Professor

"Administrators" was a chosen word and I don't exclude anyone from that. To wish anyone responsible for running any aspect of the club to fail, is hardly consistent with being a supporter. You can disagree with how people work and believe they will fail, but if in succeeding they prove you wrong, as a supporter you should be pleased if that happens. If Wotte saves the club from relegation, even those opposing his appointment will surely be pleased. Even many Lowe-haters have often said they would like to be proved wrong, which seems to be a fair enough attitude.

Very true! There is a body of fans who will make a lot of noise as they 'try to do something about it". That's what the same body of fans have been doing for the past 5 or 6 years with their obsessive anti-Lowe attitudes and just what has it achieved? The club was in the same position last year without with Lowe on the board as it is now. The problems for SFC are not solveable by any chairman who has to make the best of what we have. But as I have said before the anti-Lowe stuff does not help, it hinders, and probably makes things worse. That the team have a better record when they are not playing at home in front of a Saints crowd says something for how the players feel about home support, or lack of it. The best thing the Alpines and Robbies and RockandRollers and Gordons.... (and I'm sorry if I've left you off the list) would be to put the anti-Lowe stuff away and concentrate on saying something good about the club, the manager, the players and, Yes, even the administrators. We need all of them to be motivated to DO THEIR BEST.

Saints 2-0. A home win to begin the recovery. But Tom28 mentioned he'd like to see Skacel on the left. I wonder if Rudi will play tonight as Wotte says he picked the side on Sunday - at which point Rudi was potentially on his way out. With Molyneux suspended who was left back in that provisional selection and if it was Surman, who is being dropped from midfield if Rudi does play in defence?

Whether the Pink or the Echo were right about the number of protesters, there were another 16,000 people in the SMS on Saturday who were not on the protest. Even allowing that some of them would also blame either this board, or the last one , or the one before that, for the club's position, that still leaves a lot of Saints fans who want nothing to do with protests and are sick and tired of the blame culture. The players and staff of this club will be able to concentrate better on the job in hand if there are no distractions and there is whole-hearted support in the SMS. Its true that the anti-Lowe stuff is not as overpowering as it was a few years ago, but neither is the support for the team from the crowd. Fans can help the team by more vocal support, but its harder to do that if there is so much negativity about the club amongst the crowd. Good luck to Mark Wotte, and if all people like Channons Sideburns can do is slag him off before he's even lost a match, then the club would be better of if people with that attitude stayed away entirely.

The strongest team is not necessarily the eleven technically best players. First, the team must complement each other so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and, second, the players must be prepared to play to their ability. The second point is crucial and it does not take much lack of enthusiasm by a player for his performance to fall below the level of a marginally inferior competitor for a place in the side. Rudi may be able to play better, but he has to actually do it to be worth his place, so its up to him to make himself pickable and to stop concentrating so much energy on which team other than SFC he might be able to play for. PS. Adding a swear word to a post does not make it more compelling, it just comes across as more ignorant.

A Football club facing possible relegation. Fans are unhappy and some of them go on a street demo against the Chairman. What a news story! In the meantime, what message does it give the new Head Coach and the players? Possibly, why bother to try?

Hypo, the people who complain about managers because they are Dutch are just looking for excuses to complain about any decision taken by Lowe. If Martin O'Neill was appointed the usual suspects would find something to complain about if the appointment was made by Rupert. All managers use their own experience to judge players, just as Burley used to favour players he'd worked with at other clubs, so its to be expected that Wotte would be best placed to judge a Dutch player.

There is no such thing as a 'permanent' appointment in football. I appreciate aintforever is really saying he'd prefer Wotte to have been caretaker whilst the club looked for someone else, but if results continue to leave us in the bottom three, I'd be surprised if Wotte was kept on. He has an opportunity, and if the team start to get better results, who would then expect him to be sacked? But if nothing improves, I wouldn't bank on his future. Saints have rarely kept on a failing manager for long, in fact, very few clubs do, so its not even a matter of Lowe doing things differently to any other chairman. Sometimes manager appointments work and sometimes they don't, its very much a matter of luck. Even Pearson, who some people on here now seem to regard as a genius, took us down the table and we only stayed up because of the results of other teams on the last day of the season. Its luck we need, and we need Wotte to have some.

By all means present an alternative point of view, but it would carry more weight if it did not use abuse and actually had some logic to it. The same manager (or ex-manager, now) can't be adequate on team selection and tactics away and useless at home. There has to have been more to it. The fans may have been behind the team to some extent, but certainly not enough and not as vocally supportive as last season. My point is that one thing under the fan's control is the amount of supportive noise they make in the stadium.

I've been going to home games since 1967 and the level of vocal support, Northam excepted at times, is as bad as I can ever remember The Man U game was an example where their fans in their corner of the Northam didn't have to drown out the other three sides of the ground because our fans were virtually silent, even during the first half hour when we were holding them well and playing some good football. As for the Lowe out stuff, people should understand that Lowe will go at some time, but what matters is what replaces him. Wilde soon discovered that there are no easy answers to running a club with little money and lots of debt. If Lowe were to go now, just who do the Lowe outers think would run the club? But if its not poor home support that has made the same players and same tactics fail at home when they often succeed away, what else is it? The side have all the other advantages, of knowing the pitch, no travel hangovers, etc. In my football career, I was often aware that I tried harder at home to impress the home supporters, and sometimes just a small amount of extra motivation is enough to make a difference.

What are the factors that enable the team to win away but not at home, to get 17 points away but only 8 points at home. The most obvious difference is that home games are played in front of a home crowd that should be supportive but is not. The negative attitudes shown by some people on this forum are indicative of the same attitudes taken by too many fans into the SMS. Until the Saints fans stop their obsession with Rupert Lowe and get behind the team, without negative and obscene chants, its likely that home performances will continue to be poor. If the negative fans want to see things improve, they need to take a reality check and face up to what they are doing to the team at home. As for those who just want Lowe to go at any price - they are going the right way about it - because in due course he will just get fed up with it - but the price will be a bankrupt club and even lower league football. The way to save this club is for fans to support it.

Lets get the history right - Burley was a perfectly good appointment, seen as a coup by many, but Wilde undermined the situation when he began his call for an EGM at the beginning of the close season so that Burley was not able to do any team building until August. After that Wilde and his successors failed to manage Burley. With a strong chairman, Burley would have done better. Even so, he was still rated high enough for the SFA to take him.

Interesting assessment. So despite being a qualified coach and a former World Cup international footballer JP is blind to what happens on a football pitch. Now we know.

Another reason to ignore anything you hear on Sky! I listened to Solent for the 1st Half and even negative Dave Merrington had to admit Saints were doing OK. 2nd Half on Radio Hampshire - very positive, and predicting the win. David Armstrong always very sensible.

Ditto Jackie. You obviously go to Flanders, but what you say is equally true of the Dutch in The Netherlands right down to Limberg. Not sure which part Saeijs is from but I'd be very surprised if he did not grow up speaking English alongside his native language.

More paranoia - some people just have to look for something negative to say about the club, the staff or the players. Hard to understand why the motive of following Saints if it causes so much misery!!

As always, too many comments based on a total lack of knowledge, facts and understanding and too many people displaying nothing more than blind predudice. Lowe is an experienced football chairmen, one of the most experienced in the Championship. This club has been a major part of his life for over ten years. He has also continued to retain his interest in the club in the face of considerable abuse and unpleasantness. It is surprising that he does carry on, but if he walked away, whilst there is no one in a position to replace him, the club would be worse off, not better.

Meanwhile, in January 2011 global warming has raised the sea level so that St Mary's Stadium has had to abandoned. Saints are ground sharing at Fareham with Portsmouth FC, Fratton Park having been sold as a development site when Pompy went into administration. With the recession entering its 3rd year and unemployment now over 10m, gates at football matches have fallen everywhere. Crime is rising, civil unrest is growing.... Sad, but true.

A positive addition to the squad cannot be anything other than good news. The only people who present it as otherwise have their own anti-club agendas to worry about.

Where does 'our' come into this? Did the coach tell Patterson to make reckless challenges at every opportunity, or was it just a rash moment by a player who was trying just a bit too hard? What is the point of trying to blame every action by individual players on 'the club'! Fact is until Patterson went off, Saints were holding their own, playing some good football and looked as likely to score as Utd. The sending off was a tragedy for Matthew who clearly did not intend any malice and was devestated by the decision, which rightly or wrongly ended the game as a contest and rendered the rest of the match meaningless.

Unbelieveable that people claiming to be Saints fans are so constantly negative. Sainbts were well in the game for the whole first half, going behind only to a goal that was scored after an MU player was offside in the goal mouth. The game was then ruined by the sending off - which was not only harsh, since Patterson was on the ball - but was also stupidity by the Ref who had no regard for the consequences of his decision which was to render the rest of the game meaningless. A warning or a yellow would have been perfectly adequate and would have left us with a match from which Saints were quite capable of getting a result.

Saints 2 Man U 1

£30 to see your club play the World Champions. Incredible good value. I don't expect Saints to win, but if they did and I hadn't been there, I'd never forgive myself. Stranger things have happened in the FA Cup - Havant They?

The adolescent mentality on here just gets worse, but it is odd that people who clearly dislike so much about the club continue to post on this website. Why not start an "I Hate Southampton FC and everyone connected with it" forum and post there where it doesn't pollute the discussions that genuine fans want to have.