Alain Perrin

Was Mike Richards right though - was his suspicions of the 'anyone but Lowe' mutual suck-off well founded?

Excellent, it's my wife's birthday on Sunday so I'll pop along and grab a couple of dozen (no black roses please).

Of course I did - did you not notice the smiley/winky things?

What did the Cloned Sheep say to the other sheep? I am ewe.

Filthy b@stards those Brythonic Celts, they used to do goats as well....

In my opinion you can plaster emoticons where you like, they're are not an excuse for being a pendant The irony in your last point is so thick. You could cut it with the knife you slice the bread with that Pearson is currently the best thing since.

Repeat after me.... This is a football forum, not a semantics forum This is a football forum, not a semantics forum This is a football forum, not a semantics forum You know what NickG meant, anything else is just baiting.

Pity, we could have had Dodd and Gorman earlier - if only they'd been given a proper run at it....

Lied to, and keeping options open are very different things. To be honest if Lowe didn't have a Plan B then I'd be more worried. Interview Pearson and if he blows you away with his passion, ability and experience (and he agrees to work for less money) then great. No harm done. Remember Lowe had Wotte and some bloke I don't remember lined up pre-Burley, and he didn't go with him then. It's called good business.

To be honest though it is yet another example of this forum building a mountain out of a molehill. 1) Lowe knew he was coming in. 2) Lowe knew the finances were up the swanny. 3) Lowe thought that the best way to solve the finance problem was to play youth and ship out the high earners. 4) Lowe didn't think Nigel Pearson was the right man to get the best out of youth. QED - he didn't want Pearson. Finances in terms of manager wages probably had a small amount to do with it, finances in terms of what players the manager would have, even more. Layer onto that the fact that Lowe's vision is/was the Ajax model, then, rightly or wrongly, there was only ever going to be one decision.

I think he'll become a good player, not convinced he is a right back though. Too many of our conceded goals have come from teams targeting his defensive frailty. I'd prefer to see him right mid, getting to the byline - with an Ifil / Cork (natural defender) behind him.

To be honest if we have fans who interpret the nuance of a sentence to fit their own agenda, then he's not far wrong with his "true supporters" claim....

Fair play, looks a good turnout. What will be interesting is the turnout at Cardiff. Following a win, will the motivation of the marginals be there?

What are the "right circumstances" for throwing something that could hurt an opposition fan? I envisaged a scene where an opposition fan was about to machine gun the Yoof. Would I be justified in throwing a tin of beans at him in order to save their lives?

Leslie please don't re-write history. I don't call struggling to survive in the Premiership / First Division, as we did pre-Lowe, "the brink of sustainable success". My opinion is: Lowe Highs: - Stadium - Midtable mediocrity in the Premiership - Cup Final - UEFA (lucky to get / fleeting though it was) Lowe Lows: - Relegation. - Bad PR / Supporter relationships. - Learning from mistakes (Wigley/Gray). - Management Merry-go-round (especially letting go of Pearson, which was (IMHO) an opportunity to improve his bad PR). The last point about Pearson is an important one, but at the end of the day Lowe had to make a decision based on financial imperative (i.e. who get the best out of youth) and he chose JP. I think that decision was also coloured by his single mindedness about the Dutch experiment (an approach considered pre-Burley), so there was only ever one decision he was going to make. I know people will interpret some of what I say as Luvvie-ish, but I prefer to see my view as balanced (and let's face it there are enough loons on both sides!).

Get a room....

The way to save the forum and, ultimately, stop the fan conflict escalating into a knife fight is to have two forums. One for Saints Politics, one for Saints Football. Rigorously moderate it so that posts about the 'wrong' subject get kicked to the other forum. This is absolutely key. That way the people that want to snipe about politics can do it to their hearts content. The people that want to talk about football can do that too. I don't buy the 'you can't have one without the other argument - of course you can. Talking about the manager is fair game on a football forum but, in my mind, the board and politics should be somewhere else. I post far less on this board these days because even a post about who should play leftback degenerates into a diatribe about the reverse takeover or similar.

You can chose between: - Saintsweb forum in outrage at OS article shock. - Saintsweb forum in outrage over OS not communicating with fans. Nothing wrong with the words in my opinion, we just need some wins.

FF, the big difference is that Branfoot was the manager. It makes the cause and effect easier to determine and judgements are easier to come by. I'd also argue that the Internet helps minority (and majority) views be heard in a way that previously didn't happen. FWIW, My support (with a small 's') of Lowe is based on not thinking there are viable alternatives, rather than belief in him as an inpirational leader.

I agree with Jonah that Lowe's PR is better since his return, but the damage is done and not even Max Clifford can make that right. Fishing / Skiing makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things, only the fans that look at the directors box rather than the pitch will have noticed. Far less damaging than pronouncements about Kilingons etc. I wasn't at the AGM but, from what I've read, nobody came out of it looking good. Lowe inflamed an already tense situation by reading out the letter (ill-udged, yes - but despite what has been said on here, I would be astounded were it not genuine). Regardless, it didn't help set a mature atmosphere. Couch / LM et al followed it up with a shouting match / walkout, plus purile questions about boardroom pictures. Personally I was less inclined to support Crouch after what I read about the AGM, than before - prior to that I considered him to be viable (admittedly not my preferred) alternative, if a bit of a loose cannon.

The police can't win though, can they. If it kicked of like the last time in Bristol then they'd be criticised for not policing enough. If you want someone to blame, blame the muppets that caused the trouble last time.

Moyes is an interesting manager. Everton seem to repeatedly have a great (flirting with CL football season) followed by a poor (flirting with relegation) season. Always good for a spreadbet.

What a pile of twonk. Everyone wants the club to do well, they just differ in the ways they think this can be achieved. Crowing about the demise of our great club because it proves you right? Yeah, well done - you're sooo clevva! My opinion is that we are deep in the financial do-do and that any action taken to reduce the wage bill had to be radical. The BIG question is not whether it had to be as radical as it was (i.e. did we have to play youth as much as we did, or was a better blend possible - how much was a desire by Lowe to make his 'experiment' work, how much was financial necessity). Was Lowe trying to solve the financial problem too quickly? It would be interesting to know what the monthly wage bill is now vs. last season. That would be the true measure of what was possible. My guess is because Skacel/Euell are still on the books, not as low as was desired (from a business / balancing the books point of view). Fact is that it is in no-one's interest to be relegated - certainly not Lowe's. My guess is that he would see it as preferable to administration, but the one probably makes the other almost inevitable (it depends on how savage the cost cutting has been / can be).

I suspect penalties may account for your missing goals. Biggest problem is not the NUMBER of shots, but the QUALITY. Too often McGoldrick's end product is a trickling scuff my gran could save (and she's been dead for 28 years)