saint1977

As the future begins to look more secure, some good available (or potentially available) players could be; - Sodje and/or Bennett, Bennett did improve after a shocking start for us and both free and wages probably not that bad. Plus, unless Size signs on we've only got Perry at CB (I don't count Lancashire) - I really hope Mills stays as he was one of last seasons few plus points but may want to play for Nigel Adkins in the CCC for Scunny. If he doesn't return, Dan Harding on a free? - Would love to see Prutts back to add bite to CM and fire up the crowd (but hopefully not the ref) - Jackson from Gillingham is worth a look and their left-winger (Andy Barcham?) has had rave reviews and looked seriously quick in their play-off final - Webber released from Sheff Utd. Wages probably an issue but could be returned to form with the right help - Danny Graham has rejected a new deal at Carlisle. Proven in L1 although had a dry spell second half of last season. Even so, on a free he'd be top of my list.

Actually, this board has some fairly sharp professional and educated people on it so I would be discourage you from taking that line or you may get embarrassed quite quickly. If you don't think this is the right option for Saints or you are representing other interests, don't take part in the thread - simple. Pinnacle have come up with the goods at this stage, hence we are into the exclusivity element of the process. No PhDs or MPhils required to understand that.

Erm, how exactly? If the club wasn't bankrupt and about to go out of existance and Pinnacle didn't have to go through significant hoops, then your stance would be more understandable. This simply isn't comparable with the circumstances of 2006, there are no parachute payments to spunk up the wall. Wilde and Lowe would probably never have got the keys to SMS based on the DD criteria.

I presume you'd rather have Marc Jackson and Green take over then? Extinction would have preferable to that, if you've seen the posts that were on here in summer 2007 you'll know exactly the incredible Walter Mitty tendancies we witnessed and Bournemouth fans saw straight through him as well. If this consortium hadn't taken things to this stage, this forum full of weirdos as you put it would have been rather irrelevant as there would be no football club.

Seeing as we are all weirdos perhaps you'd like to log off? Or perhaps identify yourself at SMS at the first home game? Thought not. Quite frankly, a lot of us made mistakes with Wilde but after the 3 years that had preceded it, we were a bit vulnerable after Mike had become the largest shareholder. This is totally different and this group have to go through hoops that Mike Wilde wouldn't have got through. Actually, Secure Retirement probably wouldn't have got through them in 1996 either and Askham's retirement wouldn't have been quite so gold-plated at our expense.

That was in the 80s Nick and was shot down, shortsightedly in my view, for aesthetic reasons. Yet no-one says this about the DLR in London Docklands which is similar to what was being proposed and Southampton's pathetic infrastructure continues to hold up motorists that dare to pass it on the M27 and God forbid if you enter when Northam Bridge has another set of "alleged" water or gas repairs on. The Bellway regeneration in St Mary's St itself was a farce and the City Centre looks very grey and neglected. I would bring in a ferry system operating from Town Quay to areas around Soton water similar to the one I saw in Sydney operating from Circular Quay to get local people out of their cars. I would fully regenerate Ocean Village and put some high quality tall buildings in from commerce to give the waterfront some profile and residential development down there now ought to be at least 500-800 ft tall to make best use of the space. Woolston could become more of a speciality place with perhaps some inducements to bring high quality employers in to replace the shelved SEEDA plans. With the HLF-funded project at Civic Centre for 2012, perhaps it won't just be SFC with better times ahead after some grim years.

Probably 2 more aliases from Sunmoron. Still, who cares, the club looks set to survive and that's what counts. It won't be overnight but hopefully we are seeing the start of a steady but upward curve again after 6 years of almost vertical decline.

I'm really chuffed if this comes off in the next 20 days. The fans now need to unite and we need to regain the solidarity that we had and forget all the wranglings from Guy Askham and chums, they are consigned to the garbage bin of history. There will be a Saints to watch and in the long-term, a more competitive one at that it would appear. At this stage, a big well done to all involved and fingers crossed it all goes through now.

I'd be inclined to agree with this post. It's horrible for the staff but having been in this position myself, unless they have another job lined up that is better (unlikely in a recession and Southampton hasn't exactly been laden with skilled jobs available in recent years although it is a decent place to commute from with the fast rail links and airport) I'd stick with it. Fry seems a bit more confident IMO.

They always are as a creditor sadly. I agree with Adrian, its the real staff that suffer the consequences of the last 5 years gross mismanagement. It amazes me that players and other football clubs get total priority. Perhaps if they didn't, it might act as a brake on the most stupid risk-taking and gambling from clubs, players and their agents.

True but the city needs to smarten up one heck of a lot as a stop-off/arrival/departure on cruises. Yes, there's a plush new lounge at the dock but visitors would have little clue about the rich maritime and social history, stretching back to the time of Hamwic. Given a number of those visitors are likely to be American, this is an appalling omission. Hopefully the HLF-funded 2012 project for Titanic will liven up that side of things.

The City Centre is tatty and grey, the former Tyrell & Green units continue to fester and collect moss, the post-war prefabs look shabby and spoil the parks. Knock down the lot and rebuild facing the parks, not obscuring them and open the centre up. Inward investment is badly needed, we need bigger employers in the area, not just Skandia Life. Ocean Village is a sham now, ruined by greed in the same way the football club has been. There is still a lot of potential - Greater Southampton is a large catchment area, 2 Universities and good FE provision, just need to attract the inward investment to stop the outflux of skilled young professionals. All the city's economy offers is burger jobs, service sector/retail and financial services (although the skilled stuff is based in Salisbury or Basingstoke) and this has to change. The transport infrastructure is a killer - when I was in Sydney earlier this year the ferry system from Circular Quay was so effective and could run from Town Quay. Imagine how much easier it would be to commute from Waterside without having to squeeze onto the Hythe Ferry? Restore Thomas Lewis Way to being a 70mph M27 direct link as it was originally intended. The shopping is good and highly-rated but lets try and make sure people can actually access it! Ocean Village needs more places to have relaxation time and needs some high profile buildings to restore the good times. As for the Spinnaker, it is a landmark and from a distance looks awesome although close-up it looks like Lego but it gives Portsmouth Harbour a much bigger profile so we shouldn't copy it but a cluster of genuinely tall buildings with some big names attracted would give profile and provide the skilled jobs needed. We should make more of the medieval quarter and our city's rich heritage and restore it to being the home of ocean sailing.

Great post. I'm a B but turning into C as I'm newly married and to be honest I can't justify peeing that much money up the wall next season as I have the last few years when the team/boardroom aren't putting anything in. Saints now have to earn their keep like the other leisure expenditures in my life. Earning their keep means I want to see 100% effort from players and boardroom, I've never had huge expectations on results but I do expect and grew up with a club that cared. Unfortunately, the club decided to treat us as "customers" in the good times and wanted us to become diehards when the going got tough without committing to any change themselves. Sorry, life doesn't work like that.

There is an ignore option if you don't want to read his posts. I like a lot of your posts GM but this one was simply going to polarise opinion and cause yet more bickering and surprise surprise it has. SLH could not sustain that overhead GM and lower gates brought the inevitable sooner than most of us would have liked - administration is never to be wished for. There's no way we would have got the buyout needed for survival last year with all of those egos in the way.

Norwich away for me as I have a stag weekend to go to with a Norwich-supporting friend who wants to go to their first home game of the season.

I just don't think that this really helps to be honest GM. The club needs a buyer and once it has that it has to rediscover what being Southampton Football Club means. That CAN happen now with the demise of the major shareholders and those pulling the strings such as Guy Askham. I didn't want administration and we can see why but it was inevitable given the share deadlock Guy Askham left behind. We had no chance of getting this club sold with those pillocks still involved as recently as this year. The reality of running a club is that you take a lot of enjoyable glory in the public eye when you succeed - as Rupert did 1997-2003 and rightly so. He also deserved the considerable flak 2004-9 (excluding 2006-2008) for poor performance although the boards at the time should have removed him as CEO. That's what you sign up to. Right now, you get a lot of club for money with SFC but that overhead that has been built needs considerable investment to maintain it - the academy alone costs a basic £4-5m per year to run. Did I go to games? Yes but it was torture last year as there were few home games where the players gave 100%. The squad was just a cheaper version of the 2004/5 squad that sunk without a shread of fight. I never want to see players bottling 50/50s like we saw in the Forest and Doncaster games ever again.

People should forget about the idea of SCC buying the stadium. I'm sure the intentions were genuine but there is not the cross-party support for it to happen at present I understand and SCC are unlikely to seriously consider it unless the club itself is secured which as we can see from this thread seems some way still off happening. Do remember though that Fry's priority is creditors and not SFC. The Jackson bid would be a disaster IMO but if they meet or get close the price and exhaust their funds and the other parties hang back because they'd rather invest the money in going forward - wealthy people don't like wasting money - that is not Fry's problem.

If we do survive, we should absolutely slaughter them when they return with other clubs in the future - loads of "Southampton reject", "you are a f*cking disgrace" and boo their every touch until they get subbed at half-time because that's the sort of weak scum they are.

Trouble is, how many of Saints players in the last 5 years have tried or made a tackle? In fact, a lot of very poor players earn fantastic money at most clubs outside of the PL (and quite a few in the PL as well) and I don't blame hard-pressed fans for turning on them. Football is awful VFM now and I actually quite fancy watching L1 football with some real players if we can be saved. At least we'll be rid of useless tarts like Surman and BWP, let alone Gasmi and one of the worst ever players I've seen at any level of sport, Lancashire.

Michael Martin is resigning then I take it?

Yep, thirded. Some of the people on this thread are doing my head in though, the club hasn't been financed or run properly by ANY of the parties since 2004 so administration was unpleasant - as we finding out - but inevitable. Secure Retirement was never the right option in 1996 for anyone bar Guy Askham and chums (Rupert probably wishes he hadn't gone near us) and Wilde in 2006 was an awful frying pan to a white hot fire. Let's put the name-calling to one side and hope we still have a club to support eh?

Good call, Billy Clarke would be useful at L1 level as well as Keane makes room for some has-beens. Hopefully we'll get a buyer soon so we can get the best frees available.

I'd agree on the stadium certainly and also the sell-on clauses although some deals oddly - Crouch for example - didn't have them. A number of clubs have had wage drops for relegation built in, notably Bolton. Lowe has to be credited with appointing Hoddle and Strachan and actually Jones did quite well although I agreed with Rupert's decision to put him on "leave". The academy initially was a Rupert success after Askham's appalling incompetence let it rot but increasing the overhead in 05/06 wasn't smart post-relegation. SCW should have been put on ice pending a proper promotion push. Not a Redknapp fan but that couldn't have been an easy job with that circus going on the background.

I saw that, pathetic gate from Reading although didn't Burnley take their goals well? Owen Coyle has done an amazing job there and they have a great chance of beating Sheff Utd with the likes of Paterson - who I think is a Sheff Utd youth product originally! I really believe that if we could overcome the -10 penalty and push into the playoffs in the later part of next season that we could get in excess of 25k and pushing 30k for Leeds if they don't beat Millwall.

Cheers Eyes, takeovers in most industries are last minute, let alone when they fairly complex as this one will be. Pompey fans might hate us scummers but you'd miss the derby games if you were never able to have one again. Don't think Brighton or Bournemouth would quite be the same for you lot although Millwall are on the up again I suppose if they win the L1 play-offs.