CHAPEL END CHARLIE

10/10 for persistence - 0/10 for everything else . Lets get a timeline established here as I feel that may throw a little light on the situation and clarify where the majority of the responsibility really lies . July 07- Leon Crouch is removed from the Boardroom by the 'execs' . Dec 07- Crouch ousts the 'execs' & returns to SLH as Chairman . LC now effectively controlling SLH for the first time . May 08- Wilde & Lowe unite and overthrow Crouch . The striking fact the above timeline illustrates is that LC was in full control for less than 6 months - just to make sure lets repeat that for the hard of thinking - less than 6 months . Your "there is absolutely no sign that Crouch was serious about getting any costs under control" is so far from the profound irrefutable insight you seem to consider it to be I'd say it's about as relevant as writing "the suicidal man failed to read the complete works of Shakespeare as he fell from the bridge". The man had 6 months & only one transfer window to make his mark on the business , during that period he lost his manager , suffered a freaky run of injuries and had to fight a relegation battle and yet despite all these problems LC kept us up and kept us in business . Had sanity pervailed and LC stayed in charge I'm entirely confident he would have addressed the wage bill issue just as Lowe had to - the only difference being having a superior grasp of the fundamentals of the game he'd probably have made a better job of it . You keep harping on about Andrew Davies (good value transfer) as if signing him was some kind of irresponsible Crouch mistake . The record shows this transfer (loan then permament) was arranged in Oct 07 - during a period that Crouch was entirly absent from the running of the club man! In any case Football clubs do actually need to employ football players you know - PLEASE TELL ME YOU DO UNDERSTAND THAT - he was our player of the season for pity's sake . Let's take another example , you use Ian Pearce's loan as a stick to beat Crouch with . Had you done any proper research before you post this tripe you'd know that Pearce was here for only 30 days and for all I (or you) know Fulham payed most of his wages during this brief period anyway . If he ended up costing us £30K in wages (which I doubt) what difference can that make when we owe £30m . I think I'm going to end this here as you are starting to bore me and I've better uses of my precious time , I'll just let Um Pahars swat you in future as he's got more patience for this kind of nonsense than me .

You consider the Posh to a 'bigger' club than the Saints just because they happen to be playing one division higher next season ? They were only formed in 1934 have never won anything and this season boast an average attendence of 7442 per match . Bigger ? - Not in my book .

Good point John he's only here on loan as well . Stated recently he wouldn't mind staying if we made him a good offer .

The only other loan player we currently have is Romain Gasmi .

If as stated elsewhere it'll take another 4 weeks to complete any buy out thats puts us into early/mid June before even the first renewal forms can be sent out - 7 weeks or so before the season starts . Our new owners will have to hit the ground running as they say .

Zoltan Liptak http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/articles/article.php?page_id=11730 But he was hardly ever 'in' really was he ?

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/4328611.First_look_at_Saints__potential_new_owners_at_St_Mary_s/

Additional . The one thing you can rest assured of in any debate is that when one party resorts to crude insults ("muppet" should be spelt with a capital M by the way) they are most certainly losing the argument . You Sir can bandy insults from the safety of a anonymous Internet connection if you choose , I on the other hand seldom descend to that level . [-X

Strange stat of the day - David McGoldrick has scored more goals than Kevin Phillips this season . http://www.4thegame.com/football-statistics/championship/topscorers/

Post your wild speculation or educated guess as to the nature of Mr Fry's mysterious 'if all else fails' plan here . http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/4327563.Fry_draws_up_contingency_plans/

I've just trawled 7 pages of this stuff in a futile effort to find some worthwhile information that wasn't included in the OP . The mods can expect to hear from my solicitor forthwith with a writ claiming damages , to-wit the waste of 20 minutes of my life .

We should nick Barry Fry from Peterborough and make him our Chairman , no danger of him being thought too posh for football that's for sure .

As an avid fan of 'Dexter' (Morgan not Blackstock) and hence a fully qualified expert in blood spatter anyalsis I can confirm this is indeed very spooky .

How do I square that ? - quite easily really . As UP has so succinctly pointed out the wage bill grew to such unsustainable proportions while SFC was under the control of previous regime(s) not while Crouch was Chairman . I find it disappointing when the basic facts of the matter are so blatantly ignored . The latter stages of the 07/08 season saw us in serious danger of relegation and our new manager (Nigel Pearson) quite reasonably asked for temporary replacements for injured squad members , are you seriously telling me you didn't approve of the loan transfers of Richard Wright when we had all our keepers simultaneously out injured or Chris Lucketti when we lost Andrew Davis ? :confused: Fair minded Saints fans will agree players such as Wright , Lucketti and Perry were instrumental in keeping us up last season so in my view any temporary adverse impact on the wage bill can be easily justified as cost effective . Perhaps you would have preferred we'd been relegated 12 months ago in order to save a relatively small amount of money - if so I'm prepared to bet you'd be in a minority of one on here if you do . If you don't like Leon Crouch for some reason then I've no problem with any reasoned and fair criticism based on his actual record , bias on the other hand I just find egregious .

Tom Scott (via BBC South Today) has just denied he has any interest in buying the club , which should put this unlikely rumour to bed I would have thought.

Your recall seems curiously selective , was it not Leon Crouch who authorised the loan transfers of Skacel & Rasiak in January 08 ?

Are you arguing that LC should have made no effort to raise money and just sat back and done nothing ? If so this forum would be overflowing with 'Where is Crouch in our hour of need' threads - he really can't win can he ?

Utter nonsense . Leon Crouch has his full share of human weakness no doubt but what he has done to deserve this tirade of vile I have no comprehension . Better surely if we try and avoid descending into character assassination of a decent men and concentrate instead on encouraging every 'well suited' person we can find to come in and save our club from oblivion .

Yeah good point mate , every Saints player that ever suffers a serious injury is exactly like Darren Powell in all respects . PS - did you ever notice people who claim to be 'Laughing out Loud' almost never are ?

I joined in the fun last season when we actually had something worthwhile to celebrate , but this year ? [-X Let's face it , it's not big and it's most certainly no very clever either .

Dave Armstrong certainly wants the job , he's confident , clearly loves the club and if you listen to him regularly talks a lot of good common sense about the game . I would hazard a guess he's unlikly to be a leading candidate but we could do worse I suspose - come to think of it we have done worse on more than one occasion . Should he succeed in his ambition I don't fancy the career prospects of that Steward who forcibly evicted him from St Marys a few weeks ago .

My ratings for Saints v Burnley (2-2) K Davis 8- Another fine performance from our best player , several top 2ND half stops as usual . We'll going to miss him if he goes . L James 6.5- Sound enough game without being particularly outstanding . On the whole not a bad 1st season at all . JPS 6.5- A good shift marred by a needless penalty given away . C Perry 7.5- The model pro made flesh , I'm more than happy he's staying A Surman 6- No lack of effort , but a very obvious lack of confidence on display again. P Wotton 6.5- I love his attitude and leadership , if only that were all it took to be a good footballer. S Gillett 8 MOTM- Where the hell did he come from ! A magnificent effort this lad is destined to become a fans favorite before long . Knee surgery 3 weeks ago ? no problem . :prayer: DMG 6.5- Got his goal but the image of him thumping the ground in frustration after he missed the crucial pen sums up our whole season - at least he cares . A Lallana 7- He ran himself into the ground for the cause today and certainly deserves no criticism . Perhaps we've expected too much from him. BWP 7.5- Looking dangerous & even doing a passable impersonation of a winger he scored again as well . Has upped his game to win a new contract ? - perish the thought [-X The Mule 7.5- Worked tirelessly for the team & quite useful , but he's just not going to be a prolific striker at this stage of his career . Substitutes : M Saganowski 4- (on for Gillett) Had 20 minutes , did almost nothing in them. R Smith 6- (on for Lallana) Bit of an enigma , gets himself into advanced positions well - then bodges the final ball. M Schneiderlin - Late sub, you've got to ask yourself if a old warhorse like Wotton & a convalescent Gillett start ahead of you where is your career going exactly ? Summary : I thought we played like men today and were desperately unlucky not to win it easily . If only we'd put in this sort of performance all season we'd be fine - too late now I hear you say . But I didn't walk away from St Marys despondent like some of the younger fans were , L1 isn't the end of the world & I've seen enough to believe that with a new owner , good preparation and a modest amount of investment in the team we could do well next season . 'Sotonius Resurgum' - the Saints will rise again ! Odd moment of the day- I parked next to Tiff Needle in the multi-storey . Not here to buy a football club appently .

I hold Chris Perry in the highest regard , indeed for a 34 year old to play as many games as he has this season is a remarkable achievement . Time however catches up with us all so a fit Wayne Thomas (5 years younger BTW) might be a better long term prospect . No doubt Perry will have an important part to play at some stage .

JPS is well worth keeping if we can as he's exactly the kind of solid 'no-nonsense' defender we will need whatever level we're playing at . Unfortunately if we can see what a good player he is then so can others and I'd be surprised if there is no competing interest from the CCC . A possible line up of Perry/JPS/Thomas/with Lancashire in reserve and the CB position is covered I'd say - we'll just have to wait and see . Great news that young Mills has been offered a new contract , we can only hope he accepts it . A small lad with a big future I'd say . My preliminary back 4 for next season (hopefully with Kelvin Davis =D> still here behind them) Mills...Thomas...JPS...James

The possibility of Lowe making an unwelcome return must be classed as remote in the extreme for the following reasons : 1- It's generally accepted he does not have the level of wealth needed to own the club. 2- With all SLH shares now effectively worthless 'Mr 6%' supporters are now out of the picture - always the power behind his throne. 3- He so unpopular no sane consortium would want him anywhere near the club surely . The man is box-office poison . 4- His unparalleled record of consistent failure might not inspire much confidence with the city's money men . I don't think we need waste much time worrying about Rupert Lowe anymore , he'll never darken our collective doorsteps again .