CanadaSaint

We're in the driver's seat on this because they desperately want Dyer for the Prem push, so hopefully our good negotiating skills will prevail. On second thoughts I see where you're coming from.

Yeah, but that's in a permanent transfer isn't it Nick? How about a loan situation? I'm pretty sure that's legit. So, don't transfer him until after the game.

Slightly OT but it could be a smart move in one instance - does Dyer get to play against us if a formal transfer hasn't gone through?

Stanley, I don't think they have much choice, whether they sympathize or not. They'll move from a "watch and see" brief to a "keep this tightly under control" brief, all because of a nutter. And the news of the threat to Wilde is hardly going to swell the numbers, is it? What a fricking mess.

I don't always agree with Adrian but that was a valid point. Sadly, some cretin has just lopped off a big chunk of the moral high ground the fans were standing on. Not fair but that's how it goes. And the police probably have a different attitude to the protest now.

The part I don't get is this: Why would Crouch walk into the lion's den and make a proposal he knew Lowe and Wilde couldn't/wouldn't accept AND THEN follow it up with this interview UNLESS he had something up his sleeve (or close)? You can call it popularity-seeking or posturing but he already had that high ground, for the most part, before opening his mouth. So why did he do it?

Steve, I'm truly not a conspiracy theorist but even I'm starting to get very cynical. Surely, you have to admit there's something fishy here. Wotte talks up the importance of the senior players and then leaves out a number of those who, in the view of most fans, could help us out of this hole. We get our arses kicked in the first half, he brings some of them on because the alternative is demolition, and things turn around for us. I wouldn't go so far as to say (at least seriously) that Lowe is picking the team, but I'm starting to believe that he's "influencing" team selection. Knowing Rupert it'd be more about not wanting to pay appearance money (which could be quite big, depending on how their contracts are structured) than about some whacky Lowe theory on formation and cohesiveness. You've called this "ridiculous" but pretty much everything that's happening at the club fits into that category. Why not this?

Frigging awesome. Wotte master stroke

The perfect slogan for Saturday!

I would love to know if their contracts have significant appearance money components. Not a bad thing in a normal situation, but lethal in the hands of Rupert - the king of false economies.

Dave, he said he'd be picking the team but I have doubts about that. Either Wotte knows SFA or he's acting for someone who knows SFA. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but you really have to wonder.

As far as the media are concenred, the fans are on the moral high ground in protesting against Lowe (who's not at all popular in media circles). Not if they start on the team.

If it is, the Doncaster reaction is going to look like a tea party on Saturday because I can't see us getting much against Swansea. Scary, really.

Well that half might have been the players' comment on Wotte's appointment. Then again, they might just be sh*t.

Great idea. New tactic. Hope the ref doesn't spot it.

I don't disagree, Hypo. They could do those things, but would they do them? My question is what's the point of using the money to pay off the overdraft if the very act of doing that takes away the money we could use for survival? That wouldn't be running the club more effectively - it would be painting ourselves into an even darker corner. I'm just thinking aloud, like pretty much everyone else on this forum.

But what can they do, Hypo? In many ways, they have the club by the nuts and the club has them by the nuts. In the current time they, like the rest of the banks, can't take too hard a line with problem files or they're going to have administrations coming out of their ying-yangs. Surely Barclays can only win if Saints avoid administration, which - for starters - means staying up this year.

Unless the interest rate on the overdraft is really penal or Barclays is applying heavy pressure, I don't understand why it's such a priority to pay it off. After all, we're certainly not the only club with an overdraft, and it's supposedly heading in the right direction. Surely the emphasis should be on acquiring affordable players to help us move away from the relegation zone - or bringing back onto the payroll some of the loanees who could help us. If they, like most of us, feel that relegation = administration, Barclays would buy into that. They wouldn't really have much choice. Crouch's proposal seems to me to be more about control and fan perception than finances - starting with the manager's/head coach's position. He's too smart a man to think that he could say "Let's all sling in another 2 million" and Wilde & Lowe would respond with "Oh yes, let's". Especially when one of the first victims would be Lowe's Dutch experiment, on which he's hung much of his fast-dwindling/already screwed reputation. I have precious little time for Lowe and Wilde but I'm not sure Crouch suggested anything remotely palatable to them.

Thanks, Ron. So it still exists as a PLC but it's effectively in suspended animation pending resolution of the financial issues by the Administrator? What I'm getting at is whether it would re-emerge as a PLC or be re-constituted in whatever corporate form the acquirer chooses.

Would the PLC be de-listed as soon as it goes into administration? And would this mean that it is, effectively, no longer a PLC?

To be fair we only have Crouch's side of this meeting. I'd like to know what his proposal (demands?) really consisted of, other than a change in manager. He has zero credibility in Lowe's and Wilde's eyes because of how he supposedly "mismanaged" the club, so they're hardly likely to hand him the reins while they still own shares. The resignation/removal of JP might have been an area in which Crouch and Wilde WERE on the same page (not that Wilde would have admitted this at the meeting). Wilde was unnerved by the Doncaster crowd fisaco, so Lowe might have had his hand forced a little there. But he still came back with a "screw you" appointment of Wotte to keep his Dutch experiment alive. The "come back when you have six million" comment was pure Lowe - arrogant and patronizing. I don't see that money going in its entirety to cut the overdraft because that gets us nowhere, really, and the word was that this was being reduced gradually and in a way that should have satisfied Barclays. I suspect Crouch's proposal for joint cash injections was aimed largely at strengthening the squad before the window closes, so his concept has a really short shelf life. I'm not sure how Leon can make this work if he doesn't have the money to buy out Wilde, Lowe and Lowe's associates. And even then it would produce virtually no squad strengthening. And I'm not sure how he can cut Lowe and Wilde out of future control situations if they don't "walk" because, in my understanding, a Unanimous Shareholders Agreement needs to be just that - unanimous. How on earth could he get unanimous shareholder buy in, never mind quickly?

Moved to live thread

This is a good sign, though. I just hope it's not against company policy.

Agreed. The Board could hardly issue a call for unity, could it? Well, not without the entire fan base suffering an involuntary evacuation of the bladder.

If they say football/success/coaching "is all about results" one more time when it is so selectively applied I'm going to explode. STFU - or else apply it to the turds who really are at the root of the problem. If you can find them. Oh, and by the way, isn't there supposed to be some sort of symbolic cord-pulling/introduction thing at an unveiling? Out of respect for the "new person". For all Wilde and Lowe know, Wotte could still be sitting behind a curtain now. You sooooo couldn't script this sh*t.