Professor

Under CCC rules a loan must either be for a season or a half season. A half-season loan can be followed by another half-season loan of the same player, therefore nothing is lost by having the option of letting a player go back if he has not performed well enough, or is no longer needed. There could be the risk of his club not re-loaning him, but if a player is taken on a full season loan, the lending club can activate a recall clause during the second half of the season anyway, if they wish. Conclusion is that no adverse assumptions should be made by half-season loans.

We have already lost two games that were winnable at the time. There will be more defeats without any doubt at all, but the object is to win more than we lose. Every game in this league is winnable, but some are more winnable than others. We will lose some we might expect to win, and we will win some we might expect to lose. Thats football. Oh! and we might draw a few as well!

The claim by a few people to be 'boycotting' the SMS may well be a false. Gates dropped by about 10,000 after relegation, and dropped by another 6-7000 as the club became settled in the CCC. There are fluctuations, but there were roughly as many people at the Birmingham league game as there were at the matches in September last year (about 18-19000). Its likely that success on the field will increase gates, although this week, the gate may be affected by the match being on TV. If the team are doing well, 23-25,000 is quite probable as the season goes on, which is about what gates were in the season we reached the playoffs. People have all sorts of reasons to do something else on a Saturday afternoon, instead of going to watch the Saints and for a few it is easier to claim a 'boycott' than to admit that for them, life has moved on, and watching live football is not as important to them as it once was, especially compared to when the team were competing against the strongest sides in the country, and with all the media attention that went with it. As for those who are quite genuine in saying they are not attending because of who runs the club, does it actually matter what they give as their reason? If the club was heading towards administration with an expensive but failing team and no prospect of things improving, there would be even less people attending matches, so we may be better off as things are.

He could have been watching Birmingham......

Pleased to see your post Yorkie, and sorry if I gave any offence. I've been following Saints since 1958, my 50th anniversary is literally this month, the first season in the combined Div 3, so like you I've spent a lot of time and money following the team. Unfortunately in football these days, very few clubs belong to their fans or their cities any more, as more clubs become rich men's playthings. But the fact is, every club needs someone at the top with business management skills, or fans risk seeing their club sink, and you only have to look at the Blue Square Prem to see how many that's happened to. Until someone better comes along, we have to get on with what we've got, but change needs to be for the better, not the worse. One thing that is great for those of us watching, like you at Derby and me at SMS this week, is that we are watching a team with a good smattering of locally developed players who, having spent their teens here, have a genuine link to the city. A side with nine players qualified to play for England is also pretty unusual these days. Worth watching, and I'll be there Saturday, hopefully with 20,000 others.

Its not just Sky and ITV, where coverage may be restricted by contracts, but a large section of the national press seems to concentrate only on the Prem clubs that you feel there must be some money changing hands there as well. Are people less interested in Birmingham just because they are in the CCC this season, or more interested in Stoke or Hull because they've gone up? At least there are some papers, such as The Mirror and The Sun that do give almost equal coverage to Prem and CCC games. Its about time the 'quality press' did the same.

I'm really disappointed that I couldn't be there to see the 2-0 win over Brum. I'm not going to miss Saturday's win over Blackpool! The game being on TV makes it even more worthwhile being there, as I can watch the recording after I get home and enjoy it twice!

The 'realists' never were realistic because they had nothing to base their negative attitudes upon except predudice against Rupert Lowe. Disliking the chairman was never going to be a basis for having any opinion about how good JP was as a manager, or how well his team could play. The realists also proved to be poor at predicting the club's transfer policy and at judging which players should be in the team.

I'm a Saints fan of over 50 years, so I have to worry. Will Jan be able to keep the lads playing so well? Are these last two games just a blip, and will the results will start going against us? I don't think so, I'm confident this team and JP's style are good enough for us to compete at the top end of the table. So now I have to worry about whether a big club will move in for him. We know he's not on a high wage, so his contract would be cheap for a Prem club to buy him out. Why is it so hard supporting the Saints......

Yorkie shouldn't flatter himself by imagining that Lowe would bother reading the rubbish that gets posted on here - including my own! I will be at the SMS on Saturday, despite the game being on TV, and I'll enjoy it more knowing that people with the Yorkie attitude are staying away. Thanks for helping to create a more supportive atmosphere for the real fans.

The only thing about a home draw with a decent Prem side (which excludes pompy, fulham and a few others) is that JP might need to play his strongest defence. It could be a risk for Killer to play a midweek game, but without him we might not do ourselves justice. Maybe JP would rest him on the Saturday, depending upon how things are going in the league and who we are playing.

That does look right - Cork and Pekhart are clear evidence that Lowe and Wilde are not just looking to sell, but are trying to strengthen as well. Someone going opens up the option of bringing players in, but it would be nice if Skacel and Euell were the ones to go, not Surman.

A great result and a great style of play. Jimmy Case worrying that the team can't keep up the speed of play that they showed tonight, game after game as the season goes on, but JP does have a squad. Apart from bringing on Stern and Mills tonight, he was resting Davis, Svensson and Perry, and he's got the other subs he didn't use tonight as well as the new signing, Pekhart. That looks a big enough squad to give people a rest when they need it. After tonight, JP's biggest problem for Saturday looks like deciding who to play!

Ian, Can you pass on any of your father's memories of the club. I'm sure a lot of us would be interested in anything he told you about his early days following the Saints, or any special occasions.

Just as well Rupert did come back, because despite all the hype over the past couple of years, apart from SISU, no one else has wanted to run the club, so instead of abusing him, fans should be glad he's here, at least until someone better comes along. As for Sturrock, Weston must be the only Saints fan still mourning his departure, and there weren't very many at the time who were sorry to see him go. Neither were there many who thought Wigley - who was, and still is, a respected coach, - would fail as a manager, but hindsight is great thing. What is sometimes forgotten, is that when Wigley failed, Lowe sacked him, not an easy decision, and he did it when there was still time for a new manager to strengthen the squad in the January window - which Redknapp did, but failed by ONE GOAL to keep the team up.

We are all entitled to our opinions, but for an opinion to mean something its needs some basis in fact or some evidence. Lowe is certainly no fool. You don't become chair of a major Stockbroking Firm by being a fool. If players playing for the shirt is not enough, what would be? Bringing in journey men who don't really care? - Tried that. Buying quality players from other clubs? - needs money. Bringing on Academy players and then not playing them? - No point having an Academy. What Lowe has done hardly counts as an experiment, it just looks like common sense, provided you can find a manager who can do it - and he seems to have used his contacts to do that. What else could he have done? By all means criticise him if there is an alternative to suggest but just to criticise with no alternative leaves a person on very weak ground.

In case no one noticed, there is no vacancy at Southampton. Shouldn't get too excited either about Pompy losing two games, as Alpine has pointed out, it so happens, that like Saints, two of their less winnable matches happen to have come as their first two games in the fixture list. But, if Redknapp were to leave Portsmouth, he'd have no problem getting another job. Like it or not, despite the way he lost interest in Saints, he is regarded by a large swathe of 'football people' as being an effective manager, but it would be a safe bet to say that hell will freeze over before SFC will employ him again in any capacity, and whoever is chairman.

Shouldn't let the anti-Lowe stuff get out of hand. The team does well, so by all means give credit to the manager and the players, but surely the chairman who made the appointment and set the policy of playing the younger talent is entitled to some credit. Relegation in 2005 was also down to the manager (Redknapp) and the players as well as the chairman. Between them they nearly did enough to keep us up, but not quite. But responsibility is always a shared thing in this game, not simply one person's fault or one person's credit. As for the "investment" only one offer was refused - SISU - and that looks to have been a good decision, but one not made by Lowe alone, as he was not in a position to make it on his own. As often, things are more complicated than the simple 'lets blame Lowe' approach would would like it to be. Is Lowe 'vindicated'? Probably not yet, but things do look a lot better than the doom mongers were predicting a few weeks ago, and even last week (Alpine).

I wasn't aware of this, were others? If this is true, it is a very good reason, not only to see Rudi move on, but also not to play him at all. This may be why he couldn't agree wages with Ipswich as the loss of bonus' makes the pay drop even bigger. Anyone know how long Rudi has on his contract? Could the club let him sit it out in the stands if he refuses to reduce his wage demands?

After three league games, two 1-goal defeats in games we would not have expected to win, and a 1-goal win in a game we might have expected to lose, doesn't tell us a lot about how this team might do, but the way they are playing their football tells us more than the results so far. JP was ridiculed by some people for his mention of total football but his style of play looks like it will bring results. To those who are still struggling with Lowe's replacement of Pearson with JP, it is very doubtful that the JP revolution could have been carried out last February in time to avoid the drop, whereas Pearson did the right things in plugging the hopeless defence. But if Crouch had stayed on, and Pearson was still manager, whilst we might, or might not, be doing better than last year, its certain we would not have the exciting team we now have out on the pitch.

When there is an offer for a player there are three parties involved, not just a buyer and a seller, so its not just down to how much is offered and how much the selling club is willing to accept. The third party is the most important of the three, and that is the player, together with his agent. Once a player has been unsettled by the knowledge that a lump sum transfer cut, as well as higher pay, is there for the taking, its hard for any club to hold out. If offers do come in, the best defence for the chairman is to be able to offer the player the prospect of a payrise in the near future, but as people have said, that depends on team performance and attendances. It is very unlikely that Lowe would want to sell any established first team players if JP advises him that performance will fall off, unless they can be replaced, but it is not always in the chairman's hands as you can't hold on to someone once he has decided he doesn't want to stay.

Rather than start another thread on the striker issue, maybe we can revive this one for a while. I have no idea whether there is anything in the Pekhart rumour or whether he is any good, but even with Stern still on the books, there is a need for more cover and more competition. It may be a budget issue, and perhaps the money is not available for wages unless someone goes, but its going to be a worry as the week goes on, if nothing happens. No side can do well unless it is scoring goals and that is the area that needs addressing.

A fair and accurate assessment. The only thing I would say in mitigation for Burley, was that he was not managed from above. Had either Wilde or Crouch proved to have been a strong capable chairman, Burley might have been forced to do better, as his track record suggests he does have the ability if its focused. As it was, its hard to see anything about his management that could be praised, from his transfer selections - too often, just players he knew from the past, his team selections - simply weird, and his tactics. The luckiest thing for saints was the SFA coming in for him when they did.

Its true that in the past there was a "We Will Walk This League" tendency amongst some supporters, to the extent that it became a joke, but I dispute that the Derby win has raised people to that level of expectation. What has been depressing in recent times has been the doom mongers predicting the club's demise, and claiming not be pessimists but realists. My own view is that the end of September is the time to take a first realistic view of how the season MIGHT go but that is no reason not to believe success is possible. Jan is saying that the playoffs are a realistic target, and even that is expressed as a goal to aim for, not a prediction. To justify talking down a success by claiming that others are talking it up too much, (and without evidence that they are) is a shame when people are enjoying the moment.

Is DT disappointed by the win then? I've not seen a single post that has built this win up into anything above what it is, a promising first step to getting some points on the board. But even the two defeats were close, by one goal in each game, and in games that few people would have said we should have been expected to win. So the Derby result just confirms what the first two games showed, that this Saints team is not being outplayed in this league and that could be bad news for the moaning minnies (quieter now) who have been predicting relegation and administration ever since last May. But this is a Saints team that is worth watching - and apart from results, that alone will bring more people through the gates at the SMS.