Gordon Mockles

Did chuckle at that and liked the "lightweight player" question which Jan wasn't too good at answering, more fobbing the guy off saying in heavy, muddy winter months lightweight players may come off better. Didn't see how and he didn't really explain. :confused: See if Svensson can beat the recorded "you know" responses in a single sentence record! I counted 7 "you knows" in one short ditty! LOL bless him!! Someone call Norris Mc Whirter!!

Is it me or is Jan being very tentative when asked about finance questions or anything more probing? It's nice to hear them chatting but I think there's a few questions all fans want to ask in current circumstances. I'll give them a chance but so far it's been pretty lame and one phone in guy doing nothing but praise the football we play. Seems odd considering results. We've had glimpses but nothing to write home about. He seems edgey and nervous. Could be radio nerves & language barrier slightly but I don't think so completely. Jan's answer in response to the question about keeping Surman and Lallana and finances was avoided pretty well (in any depth) and Lowe's name not even mentioned. He is the director of football/chairman/running the show at St Mary's, isn't he?! (or is that a badly kept secret?!) Seems to like the power but won't have his name mentioned or was that Jan being discrete? Bet he has a mantra to read from. Sorry. Being cynical. Hope the interview gets a bit more probing with current team matters, not just this window dressing. Suppose, what did we expect?! Blow some more smoke please Stuart! Interesting to hear some more calls due...SOMEONE PHONE IN AND ASK A PROPER QUESTION (if it gets through the Radio Hants filter although they are now supposed to be independent!)

DON'T BE DAFT!! Saints never learnt from past lessons. You, of all people, should know that Alpine, m' old fruit!

NO SH*T! The Echo, and their levels of investigative journalism, sometimes astound me. In fact, I bet Lowell Bergman (Al Pacinio - re: 'The Insider') is quaking at their levels of expertise, delving and recruitment of whistle blowers (errrr, Saints trust member anyone?! LOL)

Yeah, that's only cos Javi's been blo*dy spamming everyone with e-mails about it...again! Pahhh!!! I don't care!! (no offence to you Hamster!)

Rudi has one of his best games in the Derby play off as left back. Looked good and got forward and delivered some penetrating balls. Seeing as we have a total lack of full backs, an experienced player like Rudi, who can fit into the Total football system (if there was any truth in that pre-season hype) would be a necessity. He can overlap and send players forward to attack and play the forward (should be forwards!!) through and into the game (well, send some forward - not sure about Mc Goldrick!) Pleased to see him back and hoping the axis have discovered their lack of foresight (in leaving out pretty much all the experienced players and selling the better players) was about as short-sighted and misguided as a Sundance monolgue!!

What time?

The ‘person’ Sundance is a bigoted, snob idiot who just comes out with poorly written, verbose nonsense, thinly trying to veil himself as an intellectual but failing miserably. Arrogant! Always trying, and often succeeding, to provoke some responses and get some much needed attention. Need a hug Sundance? Your words clearly sound like a cry for help. Sundance, obviously (like his beloved Lowe), knows next to nothing about football and spits venom when attendances fall and people dismiss and ridicule the axis of idiots he purports to represent. Why is that? Is your share holding threatened and you’re tightly grasped wallet emptier than usual?! LOL The best parts are the obsessive compulsion to berate Pearson, a good man and a popular manager who won many over during his short, but relatively successful tenure. Is this part of the doctrine your ‘camp’ instruct you to ram down the throats of the proper Southampton fans?! Or, is this another of your wildly obscure views?! LMAOWASSO Back to your outpatients waiting room in the asylum, old bean! I’m glad my prediction was wrong, along with all my work colleagues. Funnily enough, US SAINTS FANS seem to always be proven wrong when we expect (and predict) a Saints drubbing in our office sweep stake. Maybe we should bet against Saints more often?! LOL

Ouch! You got dropped on your head when you were young eh?! All bitter and twisted. LOL :rip:

Post of the week for the ludicrous and deluded stance! Is the fact accepting Saints are so p*ss poor they can’t beat the likes of Blackpool, Watford, Barnsley and Ipswich at home, and have suffered heavy defeats to the mighty Rotherham, QPR and Coventry too much for you to take?! I’d say the comments of everyone are “realistic”, whereas your expectations seem the “unrealistic” and deluded. Have you been watching the games?! If you even suggest that Lowe has made the best of a bad situation, then you really are in need of a padded bus and lots of cuddles! I feel we would have been ok with Pearson (not doing so bad at Leicester eh?) and no change was needed but we all know the levels of arrogance in the Lowe camp prevent this and he’s back to finish his dirty work. We would not be in administration, but you obviously fell for the spin. I am in no doubt the total lack of respect for the supporters, the media blackout, closing of the corners, the selling of all our best senior players and the point blank refusal to play the remaining pros (whilst even bringing kids in on loan, not experienced pros) in favour of this reserve team experiment conducted by Lowe’s ultimate “YES MAN”, Poortvliet, have all helped the attendances to plummet. That is more likely to send us into admin. Maybe that’s the plan! I wonder why such ludicrous decisions are being made: playing one striker upfront AND persisting with Mc Goldrick as that sole striker (when he is so clearly a useless forward), loaning out all the strikers able to get goals, using the loan system to bring in injured kids (NOT experienced players fit and ready to play) and rumours rife about who is influencing the manager’s decisions?! Yep, Wilde and Lowe have done a good job yet again! *splutters* Not content in f*cki’n our club up the first time, both the numb skulls are back to finish us off. My worrying question is, WHY? The decisions are almost so bad, it could be classed as deliberate. Surely no-one in their right mind (maybe bar Rupert Lowe) who understands FOOTBALL (obviously not Lowe) would think these decisions would work, would they?! Even arm chair fans knew this was a disaster waiting to happen. We had no defenders or full backs brought in pre season, goal scorers loaned out, the remaining seniors left in the cold/told they weren’t wanted, and our best 2 players (who may have got us out of this hole) SOLD. Brilliant!! Genius. You reap what you sow. Still, maybe Lowe and Wilde are after doing a Ken Bates as Rupes was certainly bemused when Saints scored against Sheff Utd last day of the season…“the lucky bar stewards!” Sheff Utd. 3 v 1 Saints.

The bloke is a grade A tw*t! Other than the renown failure of Michael Wilde at St Mary’s, his lack of backbone and total inability to deliver on his forlorn and notorious manifesto (which largely landed us in this quagmire), he has the audacity to bleat on about credit crunch, finances, poor attendances and weathering the economic storm (laughable when you consider his contribution to SFC), while posing for a photo on the expansive lawn surrounding, what I must assume, is his sizeable home. *Gets up from falling around the floor laughing* Hardly appropriate to the article or is he actually taking the p*ss?! You’ve got to laugh at Mike, and the Echo, for their short sighted and foolish mindset. Not surprising though. In fact, usual p*ss-poor, laughably cringey journalism from the Daily Echo/Saints boardroom. LOL

I think you’ve brought up a good, relevant point. I, personally, believe the responsibility for our dramatic fall from grace (& grasp of any form of success) is the culmination of all these dark shadows which have enveloped our sorry club. Consider the events of the past 5 years (or more, depending on the timescale you want to consider/cover) and people are well justified to make Notts Forest, Leeds or Luton equations. We’ve had numerous management swaps, infighting, self-serving boardrooms, every bright starlet sold as soon as they hit form, manager merry-go-arounds, all our remaining stars (new and older) SOLD, poor quality players brought in, numerous fake/empty takeover rumours, Lowe and Wilde returning, poor results, Burley, some hope with Pearson quelled by Lowe’s change of management, egos, Hone and co holding the club hostage while Wilde & co hid in the shadows, PLC related cr*p, grudges, An exodus of players (even the youth) all too keen to get out the door, debts and poor decision after poor decision (both by board, chairman and managers), poor media relations and disdain towards the fans…basically, nothing but BAD news. The punishing and cementing factor, imho, for the fans is the apparent attitude of the so called guardians of our club in recent times (when you consider Askham, Lowe, Redknapp, Burley, Wilde, Hone/Dulieu and the aging pros that clearly had no desire to play, only for pay, etc.). I.E. NOT ONE PERSON OF ANY STATURE (SENIOR/MANAGEMENT/CHAIRMEN) HAS GIVEN A SH*T ABOUT OUR CLUB IN RECENT YEARS (maybe bar Crouch but he was slow to act and wasn’t ideal, but did care imho). INSTEAD, THEY HAVE CONTINUALLY SERVED THEIR OWN, SUREPTITIOUS AGENDAS. I mean, we all come to watch and enjoy football. Football fans may be fickle but they do deserve respect, as any customer does. Football fans like to see people running a club that care, or at least try and create that impression. We’ve had our name dragged across the media for all the wrong reasons – fake takeover & transfer rumours galore (and players arriving with a pedigree about as exciting as an xmas day omnibus of Eastenders!) and infighting from the boardroom, management shifts resulting in yet more failed managerial appointments (ironically, appointment 10.) made by Lowe – Burley (the less said the better – watch the Scotland press for Burley to be finally seen for what he really is), then Pearson offered some hope and proved popular with the fans in his extremely difficult tenure – appointment Made by Crouch, Only for Pearson to be offloaded at the first opportunity upon the widely refuted return of Wilde and Lowe and subsequent appointment of the Dutch duo (by Lowe), whilst playing practically an entire youth team squad (after disposing of our the last of our performing, senior professionals) against men in a long and arduous league/season. This season will see the outcome of that management decision (I am waiting until Xmas to give my full judgement) but it was (and will remain) a highly risky, and many believe, foolhardy strategy without much consideration for the good of the club. More, a protection of an investment by a man (or men, if you consider Wilde and the other puppets) without any football knowledge or idea about the sporting business and a proven failure. It’s no wonder so many fans have had enough and are staying away (and let’s not even mention the words “Sky” and “TV”).

I think a lot of people are beyond caring. I go to St Mary’s but I often have spare season tickets and can’t give them away for free. Sad reflection on how we’ve fallen really. This forum is much like St Mary’s – falling attendance. It’s nothing like it used to be but, when you’ve idiots like Scooby and Sundance (amongst others) bleating on their ridiculously one-sided, narrow minded, bigoted ‘Lowe agenda’ driven nonsense, you can understand why people stay away. We sometimes play ok football but it was always going to be an awkward season – what do you expect?! Boys against men. We’ve picked up a couple of results against poor teams but that is it. We rely on Mc Goldrick too much (who is sh*te imho) and, as I have continually bemoaned, and we have a thread bare/p*ss poor defence (having cleared out all our best performing defenders over the past 2 seasons). This was always going to be a problem when we (yet again) failed to strengthen the obviously weak areas – defence (especially full back positions). Do we need more proof this is a problem area? Or will we leave it too late, as always seems the SFC mantra?! I don’t get as angered by SFC defeats anymore as I don’t expect much more with the weak line up we field and, not meaning to trample on our grave, it will surely get worse when Lallana and possibly Surman or Davis are sold in January. That’s life at St Mary’s – an asset stripped, failing club with plummeting attendances run by a bunch of charlatans. A shame but inevitable when you consider the management merry-go-round we have endured. Infighting, self-serving agendas, power struggles and egos before club and a plethora of shocking decisions plaguing our incompetent club since our Premiership demise. I blame Burley for a lot of that, not to mention the board but that’s another story.

I was really pleased for Kelvin last night. Since last season, he’s really come into form and shown his true capabilities. As was mentioned, being a keeper is a funny old game. You can shine one minute, and just not do right the next. Fortunately, Kelvin seems to fall into the furst category at the moment. It must give him a boost too – to have won the fans and doubters over (me included, not too big to say!). To go from being continually jeered and stressing at the fans (funnily enough, under Burley) to having his name chanted around the ground was heart warming. Good on ya Kelv, long may it continue. You’ve kept us in quite a few games and we need that right now.

I am extremely pleased to say, GREAT GAME!! Couldn't ask for more. That's 2 games knocking 4 off our negative goal difference, confidence steeply increasing (we needed it!), a dominating performance when the luck (for a change) went our way, loads of chances, neat, intricate passing, plenty of action & the Skate got sent off!! Jordan made an impressive debut (looking at his stats, he likes scoring in debuts) & Lallana superb. Was Cork in the holding role as he looked controlled, composed & superb? Thought Mills did well at LB (prefer him to Surman) & Davis was outstanding. We scored the opener on the break & Davis made the stop at a pivotal time which could have totally changed the game. Proves how important the right moves (crucial saves & a goal to drop opposition heads) are in winning a game. Norwich seemed to totally lose it after looking threatening early on. Superb game. More of the same please... Except Bradley. He's rubbish!

LOL – I saw the highlights of the Rotherham game recently and noticed Bart was in goal and, once again, his positioning looked very poor and shady for the goal (was it the final goal) where he had a hissy fit. Must admit, did chuckle (and thought “typical Bart”) when he was caught totally off guard and frantically waving both arms above his head as he stamped up and down like a petulant kid who had had his ball taken away. I didn’t see the entire match so I’m not well placed to comment (i.e. didn’t see the defending) but 3 goals conceded isn’t good whichever way you look at it. I have given Kelvin a hard time in the past but I go back on my words and I now much prefer Davis over Bart (despite some saying Bart hasn’t had a chance but, to be fair, he’s looked weak 95% of the time he’s played). In fact, Davis has been excellent this term and I thank him for his efforts (long may it continue). I hope we hang onto him this season as every glimpse or flicker of hope quickly gets extinguished at this club! January will be a worrying time with the vultures circling the proverbial Saints carcass.

Completely agree with this (good) post but it seems a bit late now (with Jordan arriving - is that our last loan allowed?!) My friend's Dad used to be Brian's manager at tyro level and Howard is exactly the type of experienced, physical player that, I believe, wouldn't cost the earth but would, at the same time, contribute positively to the strength of the squad (especially if we reverted to playing TWO upfront and stopped relying on Mc Goldrick!) In hindsight, he may not be as cheap as some initially anticipated but a valuable asset with our current squad strength, age and depth of experience.

Would tie in with the Lowe response at our fight back (and subsequent goal against Sheffield Utd.) during the final day of the season at St Mary’s….”Lucky b*stards!” Ruin the master plan did it? Secure retirement or Tom Scott’s under-pant emporium as a cheap takeover vehicle for holding company?! Can see it now – 'Rupert’s hands lay in Tom’s pants!!'

Ouch! handbags ladies please....

I think it's clear now - Lowe must be trying to destroy us or get us relegated. No person with half a brain would sanction any of these decisions for the good of the club. Wonder who will buy us cheaply to make a tidy profit in years to come....hmmmm???

A new trend that worries me in football of today is the smaller, naïve clubs like Saints accepting transfer deals that don’t involve the full payment – MONEY DOWN ON THE TABLE! The fans are led to believe the club have made a tidy packet, as it sometimes the case, but the full figure quoted across the tabloids is not always as lucrative as the quote figure suggests (much like advertising – where they draw you in with LARGE PRINT, ATTRACTIVE NUMBERS but, upon reading the small print, the deal is nowhere near as good as we’re initially led to believe). We already know Lowe has the arrogance to shower himself with praise and think he knows better than experienced businessmen who actually live and UNDERSTAND football. I make this point because we, the fans, are told that the club receive high transfer fees for players down to Rupert’s business acumen (it may have been the case with Davies when Blackburn were desperate to sign him, no matter what the cost). I believe he did get some good deals and for that I’m grateful. However, in recent times the club seem to be cashing in early on some truly exciting players we were unable to keep (I realise Theo was under Crouch’s tenure). It concerns me we didn’t have enough foresight to cash in as much money as we could have for these rising stars. As soon as these early settlements are made (depending on the clause), players seem to play more (if on games quote/pay clauses) or the buying clubs hold onto the players a couple of games short of the pay out quota, then let their contracts expire or sell the players on. This seems the potential case with Bale. That’s good business by the buying club. Naturally. Bad business by Saints. So, it seems the buying clubs may actually be more astute and I don’t doubt the experienced business and executives of Arsenal and Spurs can run rings around the likes of Lowe, Wilde and Cowen, despite what they may actually think. History has seen Saints with egg on their faces more times than not but I hope we can notice and rectify this trend in the future, if we have any new starts left to sell (possible Lallana in January). All in all, does anyone know how much we got paid for Gareth? I’ll talk hypothetically (so don’t take it as gospel): If Tottenham paid Saints 6.5 million down payment for Bale (with 3.5 million upon appearances that he won’t ever make), then it’s bad business, but good business for Spurs (If they only paid 6.5 million, had no sell on clause to SFC and offloaded wages from a keeper they didn’t want in Forecast as early settlement) Then, Bale is sold on to a club like Liverpool for 15 million. That could be around 8 million (depending on how you value Forecast – not much imho) profit for Spurs........Who’s the good businessman in that case?!

It was dropped into conversation while I was chatting with a friend yesterday afternoon but I did a search last night and also found a link…May be paper talk! http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballnation/football-news/2008/09/25/bale-in-link-with-move-to-liverpool-91466-21898798/

Indeed you did. Ya b*gger!!

Just heard he's been linked with a 15 million move to Liverpool. Do we have a sell on clause? Better move for Gareth. Fair play to him. He was going nowhere with our lot. That has been proved for sure!

oops! Lapse of concentration. Should have read "hence why I wanted to go..." Apologies. Been particularly busy. Brain's letting me down! *sigh*