Alain Perrin

Trousers' idea might work at the moment (when gates are low) but has two problems: - it will probably cause confusion as you'd have to have unallocated seating for a flexipass and some seats are already allocated for full season tickets. - for popular games there's a danger everyone would turn up at once resulting in not enough room in the inn. Especially as there would be a rush towards the end of the season (typical rise towards the season finale + people trying to use up their flexipass).

Agreed. There seems to be an obsession here (and to some extent in the media) with us playing one up front. To me that is just spin by old school diehards who don't understand anything other than lump it up to the big man. We don't play one up front, we play 3 upfront when attacking (with two of the middle five joining in). Far more attacking than we were with 442 last season - at least now we have players who get to the by-line. Personally I'd give the style of play 8/10 with results 4/10. As this team matures I expect the results to improve (remains to be seen what happens when the loans go though). So I'd keep JP on and give him some money to strengthen where he needs to (fullbacks being one area). However I'd still be biased towards a youthful side rather than the cloggers we've had sucking wages from the club in previous seasons.

Disagree that it paid for itself. The stadium cost £32m and in the best case in the four years it raised £10m of additional ticket revenue before any running costs are considered. You rightly say though that wages went up massively in that period, doubtless that ate a lot of the extra cash. It's like moving house though, you've got to do it some time - just occasionally redundancy and a credit crunch catch you out.

You can count the seconds before someone turns this thread into the usual boring rant.... I agree Norwich support has held up well, you could argue that Saint's support is more able to elsewhere (Pompey, Reading, even London clubs are all pretty accessible) than Norwich fans. Ironically Saints doing so well for so many years without a bigger ground was a double whammy - it didn't cement the fanbase (those who came in due to SMS and have since left were comparative newcomers) and it saddled us with a debt we struggle to service now. Put simply we didn't have St Mary's for long enough in the Premiership to coin in the big money, but had the costs that came with it.

QPR then. Bigger wages and close to the Leeds mainline.

More worryingly the phrase "it proves you can do it with young boys" makes an appearance. That's what got Gary Glitter into trouble Jan! Seriously though I think IF we can keep patience with this young side the future will be much much brighter than the past. COYR.

You sad obsessed twonk. Concentrate on the game.

Under Lowe, before and now, we have a transfer group at St Mary's that pulls together the interested parties to make a decision. Boringly I think it works at Saints in very much the same way as it does in many clubs. Players are recruited based on one of : 1) An agent / club touting them around. 2) A manager / coach requiring someone in a particular role. 3) Scout / Manager / Chairman seeing them play and recommending them. You wouldn't expect a player to be signed without Lowe / Wilde's involvement because they need to decide if we can afford the price and the wages. Equally the manager has to decide that he wants them and this would involve seeing them play (in the flesh or on video). YOU WOULD NOT EXPECT THE MANAGER TO MEET THE PLAYER BEFORE HIS CLUB AGREES WE CAN SIGN HIM - that's called tapping up. After this though, I would have expected someone in the club to have met the guy and seen whether he was a **** or not and fed that in. I don't think it needs to be JP to do this, especially when it is a short term loan (we can always send him back if there's a personality clash. Reason? "He's a ****"). The only exception I suspect is maybe Pulis which I personally think was a sweetner on the Davis deal. And if it got us more for Davies (once you've netted off wages) then that has got to be a good thing. What I don't get is what is the problem here? We've signed some cracking players recently (Holmes and Schiederlin) so to me it looks like it is working.

To be honest though you've been against him from Day 1, haven't you Um? So really what he says is an irrelevance, because someone will try and twist it so that it reflects badly. Jan is setting targets ("to go out to vin the prizes ya"), instilling confidence ("vot good qualities you have, you'll be big and strong enough") - all good in my opinion. So what if he didn't know about every team at the beginning of the season? Things change - Pompey and Newcastle have different managers now, players are signed, systems are altered. If you're suggesting that he doesn't have teams scouted, watch tapes etc. then I think you are mistaken. For example, replacing Perry with Lancashire against QPR because "they play with two quick men up front" sounds to me like he's being proactive (perhaps not always right, but that's a separate point) So (in my opinion) in terms of what he's said there is nothing there to dispute, yet you've managed to turn it into a negative. Excuse me for suggesting hypocrisy, but isn't that 'spin'?

You've got to respect someone who goes through so much pain and comes out the otherside with still a chance of playing. Great player in his day but feel he needs a Claus like player alongside him (I don't think he works with another combative CB). That said, ironically Svensson and his ever impending recovery played a big part in our relegation season and us failing to sort the CB situation out every season since. I just hope it doesn't cost us this year.

Heard he was quite good in pre-season, but I haven't seen him myself. Any one got any reports?

How is this possible? Many of the odd ball obsessives on here (you know who you are) will happily claim that he is taking training, deciding tactics. Really, if he wanted to be that hands on do you not think he'd be up close and personal with the players? The fact is that there are many on here would criticise Lowe if he performed CPR on a dying child at St Mary's. "There are qualified people who could do that", "He wasn't wearing a high visibility jacket", "A friend told me he slipped in the tongue" or other such ****e. (Look at your recent history - if more than 50% of your posts mention Lowe you need to get out more). Get a life and start supporting the team rather than worrying about the boardroom.

FFS. This has Lowe's fingerprints all over it. The last CB we had from Reading was a useless twonk and why should we have their cast offs. I won't be attending until we buy better players. We're destined for the drop, mark my words. Lowe Out.

The ungrateful ****, surely Lowe could have done something to stop his free will?

The ungrateful ****, surely Lowe could have done something to stop his free will?

There's a useful game you can play on this forum. Pick a poster, click their name and search all posts for this user. What you find is there are a large number of posters with a worrying, paranoid obesession with Rupert Lowe. FFS there was a heated discussion as to why RL was talking to JP on the touchline BEFORE the Coventry match and suggesting this was interfering. My favorites for Lowe obsession has got to be Long Shot, followed by St Marco - you boys have got it bad.

Jesus. Why don't you top yourself then? A point is better than none and sounds like we played reasonably well. WE ARE NOT GOING TO WIN THE LEAGUE. WE'VE GOT YOUNG PLAYERS. STAYING UP WILL BE A RESULT THIS YEAR. The only question is whether you'll get busy living or get busy dying.

I haven't read the article, but to be frank I don't need to. I have absolutely no doubt there is no blame in there, just a plea for support - but I don't let prejudice get in the way of reality.

I don't know. What excuse will you give if the reverse is true?

God you're a miserable bunch. Yes, we've had some shocking performances this year on both sides - some shockingly good and more shockingly bad. You lot seem to have given up after a couple of knocks, that's the kind of spirit that let Paris fall to the Nazis.

No but collectively the attendees do. My assumption is that the group empowered him (RL) to speak to the bankers prior to the meeting, otherwise there would be a similar question minuted to the one you're raising.

I agree, but they're not clubs that spent 23 years suckling from the Premiership honeypot. Player wages, the stadium and everything else started at a high cost base which most (even yo-yo) clubs don't have around their neck. Very, very few clubs have individuals who would sustain losses like we have.

They weren't, they were talking to shareholders with a controlling interest.

Lol - naive.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It is easy to predict failure and too often on here people spend their time saying "oh this is ****, that is ****" etc. without offering alternatives. i.e. Lowe out, then what. Say what you like about Lowe and Wilde and whether they want what's best for them or the club. The fact is that we are in such a dire position that what is good for the club is good for them as well. It suits no one to go down, it suits no one to be in administration. The difference between Lowe and everyone else is he has to make the decisions and be judged by them. If we had kept Pearson and results had been broadly the same, there would be an equal number on here criticising Lowe for not taking decisive action in the summer. The chairman is damned either way. The sooner the fans quit concentrating on boardroom and support whoever is there then the quicker Saints will heal.