Alain Perrin

Finally some are realising the value of our award winning catering.......

Although I hope not, my gut feeling is the same. A true test for Wotte is picking up the boysh when they've been on a big high and then lose.

I don't doubt you are, we all are. It just seems that all of your posts need to have a caveated dig at Lowe / JP / Nickh etc. 3 wins on the bounce is a good reason for putting politics (of whatever flavour) on the shelf in my opinion.

I've no problem with history informing what we do in the future, that's sensible. It just seems to me that certain posters are so obsessed by the past they almost forget that the present is happening. Unless we are adopting a one manager, one chairman policy, then we're going to see some good appointments and bad appointments under a chairman's tenure. At the moment Wotte seems to be working, so all power to him. JP didn't work, but perhaps the youth-centric approach he had let us save money that is paying for Euell / Saga without driving us to administration? I will still credit him with some of the exciting football I've seen at St Mary's for a long time (some rubbish too mind!)

Not a FACT. We could win the next game 42-0 and lose the rest 1-0 and be relegated. FACT is overused on this forum IMHO.

FFS, just enjoy it.

The answer would seem to be yes...

Did anything happen re. protests pre or post the Cardiff game? I am not trying to make any point, just wondering how much a win or two takes off the desire to huddle round a fire in an oil drum? I looked at the Cardiff Protest thread for an update but, as usual, it became a ***** fight between the usual suspects, with no news that I could see.

It's only a matter of time before this turns into a Rupert vs. Leon debate....

Lowe freezing him out for half a season may stop up going into administration and being relegated, que sera sera. Incidentally my Dad met one of the Charlton coaches on holiday and talked about JE. He said if you "put your arm around him he'll give his all to you". I don't think it was a gay thing....

Lowe had to make a decision and be judged by it - as opposed to having the gift of 20:20 hindsight / hypocrisy that many posters seem to have on here! What came before, influences today. The drastic (no other word for it) cut in the playing staff wages through playing youth, has presumably enabled the club to afford some of the high earners in the later part of the season (that and it is really **** or bust time). I know people like Um Pahars will argue that the player mix could have been different, but the question to me is did the percentage cut need to be as savage as it was? Was Lowe trying to solve the financial problem too quickly? I've said it before, but I think it is worth repeating. There is no point playing Saga all season and staying up by 9 pts, only to be relegated because his wages tip us into a ten point administration reduction. It's a balancing act that Lowe has to deliver on, and IF he gets it right this season then we should give him credit for it.

Which Scheiderlin is this then...... :)

Well that was £563K divided amongst the board that got kicked out. No-one knows what proportion Lowe got, but it was probably a couple of hundred thousand. So about £130K after tax. Or, to put it into perspective, 5 weeks of Rasiak and Stern John. But I suppose if you were made redundant and your employer subsequently got into financial problems, you'd pay back your severance pay?

Which of our boardroom are earning £10K a week? £5K a week? Lowe was on £420K in the Premiership and took a 50% cut on relegation, when he was working full time. He's now working 2 days a week.... which would work out at £84K a year. I don't know what he's on, but I reckon Saga would clear it in a couple of months.

Once Saga got his contract (after his end of season loan heroics), he was a complete waste of space. There was no case to keep him in my opinion. However, he's back and with fire in his belly to prove those that doubted him wrong - that's a good thing.

Money - and if you didn't know that already, you really need to wake up.

Naive position. Lowe has to balance the finances AND the results. I think 2008/2009 is about cutting the debt first, staying in the Championship second. Preferably both. However, there is no point staying up by 6 points because Saga played all season and scored you some more goals; then being relegated because of a 10 pt administration reduction, because Saga's wages tipped you over the edge. It is a balancing act that lots of posters don't seem to consider.

Funny how it was the "Dutch experiment", yet becomes the "JP experiment" when Wotte wins a couple of games.... Two factors in my mind: 1) Mentality - Wotte has the team believing they can win again. Most of the time in the past 3 or 4 years, we'd have conceded late on vs. Cardiff. He's restored a bit of the grit that they gained under Pearson and didn't have under JP. 2) Saga / Euell - experienced heads count for a lot, plus by being left out, they both have something to prove. I suspect, in JP's defence, their unavailability was financially driven. Either Lowe believes that by saving their wages from the first half of the season, we can now afford them, or he realises it is **** or bust time. Either way, we're a better team with them in than out. My opinion is JP was too nice a guy to be a manager. The early signs were good (Derby and both B'ham fixtures), but when the chips were down and you needed to be a bit of bastard, JP didn't rally the troops.

Argggh, he's fishing for a bite, must resist, must resist...... I won't bite, but I will ask a question. What is your solution then?

I see the link, but I struggle with the problem with Pulis junior. He was clearly a makeweight in the Davis deal (ie. here's a million quid for Davies, but we'll give you £1.3m if you take Pulis Jr off our hands, and pay him £100K a year). If it didn't make business sense to take Pulis on, I am sure that Lowe wouldn't do it. For all his faults, he drives a hard transfer bargain.

For once I agree with Alpine, non-attendance shouldn't stop someone having an opinion, whether they live in Shirley or Sydney, it matters not. That said, those that do attend games will have a different perspective to those who didn't. Those that listened on the radio will have the Will Cope view, those that read the report on the internet will have the journalists view, and those that just saw the score on Teletext will have no ****ing clue. People to realise that those views are not of equal value, but they equally valid. There were several games I saw this year where we played well, battled hard and lost - only to look at the message board and see it was the ****ist performance ever! People making concrete pronouncements at 4.45pm, who unless they live at St Mary's clearly weren't at the match! I'm not saying you can't have an opinion, just that it needs to be caveated with the fact it is second hand. Even with only 2 wins at home this season I have seen some great football at St Mary's, crap results, but more good football than bad.

Pervert!

Well thought out contribution

To be honest the Radio station was a great thing for any fan living outside of the Solent reception area. Before the days of internet streaming, getting the radio on Sky was one way for me to keep in touch with games I couldn't make. ... so as a 'faraway' fan I'd never criticise the spend on that.

Agreed, I post much less than I did and, on the whole, I find the arguments repetitive (although sometimes I can't help but be dragged into them). Too much abuse and too little thought - decrying people's opinions as 'stupid' because they happen to be different. I think though it is a lowest common denominator kind of thing, intelligent posts get dragged down into a swirl of "lowe luvvies" and "crouch ****heads". One poster, who I always thought made some good points, even though he/she held different views to me, has recently become far more aggressive and sanctimonious. I can only assume it is because of this - there can't be any reason why someone can become an offensive ****ing ****-sucking ****** with the opinions of **** overnight, can there? That said, there is still fun to be had, that sheep sh@gger's post about "Is this racisist?" made me laugh out loud.