Professor

What a load of hostages to fortune by Saints best pundits! Is the theory that you predict a defeat so that the small hurt of being wrong is offset by the large plus of winning? Saints 2 - Brumingham 0 As for the comment that Brum's strikers all performed well in the Premier League, if they did it was for teams that were relegated, or they dropped into the CCC. I'd back our young guns against their bunch of OAPs any day! KP is halfway to 70!

I agree Lowe stuck with Wigley for too long. As I recall there were reasons, Sturrock had walked so to lose another manager so quickly was an issue, the squad was suffering from injuries that could have accounted for the run of drawn games and defeats, and having complained about poaching of managers the replacment had to be someone not currently employed. Of these, the weakest reason was not changing managers again so quickly, because that should have been seen as a risk when Wigley was appointed. Turning to the present, if John goes now that Rasiak has gone, I would see that as very bad judgement. DMG is looking good, but we can't have all the eggs etc. If the intention now is that John is staying, it would be a good PR move (and good for SJ), if the club were to make that clear.

In the bottom 3 at end of Sept would be 'going wrong' for me. What would amount to 'doing OK' for you? Top 6 presumably, or is that unfair on you?

What is the evidence of the club voluntarily selling young talent? Walcott was sold reluctantly because he could have walked out and gone to Tribunal which would have set a lower fee. Bale was sold after Lowe was no longer on the Board. Fact is no club can hold on to players who can see big money elsewhere and who decide they want to move on.

People can be tired of the constant opposition to Lowe and Wilde without this meaning that such people endorse every action they take. I can't recall any poster on here who takes that line. RL and MW have rightly been criticised in the past for things thay have done, but now Alpine is complaining in advance about things that haven't happened yet! As for the what if? I'd say Alpine has answered his own question. If the rescue plan doesn't work, administration must be a stronger possibility, but where does that get us? Currently these are the two people the club depends upon, like it or not, and the best that fans can do is not to distract either of them from doing the best job they can. Anti posts on here may have no effect, but if they are translated into a negative attitude in the SMS that can. If things starts to go wrong, thats the time to have a go at them.

Pre-season West Ham. Why? Whats the relevance? Or are you offering to pay for me on Saturday?

I often agree with much of what you say, and people who stay away from a club's matches because of who holds the shares or is on the board are far short of being real supporters, but its not up to any of us to tell anyone else that they are not welcome at the ground. On the contrary, SFC needs as many people in the ground as possible, regardless of where they stand on the Lowe issue, as long as they don't create a negative atmosphere by verbal abuse.

At last! What a relief that someone has taken one of the offers from the shop window. Makes it more likely John will not be sold. Need to put Rudi in the middle of the window now with a large 'BARGAIN' sign on him, or maybe a BOGOF offer with Euell.

Bizarre is a fair way to describe the anti-Lowe phenonomen. It is worthy of academic research if any research funding became available. The need for easy answers is very common but some other aspects appear to touch on the darker side of human nature. Some people express their 'dislike' in general terms, others look for a justifiable reason, and some 'invent' reasons, but without evidencial support. It does look like a psychiatrical condition, perhaps with an element of 'mob' mentatilty but it will fade for many people if the team do well as the need for a scapegoat will be less demanding.

Not a Saints fan then, so why bother with the Forum....

For the 1001st time, there are two sides to the offer of a deal, and maybe Cranie should have been given a better offer, but Burley didn't seem to think centre backs mattered. He's certainly good enough now and would have been an asset last season.

If we beat Brumingham on Saturday, which I believe we will, the draw will look like a door into round 3. This comp brings in more gate money so I'm sure the club will take it seriously. True, fans don't find the early rounds of the League Cup very exciting but I still remember being very excited in 1979.

Walcott in the u-21 squad is not a surprise but Martin Cranie is selected as well. A credit to the Saints Academy, that no doubt will not be noted by any national newspaper. Walcott had to be sold as his ambitions were beyond SFC, but was it a mistake not to hold on to Cranie?

In one sense, Adlington did not actually beat the American, in fact when she saw the replay she said that she didn't think she had won. But the underwater picture showed she just touched the wall first by a fingertip. It was Adlington who credited SCW with giving her the belief she could do it, and that may be the point, that in any sport, football included, there are lots of good atheletes and good players, but sports science can just get that important little bit more out of them. Ultimately SFC, under Wilde, decided not to use SCW and given the impasse with Redknapp that was probably the right decision, but it could also have been a missed opportunity. Just one other thought, whatever people think about SCW's involvement with Saints, at least it gave us some national attention. This week, most of the national press didn't even bother to report our result against Exeter.

Absolutely disagree. You don't undermine the confidence of your first choice first 11 by dropping them for players that you are expecting to sell and neither do you disrupt the stability of the team playing together unless there is good reason. You do keep the surplus players fit and in the shop window by playing them in the reserves. If the sales don't go through and any of them get a first team opportunity through injury or suspensions, its then up to them to try to hold onto the shirt by an exceptional performance. You don't put them in on past reputations.

No doubt Rupert Lowe's rating as a businessman is a matter that is open to opinion, but I doubt that Camberwell Saint is neither qualified as a psychologist nor party to any information about about RL's mental state but presumably that was just another cheap insult. On the other hand to say that someone who has been a chairman of a Premiership football club for 10 years, and a member of the FA board, has no understanding of football makes the writer look a fool himself. Words such as Pot and Kettle come to mind. Why is it not possible for some people to disagree with some of Lowe's decisions, without stooping to abuse? The fact is this man is trying to make something of the club we all support so even if he does not go about it in a way that meets the approval of every fan, which in any case is an impossibility, it is still in our interests as fans that he should succeed.

I respect the optimism, and although there might have been some signings, they would have been Burley signings, although we would largely had the same squad that was bottom of the CCC by April. We would also still have had Burley making his strange decisions on team selection.

Hadn't seen the link before but the anology of SCW's appointment with the new coaching set-up, is interesting. On the money thing, its true that the club should be run economically in order to get maximum output from the affordable input but when SCW was brought in, as I recall that was a cost, not a saving. The question is, would that cost have paid a worthwhile return in performance and, if better handled at the time, the evidence suggests it could have.

'Hate' is never a word that should be used seriously by football fans about another club or its supporters. We all support our own teams, and we need each other, but sometimes 'hate' is not meant in its strongest sense, but is just to indicate greater rivalry with a particular club. As for Derby, who have often done well against us over the years, we should be grateful that it was them who spent a miserable season losing game after game in the Prem last year. It could so easily have been us! Thanks Derby!

Prediction: Leeds 6 Saints 2 (Minutes of screened play that is....) Hope I'm being unfair but we'll soon see.

The quote from Adlington is:- "After hearing him speak, you felt like you could do anything." (After SCW addressed the swimming squad on the eve of the Games). Its quite true that Lowe handled SCW's appointment at Saints very badly. It should have been made clear that he was not a threat to Redknapp, and as that wasn't done he was seen as a threat - and even may have been. The appointment needed Redknapp on board, and had that been done, maybe we would have benefited from the motivational aspects that seem to be behind some of his success.

A good result. It couldn't be taken for granted, as other CCC teams playing lower league clubs, have discovered - just as we did last year at Peterborough. It gives us at least one more game, and the opportunity to earn a few more £s from gate money, but more important, it is one more proper match for these players to learn to play together.

Interesting report on SCW in The Times (12 Aug) about his role with the British Olympic Association. Rebecca Adlington has credited SCW with motivating her ahead of her swimming gold. Through his Elite Perfomance Service he is also working with a mixture of atheletes and competitors who are aiming at the 2012 Games. When he was at Southampton there was view that it was not possible that a background in Rugby could be relevant to soccer. The Times article says that SCW has always met resistance to his use of training methods drawn from across the sporting spectrum and from business. He seemed to meet that resistance here in the form of 'arry Redknapp. People can cross sports, for example, Rebecca Romero, the olympic cyclist converted from being a silver medalist 4 years ago at rowing and is now world class at cycling. SCW was on a loser at Southampton because his appointment was by Rupert Lowe and many people who were against Lowe, automatically took against SCW. We will never know what he could have done for Saints, but it does seems that his skills do work outside of rugby, which was not thought possible by some Saints fans at the time.

Quite right that comment on here makes no difference, but it doesn't stop here. If there are anti-Lowe chants etc at the SMS it undermines the supportive attitude in the stadium that helps give the team home advantage. Anti-Lowe opinions may have cooled recently on here, but are still deeply held by many fans in the city. The outcome of the last campaign was Wilde's replacement of Lowe in 2006, at the worst possible time preventing Burley from building the squad ahead of the new season. Personally, I am not particularly pro-Lowe, but I do believe we need to oppose the anti-attitude because it will do the club no good if Lowe walks away, not until we have someone better willing to take over.

There is another category - people who are neither for or against Lowe, but are sick and tired of the anti-Lowe attitudes that have tended to work to the disadvantage of the club and the team. Richard Chorley clearly loves the Saints and he has consumed a lot of his own energy - its just a pity that it isn't better directed. Lowe and Wilde working together is the best we've got until someone better comes along, and since we all want to see the team doing well, people should support their efforts, even if they don't agree with every decision that RL & W make.