VectisSaint

Why? We are playing Manure. Still I suppose if you consider London they are nothern cun.ts. Some of us consider Southampton as northerners

Where do you get a coat with sticky out ears? Most coats I buy usually come with buttons (or a zip) and a collar.

ART, are you sure he is still out injured? He certainly is not listed as injured on Watford's site, which provides a lot of detail about suspensions and injuries (take note saints OS).

Below are the players from the current squad that I think would have got into WGS squad (note squad, not necessarily first team): .

Spot on Art. Like you I have never been Crouch's greatest supporter, and he come out with a restrained response to some absolutely appalling accusations from Lowe and Wilde in the plc annual statement. He may be naive in some ways, that was always my fear about him, hence why he had others around who were more astute at running the plc (I still regret the departure of Lee Hoos who was the one man that Wilde brought in who actually had some skill that we could do with now). But the bottom line is that Crouch will not allow the presence of Lowe and Wilde to stop him supporting the club, both in person and, unlike Lowe, financially through sponsorship from his own business. He is willing to forsake some of his money (and indeed already has) while Nero continues to fiddle trying to save a few of his precious pounds rather than find a way of making the club successful. I fully epect Crouch to say nothing further, but his response was reasonable and measured. And in the end, he is urging supporters to get behind the team, which is what everyone wants.

Doubt it will be a full house (based on past experience), even if they re-open the corners as a one-off. Nothing mentioned yet to give anyone a hint that they might do this, Lowe probably only sees it as an increased cost. No way we can pull in 500k, let alone 1m by the way.

Good to see the dear old US of A keeping up with the latest news. Is Texas still figuring in the international news section of CBS?

Lol, I can just picture the scene now. We're 1-0 up with 5 minutes to go. Lowe makes his way down from the royal box and on to the touchline, out into the technical box and gesticulates madly to our players encouraging them to go for goal at our own end:) Sounds daft, so I wouldn't put it past him

Nope, you are ignoring completely the extra revenue from the sale of merchandies, burgers, beer and programmes. Clearly there are also extra costs involved, but astute business people would be able to turnover a substantially bigger profit from this source than from a game with only 15000 customers. Of course, thats the rub, although some people like to imagine that Lowe is an astute businessman, the truth is that he is not and cannot see the gift horse's mouth and instead refers to it as a drop in the ocean. You see he is a typical modern day negative business man who believes the only way to make more money is to reduce costs (reduce costs = reduce jobs), whereas enlightened business people realise there is another way, and that is by increasing revenue whenever there is an opportunity. This is why some clubs in lower leagues are able to make a profit, while we continue to make bigger and bigger losses and lose more and more customers (sorry spectators). The reality of course is that this one game is not going to be a serious windfall, but there is potential to make a decent profit from a piece of good fortune. Imagine how much we would have made if we had been drawn away to Histon. The other good news is that the game is on Sultana, so no drop in revenue due to people watching the game on the telly instead of live

The other issue is, if Palace are doing it for next Monday, are Saints reducing their price for Saturday (and if so are they treating Sheff Wed the same was as Palace are treating us)?

It would be interesting to know how many extra people go because of a reduction of 50p to the ticket price

Anyone know the person that has Setanta subscription, perhaps we can all go round his house to tune in. Setanta FFS, at least it won't affect our gate I doubt that it would be a sell out anyway (even with the corners closed)

Can't believe apparently sensible people continue to write such crap. So it was preordained that we would be relegated in 2005, really that takes the biscuit. Unless you are Glenn Hoddle you cannot expect anyone to take such comments seriously. Your pov suggests that managers, player, the board had nothing to do with our relegation, it was just our turn. So when is it Everton's turn? When will Arsenal take their turn or Liverpool (at least Manure did take a turn in 1974 with us). Really don't see how it was our turn in 1974 either, was it preordained that the league would change the rules to relegate 3 teams from that season just so Saints could have their turn? FFS start to see that Lowe and his mates were and still are the main reason not only for our relegation but our continuing financial woes. We have a poor businessman running a football club, with no ideas how to generate investment or additional revenue from existing revenue streams. but can only see the worn-out principle of cutting costs so beloved by many CEOs around the world. The truly successful and morally good businessmen are those who can be positive and see good things that can be done to turn around the business without necessarily getting rid of staff or ****ing off customers. The failures are those who see only the negative way forward of improving the bottom line, and Lowe has demonstrated again by his reaction to the article in the Echo that he is financially and morally bereft of good ideas.

Not to mention the dvd of when we beat them 1-0 which is the best of the lot

500k, you are having a laugh. Maybe 250k if we have a full house, but I think thats stretching it. As I said gate receipts would be very similar to a league game, the Club has to be very careful about increasing prices much, as they will find the demand is not there at inflated prices. They need to judge it just right to get a full house, it is certainly not a foregone conclusion, especially if Fergie hints at playing the reserves as seems likely. Still, as I said I imagine it will still be a healthy bonus on what we might have got for an away tie against Histon or Forest Green (and we are probably more likely to beat Manure than either of the aforementioned babana skin teams).

I realise you are only joking, cos of course he would be cup-tied, which would mean Manure being thrown out for playing an ineligible player. Could earn us another decent pay day if we drew Arse or Chelski in the 4th round though Might be better just to play for the draw and get a replay at OT instead.

As far as gate receipts are concerned this will be no better than a league match, even if we assume 32500 sell out (and there is no guarantee yet that our capacity will be increased by re-opening the corners). But we will presumably earn more from an extra 16/17k buying merchandise on the day, and also TV monies. It is also a bonus on being drawn away to someone other than Manure, or being drawn at home to some unattractive team such as Histon. So there will be increased income that presumably is not in the budget, but not the massive windfall that some seem to expect. A draw and a replay at Old T would be a bigger money-spinner I suspect, at least it would be if the pastic mancs can get off their arses and drive up from London to see Manure play Saints

I was a great admirer of Graham (tends to help that we share a surname), but would still have preferred Joe (you need to be old like me to remember hiom though) As for Steve, is it true he was adopted?

Brilliant idea, we need to fill the ground, but because of your stupid principles you are putting potential customers off. Thats about as stupid as the principle of not going because Lowe is at SMS, in my book.

Rasiak is on a season loan so won't be back whatever happens, he was injured hence low number of games. Saga and John will be back in January. What they would bring to the team, if not goals, is the ability to hold the ball up, and make it possible for McG or Robertson or Lallana to score themselves. In addition John gives an aerial threat that none of our current forwards do. I would be happy to see Stern back, he wants to play for us, not sure the other two do, and everyone knows he will score goals. Still at least we have Euell back for next game, hopefully he will be picked again, was just beginning to pay dividends with his experience before the red card.

As you are a convert to form guides, I admire your optimism completely ignoring the home form guide. We have only won 1 at home all season but you predict we will win the next 2. We can hope, but I for one wouldn't put money on it. If we can get 8 points from our next 6 games, then that will be quite an achievement, I don't feel optimistic about any of these games quite frankly. Probably knowing Saints we will beat Burnley away though.

I'll go for Stoke so we can see all our old players. Would be good for Pulis' debut as well (not)

not forgetting the wrong Best

Try telling that to Dean Windyass

I agree with your figure (£19.9m on a like for like basis) but the fact is that the 14 month period included 2 "close seasons" (May/June 2007 and May/June 2008) when there would have been very little income. So I think the gap between our turnover and theirs is substantially more on a year on year basis that 5m. Still no-one can adequaltely explain how Leeds can generate approx 50% greater turnover in League 1 than Saints in the CCC when the revenue streams they have access to are more limited than our own (lower TV, no income from the stadium). It would be really interesting to understand exactly what they are doing that we are not, once the additional support based is factored out of the equation. Then perhaps Saints board could learn some lessons and perhaps find ways of substantially increasing our own income, instead of going the negative way that Lowe prefers of simply cutting costs.