RinNY

I agree, and have been of the opinion for a long time now, that EVERYONE who has been involved in the club's decline over the past few years should go: not just Lowe (who gets far more blame than he deserves, though he deserves quite a bit), and Wilde (who seems basically ineffectual), or Askham ( bit of a rat, imo), but Crouch too (too much bluster, too much associated with the divisive past few years), and Mary Corbett (see under Wilde), and all the directors/execs (Jones, Cowen, Richards, Wiseman) who have been part of these years. We need a totally clean sweep, and a completely new start, in my view, for what it's worth. Anmd I feel there is hope that we will get it. The only people from these past years I'd like to see stuill involved with Saints in the future, are the likes of McMenemy and Dodd, and so on: people involved on the coachiong/playing side in our better days. And they should have strictly amabassadorial roles at that.

I may be misremembering this, but I seem to recall that Jackson's Farm was listed in the books as an asset at around 5 million, which is close the the valuation of the players, and is a non-football asset for which the PLC had a "first refusal" development contract with some builder outfit (I forget which) -- a contract the PLC was waiting out I believe. Would that not invalidate your 10 point deduction argument? As to the final payout: all football creditors must be paid in full. After that, everyone else is in line for whatever can be gotten. The payout for Leeds was just pennies in the pound. The treasury did not like that, but had to agree in the end. In our case, is there any evidence that SLH owes any substantial sum to the Treasury? It was, in our case, a bank and not the Treasury that pulled the plug, remember. Moreover, whereas Leeds had already sold Elland Road and their training ground before going into admin, I seem to recall, we still have those assets. I think our whole situation, in other words, is not quite as bleak as you paint it here.

Right: the word "football" slipped in unconsciously due to a natural association with the term "Premier League"! Still, though that shows he has an interest in sport, I don't see him as a likely buyer of saints: if he wants a football club in England, he'll surely look higher than the bottom of the CCC.

He's something like 5th or 6th richest man in the world, heads one of the biggest industral groups in Asia, and owns a football team in India's Premier League. In other words, it would be nice, but don't hold your breath: another Paul Allen rumour, methinks.

The suggestion was that "morally" we are culpable and should take the hit. My point is that the rule is badly written, and as written is arbitrary and unfair; if that unfairness can be used in our favour instead of to our harm, good for us! Let's be clear: the 10 point deduction rule exists to prevent clubs from spending recklessly in order to get a competitive advantage, and then using administration to walk away from their recklessness unharmed, prompted by Leicester's overspending, administration, and subsequent promotion. Our case is not that at all: we built a new stadium in order to try to remain competitive with other clubs while in the Prem. Unfortunately, that stadium became a fiscal albatross after we were relegated. There was some further imprudence, no doubt, but nothing reckless, nor anything that would have seen us in administration now but for the recession. So if a rule that would hit us unfairly has a loophole that we can use to avoid being hit, there is nothing wrong with us taking it. The league, once again, knew all about the possibility of our situation arising because thety had the case of Derby County in front of them, and they still chose to write the rules as they did and leave them as written. Case closed.

Why should Derby County have got away with going into administration and avoiding the 10 point penalty, and we don't? Do you want to retroactively deduct 10 points from Derby? The rules are what they are, and should be administered as they are. If there is an inappropriate loophole, let it be closed; but the League have had plenty of time since Derby to closer it and have not done so. Moreover, why should any club that has been managing its business with reasonable care and prudence, but gets hit by the effects of relegation and a massive economic recession, and suffers a fiscal crisis as a result, get hit with a ten point penalty as well?? Any club at all, not just us ... It's not as if Saints have "done a Leeds" or anything close. What we did do is build a modern premiership stadium when we were in the Prem, and pay players Prem wages when we were in the Prem, and try to take advantage of the Prem parachute payments to win promotion after we were relegated. I don't see anything in this to merit points deductions. Truth is, the whole system is massively skewed and flawed: I say if for once it should turn out to be flawed slightly in our favour, there is nothing wrong morally or in any other way to accepting that gladly.

AC Milan, Inter Milan, San Siro. In other words there is no real diffuclty about bitter rival clubs sharing a ground if it makes economic sense. The problem in this case is that Southampton and Portsmouth are just not one city, and I really don't see Portsmouth wanting or agreeing to play at SMS. If Saints had built their new ground at Eastleigh or Fareham or somewhere like that, maybe; as it is, no way.

Or, of course, we could have kept these guys, paid their inflated salaries all year, gone into administration as a result, been deducted 10 points, and be bottom of the league, below Charlton, and staring at certain relegation. In fact, if Lowe really wanted to destroy SFC, that's exactly what he'd have done: kept Rasiak & John & Davies and paid Saints into a decline. Dyer is another issue, but there are reasons why it seemed best to loan him out too, as you might recall if you cast your memory back to last summer. But all you people moaning about Rasiak & John might at least try to remember why they were loaned out: nothing to do with footballing choices or incompetence or what have you; it was quite simply fiscally necessary to get their salaries off the books in whatever way could be contrived. Unfortunately, like Skacel and Saga, no-one wanted to buy them. In the cases of Skacel and Saga that is benefitting us now; in the case of Rasiak it may harm us. So it goes.

Wow! Just wow! Are you joking? I would assume so, but I don't quite see what is supposed to be humorous about that. Let's see, Arsene Wenger, the only manager for more than 100 years to lead his team through an entire season unbeaten, winner of three Prem titles and 4 FA Cups, including doing the double twice! Got to the final of the Champion's League in 2005/6 with a defense that went 10 consecutive games without giving up a goal, losing narrowly in the final to a superb Barcelona team. Yeah, Wenger is crap alright! My god, some folk around here really do not know the first thing about football: this explains a lot. No wonder you can post the nonsense you post about Saints in general and Burley in particular. And this is probably the most absurd thing you have ever posted: comparing Burley to Wenger: he wishes! What a laugh, I think I see the humour now!

Exactly right I think. As well as things are going now, we will inevitably lose a game at some point, and the test will be responding to that loss: if we can come back from a loss and play well and get a win the following game, I'll know this is for real, and not just a flash in the pan.

What Burley was: got us a top six finish and an away win in the playoffs against Derby that under normal rules (away goals count double) would have seen us through to the playoff final. Left us comfortably mid-table and still in striking distance of the promotion places. That's terrible! Errr, NOT! Let's just enjoy the run we're on now with Wotte and the boys, ffs!

A couple of points, though I fear it's probably a waste of time. You ignore the basic premise with which I begin and which underpins everything I wrote: this season was always going to be about cutting costs and hoping to survive, both fiscally (in the first place) and in the CCC. In insisting on blaming Lowe for our precarious position, you give the man WAY too much credit: we are where we are in great part because we were (and likely still are) on the verge of economic meltdown, and drastic cost-cutting measures had to be taken. If you know differently, I'd be pleased to hear it, but I emphasize the word "KNOW": telling us that you don't "think" the finances can have been all that dire hardly constitutes a worthwhile argument, in the face of the various people in the club with actual knowledge of the finances who have publicly stated the opposite. You say we should have emulated "the most successful clubs in the world": who are they then? I take it you don't mean Ajax of the 70s and 90s, or Arsenal of the past 10 years, who have had enormous success playing "total football"? I'm not sure in fact what you do mean, if anything, by that statement. You don't like Lowe, fair enough; you blame him for much that has gone wrong at SFC, fair enough. I still say that, given the starting circumstances this season of a huge financial hole and too many senior players who had underperformed and were earning more than we could afford to pay, leading to a real and imminent threat of administration, that IF we do succeed in reaching the end of this season having survived in the CCC and staved off administration, Lowe will deserve considerable credit. I grant that people like you will never give him it, but that is rather my point! You overestimate his input on everything you perceive as bad (thus when Saints play badly it's because of Lowe's players and tactics, though Chairmen do not pick teams, train players, or establish tactics), and underestimate his contribution to anything that may go right (thus, if the team plays well its in spite of Lowe, and if we are not in administration, it's because Lowe's plot to put us there is not working), because you have a warped view of the man as some dark figure of evil. Whatever ...

I notice that many posters seem simply to assume that Lowe decides on the shape of the team and who gets to play; I SERIOUSLY doubt that there is any truth to that, which can at best be based on anecdotal evidence, not to say malicious gossip. Lowe's record with managerial appointments is mixed at best, but appointing a manager is always a gamble. Who thought WGS would be such a success for us, after leading Coventry to relegation? Do people forget how happy most fans were when Redknapp was hired, a "proper manager" who would save us from relegation? Was it not Lowe, as one of his last acts, who appointed Burley, or do I miss-remember that? At any rate, did Burley not lead us to the playoffs, and to within an ace of the playoff final? Of course, Gray, Wigley, and Portvliet were all failures, but every good manager has to start somewhere, and has little or no experience at first. Sometimes appointing a promising young guy with little experience works, like with Jim Magilton at Ipswich. So, to this season: it has always been about cutting costs to avoid relegation while trying to stay in the CCC. We are not yet out of the woods on either account, by report; but there seems to be hope on both accounts. If we do survive fiscally and in the CCC, imo as a long-time non-fan of Lowe's, he will deserve considerable credit. I know people argue that for too much of the season too many youngsters were played, but you only learn which younger players can hack it by playing them, subjecting them to the stress of the real thing. You don't learn much about a player from reserve team football. We have learned that a number of our youngsters can make it: Surman is developing his game before our eyes and turning into a good all round midfielder; Lallana shows the creative flair of a good attacking midfielder, if only he can learn to score goals; James is making the right back slot his own, improving as the season goes on; McGoldrick can definitely do a job, with a bit more consistency in front of goal; Gillett has fire and passion and grit; Schneiderlin still looks a real find; Holmes has looked excellent on the left but for injuries. Yes Poortvliet got the mix of youth/experience wrong, too shaded to youth. Yes, Wotte is doing better in that regard, partly thanks to the fact that no other club wanted to buy the likes of Skacel, Saga, and Euell, so we had in the end no choice but to pay them ourselves (as difficult as that evidently is) and there was hence no point in not playing them. And of course, they know they have to perform the rest of this season to secure their own futures! You think that hasn't helped focus their minds and attitudes? And you know what? None of that is actually down to Lowe, because he doesn't determine the team or who plays or in what system: the manager does. At best we can say that after the error of Poortvliet, Lowe's choice of Wotte looks good so far; and that despite the constant rumours, he has staved off administration so far. And he should get credit for those things from those who are so eager to blame him whenever he does do anything wrong: fair's fair!

Team stability has been key, imo: not chopping and changing all the time, letting players get used to playing as a unit. Knowing what your team is and sticking with it, so the players aren't playing nervous all the time, looking over their shoulders, afraid to make a mistake. A solid back four, a solid front pairing, midfielders who know what their job is. I've always thought the squad had the talent, if only we could find some consistency. Wotte seems to be providing that, so far. Here's hoping it continues!

I'll just say one more thing: have a sense of humour! When someone posts something "for a laugh", you can take it that it's not too seriously meant, yanno? I know there are plenty of serious criticisms of Lowe, I've made a few myself: but the kind I humorously put up there are constantly thrown around here, you have to admit. Anyway, in the end we agree more than disagree, and today was a good day!

And how pray do you make that out? My definition of constantly? Well, as long as I've been reading these fan forums, back to our cup final year, I've noted the tendency, when referring to Lowe, to include one or more of the above points -- always in a clearly critical and insulting way -- and apart from the time when Lowe was ousted, references to Lowe and threads about Lowe have been pretty much a daily, certainly a weekly occurrence. I said "constantly", I meant "constantly", and I stand by "constantly". You claim otherwise? Then you are either unaware of what gets posted or being disingenuous.

Hmmm, did I say that anything inflates our worth?? I don't think so. Did I suggest that administration would be a good way to solve our problems? I don't think so. Again, my basic point was simply that share price is not a direct reflection of worth, a point with which you appear to agree, so I'm not sure why you keep going on this, but ok, let's see. A mortgage is not the same as other, unsecured debt, and to lump it together with unsecured debt as "we owe 30 million" is a simplification. Fair enough, I have simplified too, but let's be clear: neither you nor I have anything remotely like the detailed knowledge of saints' assets and finances to settle just how much the club may be "worth". however, IF SLH were to default on the mortgage (and I am NOT advocating that as a solution to the club's fiscal problems), the only plausible scenario in which that could occur would be in the context of going into administration. And if we go into administration, other than their claim to the stadium as holding the mortgage on it, the credit union can whistle for its money. The rules are, all football debts (player and coacxh contracts, outstanding transfer fees, etc) get paid up first, and after that the credit union would be in line with the Treasury, the overdraft holders, and all other creditors. The experience of other clubs that have gone into administration, like Leeds for example, says that they would be lucky to get pennies on the pound. And at the end of that process, whatever the union got, they'd have no more claimk on the restructured SFC entity that emerged. Now did I enormously oversimplify in my original remark? Yes, I did. But it remains true that the mortgage is a separate category of debt, and that in the end, if Saints had to default on it, the credit union would be left with the stadium and not much more. Now, the case against Lowe: yes, there are numerous valid criticisms to be made of Lowe, as there are of many other persons connected to SLH anmd Saints, from various former and present directors, to former and present managers and coaches, to former and present players, to fans. If you have a real case to make as to why and how Lowe could not only be ousted, but replaced, and better policies for SFC put in place, don't just keep saying so: lay it out so we can see what these ideas are! Because I haven't seen you or anyone indicate how the requisite share-voting power to remove Lowe is going to be rounded up, nor what alternative policies (other than of the "let's hire a good old British CCC retread manager like Billy Davies" variety) would supposedly improve the club's fortunes. The charges one does see constantly against Lowe, yeah let's visit those here for a laugh: 1. Lowe's first name, unforgivably, is Rupert -- no man named Rupert should be associated with a football club 2. Lowe likes hockey -- no man who likes hockey should be involved with a professional football club 3. Lowe hunts ducks -- no man who enjoys duck-hunting should be allowed anywhere near a professional football club 4. Lowe went to a public school -- no public school type should be anywhere near a football club 5. Lowe has red cheeks -- no red-cheeked man should be allowed to run a football club (which, btw, would probably rule out more than half of all football chairmen) 6. Lowe is pompous and arrogant -- no pompous and arrogant man must be permitted in professional football (and there go the majority of football directors and managers, I suspect) 7. Lowe was in charge when we got relegated -- no chairman of a relegated club should be allowed to stay in place or ever be permitted near a football club again 8. Lowe's nefarious and evil plan is to deliberately drive us into administration so he can then take total control of SFC for next to nothing Need I go on? Are you going to deny that all of these charges are seriously, not to say frequently, cast at Lowe on this forum? You can't, not honestly. There are at least 3 or 4 "Lowe out" threads, by the likes of Stanley and Channon's Sideburns and Johnny Fartpants up on the forum now: can you point to a single post on any of them that presents a reasoned argument for what specific policies of Lowe are mistaken and why, and what alternative policies both could and should be pursued instead? I'd be interested to see one. I'm not in a frenzy: just making the point that most of the anti-Lowe sentiment posted around here is purely ad hominem and offers no way forward for SFC at all.

Well, like you I could potentially go into much more detail on the mortgage thing etc., but like you I have limited time for this, and it really isn't relevant to my basic point about share price vs. worth, and it's probably best to avoid more simplification here. I'll just say that I don't claim that Lowe is the best person to run Saints, nor do I say anything definite about him as Saints Chairman other than two things: he has made mistakes, clearly; I don't see a viable alternative or viable alternative fiscal policies, with all they entail, out there for SLH and Saints. As to the vitriol, I can only say that you are clearly being disingenuous. You may not spew the vitriol yourself, but you are around this board more than enough to know that what I have said is true. I could list a whole set of posters on this forum who are guilty of it, and have been for a long time, starting with the likes of Stanley and alpine, but I really can't be bothered to type that many names. And the way you casually announce that "the vast majority" of supporters believe this or that does a disservice to your otherwise reasonable and rational tone. Because you do not know what the "vast majority" of supporters really believe, any more than I do. I'll just say that while there have been some substantial protests against Lowe, the numbers involved do not by any means amount to a "vast majority" of Saints supporters. For what it's worth, in my view, the "vast majority" of supporters do not much care who is Chairmsan of SLH, never have, and never will. They just want success on the field, and will express a natural anger and frustration at those in charge when that doesn't come, and largely ignore those in charge when it does. The virulent anti-Lowe crowd seem to me to be, instead, a vocal and obsessive minority. And you keep claiming that all sorts of good and rational reasons for getting rid of Lowe, and good and reasonable alternative policies for running Saints have been posted on this forum, but I read this forum quite frequently, and I can only say that they have been very well concealed, because I have not seen them, and you have not given them. And for what it's worth finally, I have long been on record, for some 2 years now, as fervently wishing that the entire present triumvirate of Lowe/Crouch/Wilde and all their supporters (Askham, Corbett, Richards, Cowen etc.) could be removed from any influence at Saints and a totally new regime and ownership brought in. But I'm not much inclined to confuse pie-in-the-sky wishes with what is actually likely to happen, especially after the past years of pointless changes and rampant speculation.

As you must well know, the vast majority of the ca. 30 million debt you mention is a mortgage on the stadium, and if defaulted on would leave the mortgage holder with a stadium and SLH with that debt gone. The club has other assets to set against the overdraft (players, academy, Staplewood, Jackson's Farm, whatever); and its intrinsic value (whatever that may be) as a member of the Football League and an established professional football club. Unless we go into administration, which remains a possibility, I think you'll find that the club will not be bought/sold for any 4 million, regardless of the present share price. Perhaps your view of the matter, that SLH in fact has basically a negative worth, is correct: either way, it remains true that the share price is not an accurate indicator of worth, but only of theoretical purchasing price. As to relegation: you (and a heck of a lot of others around here) might reflect that every single season three clubs get relegated from the Premiership, and that there has always been an intrinsic possibility that in one year or another, Saints would be one of the clubs affected. If you really mean to say that relegation is the chairman's/board's fault, then every year there are three utterly incompetent and widely hated chairmen and boards in English football ... or rather 12, to take into account clubs relegated from the CCC and League's 1 & 2 too. It cannot be otherwise. Again, a little perspective: obviously mistakes were made during our relegation season, by Lowe among others. But at the end of the day, the team's inability to hang on to leads in crucial matches -- most vitally the home game against Aston Villa -- was more to blame than anything else, and that is down to the players in the end; the manager too if you like (though, much as we may dislike him, Redknapp is a good manager), but hardly the board or the chairman. Truth is, relegation is one of those things that happens, due to a variety of factors, some that one can control, and some that one cannot. In so far as relegation is the cause of our current plight, and share price, Lowe's blame, or any one person's blame, is hardly all that great. I've been reading these fan boards since our FA Cup final year, and the plain fact is that the same mindless vitriol has been spewed at Lowe throughout those years, in good years and bad, and that tells me that at bottom it has absolutely nothing to do with how the team, is doing, what division we are in, how we are playing. There are people who simply loathe Rupert Lowe. One can speculate as to the reasons for that: some are perhaps reasonable, some are clearly not. But the club's present situation is an excuse to spew more venom Lowe's way, not the reason for doing so, and certainly not a valid reason.

You make a basic mistake here that gets made over and over, but is a mistake all the same: the share price is not a direct reflection of what the club is worth; it merely indicates what the business could, in theory, be bought for. I think you would find, however, if you did happen to have a spare 4 or 5 million lying around and tried to buy up Saints with it, that you wouldn't succeed at that price, or anything like it. Because of course, the club has assets, still, that are collectively worth (in the sense of potentially saleable for) a good deal more than the 4 or 5 million the share prices presently values the club at. A huge variety of factors influence the share price, and the actual policies of the CEO are only one of those factors, and often a rather minor one at that. There are plenty of things to criticize Lowe, and the others who have had a go at running saints in the past few years, for; but the share price at present is simply not in the control of or able to be significantly impacted by the CEO of this business, not underc current global economic circumstances.

It may have escaped your attention, guys, but we are in the midst of a global economic downturn, characterized particularly by a major credit crisis, and stocks across the board have been tumbling, with several major stock exchanges world wide having lost 50% or more of their value. You expect SLH to somehow avoid this global trend? Not to say that the looming threat of relegation and possible administration are not important factors too, but let's keep things in perspective, eh?

If all of what was true? Nothing has been said so far as I can see regarding Lowe's behavior so far, only regarding Ms. Corbett's feelings. She finds Lowe intimidating: that happens. I've been told at times myself that I can be intimidating, though it's no desire or intention of mine to be so. Unless there is some actual and deliberate physically intimidating behavior, there is nothing here. Ms. Corbett does not, apparently, wish to allege anything of the sort, and that is why FC is quite right, imo, to say that this issue should be dropped. Of course it will not be, because to the Lowe-loathers this kind of thing is like mother's milk to a hungry baby: they thrive on it. And yes, the baby comparison is deliberate, because I've seldom seen more infantile drivel than gets spouted on this forum on the subject of Lowe. And since it always seems to need saying, no, I am not a Lowe-luvvie: I just don't happen to loathe the man or think he is the most evil person since Hitler shot himself.

If we stay up, Wotte will have done a good job, and I'd hope the club will stick with the current coaching set-up for another season, no matter what happens at the top (a subject on which I find speculation to be totally fruitless). I do think that, if Wotte keeps us up, we have the basis to do much better next season. Reportedly, Saeijs' loan deal calls for us to sign him permanently at season's end if we stay up; and I'd hope that there will be a move to keep Saga. Given those two providing stability and ability at the back and up front, and with the flashes of promise that the likes of Schneiderlin and Holmes and Gillett have shown, to add to the undoubted ability of Surman and Lallana, we could build on survival to challenge for a top 6 spot, imo. After all, our away form this season has been quite good, so sorting out the home form would get us into the top half alone. I'd also like to see Nathan Dyer playing on the right wing for us: with his pace and ability, he could become a real difference maker. So it seems to me that there are reasons for optimism, IF we can stay up this season. Of course, to those who care more about who is the club chairman than about results on the field, things will look very different ...

I will say that we finally seem to have a reasonably settled back four that is doing a decent job -- Skacel - Perry - Saeijs - James -- and barring any serious slip in form I hope we can stick with them the rest of the way, no matter what happens with Thomas. There has been far too much chopping and changing in the team, and it's contributed to our poor and inconsistent results, imo.