SaintBobby

Selling Skacel wouldn't fend off interest in other players. But, my best guess is that we need to sell players to appease the bank. In particular, we need to cut the payroll (rather than necessarily generate transfer fees). We've already shipped out a lot of the high earners. Were Rudi to go, it doesn't stop Spurs making an offer for Surman or Lallana, but it might mean we don't have to keep accepting any offer we get for any player.

Weirdly, I'm enjoying following Saints more this season than at any time since the FA Cup final and 8th placed finish. Maybe it's just some sort of masochistic perversity, but I think there are some signs of real hope despite the pretty grim financial and league position. I think we do play good football. At times at least. Not massively effectively sometimes. But much better than last year. On the pitch, the only realistic aim this season can be to avoid relegation. I reckon we'll achieve that. Off the pitch, the only realistic aim can be to sort out our leakage of money. I reckpon we might sort that out too. This is a grim place to have got to, but I think we have a good chance of turning it round over the medium term. But patience is always in short supply in football.

I just wrote up my match report and wondered after wards if I'd been a little harsh. http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/news/loadnews.asp?cid=TMNW&id=420877 I think we'll probably end up mid-lower table rather than a relegation scrap. But maybe that's just blind faith.

The extra money from merchandising, catering sales etc. if pretty tiny. Perhaps a very, very optimistic maximum of £3 profit a a person? So, maybe an additional £50,000 at absolute best. Worth having, but no great shakes. I agree though that there isn't much imagination in maximising revenues. Obvious thing is to tie ticket sales to having to purpose seats for a future league match, surely.

Yes it would. But on a basic probabilty model, we're more likely to draw some middle-ranking team (and lose). So, mathematically, we'd be better off "banking" an Od Trafford replay.

Looks like we could make about £500,000 from the Man Utd game, but as others have pointed out, this isn't really "neat profit" in a budgetary sense. A fairly "standard" game (say, against a middle-ranking Championship team) would net about £100,000. And we'd have a better chance of winning such a game, netting a £50,000 win bonus and getting more revenue in the 4th, 5th round etc. In terms of cash revenue - if you make the pessimistic assumption that Sainst will lose to Man Utd - the windfall is about the same as e.g beating Blackpool in the 3rd round, Coventry in the 4th round and then losing to Cardiff in the 5th round. What's really perverse is that we are probably better off drawing the match than winning it. A replay at Old Trafford could net us over £750,000 which is probably more than we'd get from subsequent fixtures if we actually knocked Man Utd out. If we are 1-0 up with 30 seconds to go, then in financial terms, we're probably best advised to score a deliberate own goal. Just another twisted example of the impact of finance on the national game.

Just finished my match report on the train home. A very frustrating evening was made worse by missing the 10pm train by ten seconds... http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/news/loadnews.asp?cid=TMNW&id=419120

I'm not a fan of Rupert Lowe particularly. Agonisingly for him most of his cheerleaders on here also do him more harm than good. BUT: 1. The behaviour of the last board was utterly comedic (although also tragic for fans). I have absolutely no idea how Crouch, Wilde etc. have made so much money in their professional careers. As far as Saints were concerned, they couldn't manage a calculator. The balance sheet - on player wages alone - last year is just horrific. 2. This may be (just) excusable - as a desperate gamble - if we had, for example, lost the play off final at Wembley on penalties. The truth was we struggled to stay in the division at all and our fate was out of our own hands on the final day. The money spent to results achieved was utterly appalling. 3. The financial position of the club - if not promoted - must have been obvious to a Key Stage I semi-competent 11 year old maths student. Yet there was no indication that the board realised this, even when promotion was a logical impossibility. 4. The Crouch-led board apparently had no Plan B. In event of relegation to the third tier (which they nearly presided over) the culling would have been even worse. But the only way to keep the show on the road was to start selling every asset that moved and quite a few that didn't. To suggest otherwise is eitehr fantasy or living int he past or both. 5. The suggestions that the club was about to be taken over by some billionaire were utterly laughable. It's not as if we JUST failed to be bought out by Paul Allen, there was never any serious interest on his part to buy the club. Or in the other various other absurd fantasies doing the rounds. There is some evidence to suggest that the previous board either fell for this schoolboy nonsense or used it for PR reasons to deflect from reality. That's dishonest, incompetent or both. 6. In normal circumstances, there just isn't going to be much "new" money in football for a while. We can all dream that some Russian oligarch or Abu Dhabi sheik is suddenly going to decide to through a billion in our direction for a bit of a giggle, but in the absence of such an intervention, we need to know where we are. 7. Fans don't have to make the tough financial choices. So often we will argue to push the envelope (example: the argument that we must sign Richard Wright if we possibly can, but now all singing about having the best keeper in the division). The truth is that we don't really know the size of the envelope or its "pushability". I count myself into this category. 8. Southampton FC - along with the overwhelming majority of football clubs in England - is a tiny enterprise. Haven't checked the lastest share prices, but I'm guessing the whole gig can be bought for about £10m. Maybe £20m to be sure and build in a buffer. This is nickel and dime stuff in business terms. 9. This makes a buyout by well-organised fans eminently possible. Probably not the case for the big Premiership clubs, but very easy for the smaller clubs. For Saints, it requires c.10,000 people to invest £1000 each. Or c. 2,000 to invest £5,000 each. This shouldn't be a big ask. 10. But it is a big ask. For all the talk about fans wanting to have a stake in things, not wanting to be treated as "consumers" etc when it actually comes to it, we want to witness the success of our club while others shoulder/manage the financial cost and risk. Because of points 1 - 6, Leon Crouch should not be allowed to return in any serious organisational capacity. Because of points 7 - 10, there is no serious current alternative to Lowe as Chairman.

there is zero chance of him returning dont treat ur source as "pretty reliable" ever again

I'm not sure this is right. We have to be keener to get the high wage-earners off the wage bill. We'd probably accept peanuts (even zero?) for Euell and Skacel, as we save £500,000 per year just by showing them the door. However, I could see us turning down, say, a £0.5m offer for Lallana. I also think we have obliterated so much of the wage bill that at some point - now? - we have enough slack to not have to accept any offer for any player. I agree with those who say that the new set-up looks promising, but also with those who caution that three games does not make a season. Overall, I think anything better than a relegation scrap would count as a success this year. Getting into - or near the play-offs - would be stunning.