saint1977

Not having a pop WC but many of my favourite times as a Saints fan since LM's first spell as a kid were under WGS - Chelsea away winning 4-2, Arsenal home 3-2, Beatts hat-trick V Fulham (on a really windy Sunday), Fulham away with Niemi hitting the bar and then there was the FA Cup, not least that 4-0 demolition of Hoddle's Spurs which has to go down as one of the finest ever Saints performances, let alone on live Saturday night TV. Then we got him the sack with a 3-1 home defeat the next season! I can also remember wins over Man U and an entertaining 3-2 win over Charlton.

May I add another slash into the overflowing bucket?

First of all WGS is my favourite Saints manager behind LM but I will answer your question Nick. He did sign some crud in summer 2003 - Kenton, McCann (a long-term target) and Phillips who was OK but attitude stank. Trouble is, the club had this daft policy of signing players in May/June as they had to pay them over that summer which meant that the better bargains had already been snapped up. Phillips was signed in August and had only had a patchy pre-season so we didn't see the best of him until the second-half of the season although I always thought he wanted to go to Boro anyway. WGS had one hand tied behind his back at a time when the club really should have kicked on and we went for bulk over quality. I think that 2003 was a watershed. At that point, I thought Lowe was doing a good job and was happy for him to stay on but I wish he'd bought out the senile Askham, Richards, Hunt, Wiseman and co and brought in some proper investors in their places on the board to really take the club the extra mile which at that time we all believed it could take. SFC was very marketable and even if WGS had still left, we would have been able to attract a manager of equal charisma and profile. Sadly, sticking with the old guard that Secure Retirement apart had put nothing in, started the slide.

Simon Clifford MKII from the sounds of it. Rupert does like his "gurus".

Good post and I also agree with 70's Mike below. It's NOT all Rupert's fault, far from it, but he doesn't acknowledge the mistakes he made. I don't expect him to do that publically but I DO expect him not to consistently repeat them as he continues to do.

Actually, that's the other thing I meant to say. Every decision is a risk but it's about quantifying that risk. If you bring in someone who knows Ls 1&2, the SPL and has contacts in nearby national leagues in Europe, that risk is reduced a bit. If you bring someone in who probably hasn't been to a CCC game ever before, that increases the risk signficantly. Look at some of the players Martinez has brought in for Swansea for peanuts yet I thought the whole point of Wotte was to try and bring in the next Ferry Bodde (minus the injured cruciate...)?

Fair, considered post GTF. Lallana I think could still be an asset in this situation but Drew, after a really bright start this season, has been very poor later last year and so far this year. I know Rupert would be hammered on here and I'll get hammered now for saying it but if we were offered £3-3.5m, I'd rip someone's hand off. I know Drew says he wants to stay etc and I'm sure he's giving 100% but he looks off the pace, stale and a bit disinterested. I think Drew needs a fresh start and we need the money. The morale seems to be very low overall, there is very little bounce about the lads and even the more pleasant football from earlier in the season seems to have gone. On Saturday you would struggle to say they played for JP yet Doncaster, with similar resources to us, played for O'Driscoll, won most of the challenges and are probably a good striker away from a decent CCC side.

Agreed but with a better knowledge of UK football, we may have found a player like Jason Scotland at Swansea say that wouldn't have cost a great deal. As for Euell, sadly no club is going to take him unless he's desperate for first XI action wherever he can get it. I wouldn't pay him £1500 a week. Whoever signed that deal and authorised it - surprise surprise Mr Wiseman's name popped up again - should be shot.

Ground-sharing with Bournemouth! Lol! There are elements of merit in this post but I've noticed a tendency in your posts to blame the fans. Also VS, who signed Rasiak - you'll find it was Rupert Lowe and it broke the wage celing. We were not "forced" to take the Dutch experiment, it was a CONCIOUS CHOICE by the board and even on the breadline, it was not the only game in town. Appointing someone with a UK scouting network that could have found gems in Leagues 1 & 2 and even the SPL would have been far better and wouldn't have cost much more at all. In fact, we've spent more money by employing Gorre since and wasted money on loan players we haven't used. Not having a pop but please let's pack in this "it's all the fans fault". It wasn't people's fault that Woolworth's went bust, it was badly run and lacked vision and direction. Not much different to SFC. I don't deny that Wilde and Hone did the club a lot of harm 2006-8, the decision to sign Euell let alone pay him a £200k retainer is stupid and whoever did it needs shooting. But let's not pretend like the OS does that everything occured 2006-8, we know better.

I agree with 99% of that post but do remember Adrian that the pricing HAS to be appropriate. Leeds are the best example of this too - they got poor gates (15-18/19k) regularly in one of their early (possibly 04/05) seasons as Bates was charging far too much even though the team were doing well. A modest adjustment the following season even though Leeds were doing not so well saw the gates in the high 20s & 30k region+ again. Moreover, Leeds fans were at least paying for some players you could recognise. Mugs like us are shelling out pretty good money for raw kids - in the case of Lallana, Mills and Gobern I don't mind as much as they will be fine players, possibly in the PL but I'm not even sure the likes of Lancashire and McG will even make it in the professional game. I think McG will be a Drew Broughton type player - made his debut at 17 in CCC equivalent but lost his way seems to be at a different League 2 club every season and scores about 15 goals.

Yes, the reality is that life was rather easier for Rupert when Sky money was flowing in but he did manage it well on 15000 gates in the late 90s, got SMS built on time and budget and brought in good managers - Jones (IMO), Hoddle and WGS. He made one mistake with Gray but didn't learn from it and didn't just stop at repeating it with Wigley either. I think Rupert did actually realise in 2003/4 that we badly needed investment to become a regular top 10 club but he was so wedded to Askham and co and at 6% shareholding he was a bit stuck for how to move forward. He thought he could beat the system and "grow our own" (Saints had actually being doing this for decades anyway apart from a dry spell under Askham where the club wasn't invested in and rotted) but the fantasy took our eye off of the ball in 2004/5 as relegation became a distracted first CCC season as the first team became a non-priority and we lost our focus. After the failed fantasy, the Theo money became a "Warchest" and unable to provide a clear vision, Lowe fell to Wilde. Wilde appointed some bad cookies - Hone and co. and the situation of 05/06 where Lowe "didn't know where the next penny was coming from" snowballed under Wilde and Hone and Lowe can't be blamed for that but is a utter fallacy to say Lowe left the club in great shape in 2006. Anyone to tries to spin that on here shouldn't be given credibility. In answer to your 2nd question - JP shouldn't have been appointed in the first place and wasn't right for the circumstances and the good judgement that Rupert showed, aided by Sky in the late 90s and early 00s is gone.

Yes but most people have to make the best of limited resources in their job. Most of the high earners have gone now so that excuse cannot be hidden behind for JP. He seems decent guy but 1 slightly fortunate home win (Norwich battered us on early on and the woodwork and Kelvin saved us before Robertson scored a beauty out of the blue) all season in the league is poor even in the circumstances. On Saturday, Doncaster, a club with resources that are still less than ours, clearly played with more determination, effort, fitness, pride and the better football. Many of those characteristics are not linked to how much someone earns. That becomes important when a club is bringing in extra quality to unlock teams to challenge for promotion and that's not where we are at.

I'd agree with large parts of that but the statement about Wilde is wrong, Wilde was openly talking about the play-offs on the OS, I don't recall Rupert commenting on his expectations. You do make so good and fair points here and there is a lot truth in it but the club have picked this route rather than trying to find gems from the lower leagues or top-end of non-league. To be honest, there are probably a select band of players at the top-end of the Conference that are more ready than some of our academy lads - look at Kightly, McLean, McKail-Smith and it's that level where some of our young lads should be cutting their teeth, not the CCC. A lad like Lancashire should be learning his trade at somewhere like Eastleigh or Bognor and if he does well, he could progress on to somewhere like Eastbourne or Salisbury during the season and perhaps get a game if we went down. Guys from League 1 and possibly League 2 players could have stepped up even more convincingly and mixed with the CREAM of our young players. I agree with CB Fry's recent posts, this was a concious choice by the club and they are accountable for it, even within the financial restrictions it was NOT the only game in town.

That final paragraph really sums it up and is probably very near the truth. I may not like Rupert but the bloke has balls, more than Wilde, Askham, Richards and all of those other inbred tarts combined. Trouble is, he also has become a poor CEO and a shadow of his former self.

I thought that too until recently but his absence Saturday was very telling plus the reference to Mrs Lowe's opposition to him remaining at SFC. He won't worry about some chanting and a demo but if it escalates - and it did under Branfoot - he may decide to cut his losses. Cowen seems to have been particularly downbeat recently and that may have an impact on Lowe as well.

If you want good ale, Guide Dog is an option but not great for kids. New Inn might be good still - haven't been in there for a while. The Alex is a good shout. I'm told the new JDW nr. Ocean Village (or what's left of it after more SCC incompetence) is decent but can't vouch for that personally.

I believe you Bob, as ever, it's the OS that I have trouble seeing as credible!

Bale is more of a LM than a LB and Spurs have been misfiring badly. He'll come good. Baird is a different matter. Whilst I loved the fact CB gave 110%, his reading of the game as a centre-back got him out of trouble in 06/07 and we conceded a lot of goals from set-pieces that season. He scored a couple of superb goals but to get £3m for him was very good business. He's a tidy CCC player but not consistently PL although he can do well at that level on a good day.

Didn't the OS article when we signed him claim that he came because of JP's reputation in the Netherlands?

I don't blame Lowe for happened to George Bowyer but I do blame grubby men like Askham, Richards, Wiseman et al. The fact Askham is STILL involved actually sickens me. It's very rare I say something this severe but we're stuck with Askham until he finally drops off of his perch.

The best Soton sides have all had good width, we have been so narrow this season it's untrue. The only players (with the odd exception from DMG) that has tried to get wide and put a decent cross in are Holmes and to an extent Skacel. James might do the same on the right if we actually bought a proper professional RB behind him. James will be good RM but everyone bar JP can see he is not a RB.

Great ideas. Trouble is, judging by today's article in Rupert's favourite paper (the Mail), it seems he already is planning for administration. Either that, or he wants a quick and dirty sell before they go into it - won't be much good without Askham & cronies, particularly Wilde.

Correct. We've got bigger things to worry about though at the moment!

There's a lot of truth on there and I've posted many times saying that Lowe did well 1997-2003. What I do disagree with is that PLC status has had nothing to do with the current rot - the tangled web Askham left has made moving forward very hard and has left 3 people who cannot stand each other locked in to a bad situation whilst Askham and Wiseman cleaned up years ago. Nevertheless, football is in a very false period at the moment and I rue the day Ambramovich wheeled his dirty roubles into save Chelsea as this was a bad tipping point. PL greed had just about kept the lid on at that point and there were elements of meritocracy.

True but it was mismanagement by ALL regimes 2004-present if we're being honest John. Mismanagement doesn't just equate to overspending on wages, it can be a lack of focus and overspending on unnecessary overheads in the first parachute season (2005/6) or bad appointments (Wilde, Crouch, Lowe please step forward). I'm not particuarly pro-Crouch either but let's not re-write history.