look out over it, and I can tell you there's lots being done. Actual building work won't be starting till summer next year, but that's down to the length of time the enabling work will take.

This is of course true. My point, though, was that administration is like a long, dark tunnel - you have no way of knowing what's at the other end. To present it as some sort of panacea, as some on here are doing (I don't mean you) is just wrong. The only certainty would be the points deduction; beyond that, nobody can know, they can only guess.

The problem with administration is that it's a great big unknown. Would it rid us of Lowe? Or would he and his chums pick up the pieces (as Ken Bates has done at Leeds) and carry on, this time in a position of unassailable power? Unless it were absolutely certain that the latter would not and could not happen, I could not possibly welcome the prospect of administration.

His record's beyond dispute, and if says he's pretty damn good. In fact, it suggests he's a good bit better than an awful lot of managers currently working. He does seem to be a pretty irascible character, and maybe that scares a few boards off.

Alan Ball and David Armstrong would make the best pairing I can imagine. I'd also nominate Steve Williams; his partnership with Armstrong in the engine room of the side remains one of the best we've ever seen. He wasn't as great a player as Ball though. Oh, and let's have Nick Holmes in the poll as well - he merits a B team spot at the least I reckon.

Excellent post. Now why the hell won't you part with a fiver?

As far as I remember, Preston had a reputation for playing a passing game under Davies. And I'm pretty sure the same applied at Motherwell. Saying this may well make me a moron or indeed a cretin, but it's a risk I'm prepared to take.