manzo

Nah, that was in September of that season. We'd just beaton Everton 2-0 at home, though I vaguely remember it being an awful match. http://www.southampton-mad.co.uk/footydb/loadtmrs.asp?ssnno=129&teamno=479 And we'd been thrashed 5-0 at Newcastle the week before. I certainly remember feeling at the time that it was only a matter of time before he got sacked, and then the court case reared it's head.

Nah, we were absolute gash at that time, and I've always maintained that he would have been sacked before too long if he hadn't been put on leave. Though no doubt he'd be able to do a decent job in divisions two and three.

I take it by "influence a game" you mean that he shouts a bit, unless you mean the uncanny ability he has to make us look even worse when he's in the team?

We have a winner! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law (and, no, it's not *that* Godwin )

Look, can we clear this up once and for all? Call it either League One, or Division Three if you want to kick it old school!

Because we're three points from safety with seven games left. Because our fixtures don't look any worse or better than the teams around us. Because some of us used to watch teams that had no right to be in the Premiership stay up year after year. Because if you can't hope for the best for your football team then why are you a football supporter?

If you're struggling to get rid of the spare ticket, I'll happily take it off your hands. I also live in Birmingham, and hadn't gotten around to buying a ticket yet.

Are you seriously telling me that this board wouldn't have gone into meltdown if we appointed a manager from the conference?

How many times do I have to post links to articles from football players that state the fans support does make a difference (good and bad)? http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/gavinstrachan/2009/02/get_on_and_support_new_campaig.html (third paragraph from the end) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7771014.stm

I didn't realise that the season finished next week? Christ, we'd have been relegated at The Dell if that attitude had prevailed.

Duncan, I always thought that Lowe was getting sick of changing the whole backroom staff every time a manager left (let's not have the debate again about why that happened so often!), and I think Hoddle trying to take Gray to Spurs with him might have been the catalyst, so was attempting to have more of a structure at the club that could survive the manager moving on. I'm not saying it was a good idea in practice, but just that it wasn't about saving a few quid.

How do you get to that from going a goal down to a top six side after an even half an hour? You really do come across as a miserable c*ck!

I think that it's fair to label people who spend the entire game audibly moaning as **** fans. They're hardly supporting, are they?

I am also going on what my mates with season tickets have told me it's been like this season. One of them has started taking an iPod with him, so he doesn't have to listen to the arse a couple of rows back who spends the entire match loudly moaning. It's gotten bad enough that they're considering whether to renew next season, and that's nothing to do with the football. Though they did also helpfuly point out that I'd witnessed the worst game of football all season!

What an absolute load of ********! Did you ever see us play at The Dell? I witnessed some pretty poor Saints sides get results from games they had no right to, and it was massively influenced by the crowd. That 3-3 against Liverpool when we'd been 3 down; the two goal comeback against Newcastle for a 2-2; and, frankly, the daddy of them all, the 3-1 against Newcastle, where we were awful for at least 70-80 minutes. Part of The Archers stood up, starting chanting non-stop, some wag came on the tannoy to tell them to sit down, so the whole Archers then stood up and got a hell of a lot louder. We ended up scoring three in the last two minutes, and the ground was loud as hell. So don't try and tell me that the crowd has no effect on the game. I've only been to the Forest game this season, and I thought that the crowd was awful, giving hardly any support to the team from the kick off. The support seemed to give up once we hadn't scored after twenty minutes (or so), and then the crowd turned on the players once Forest scored. I came away from that game (and, granted, the performance was awful) feeling that the crowd were going to get the relegation that they deserve. I was embarassed by my fellow fans. I'm not arguing over whether we've been good enough to win more home games, and I'm not saying that it's all down to the hostile crowd either, but for you to say that it has no negative effect is just absolute rubbish.

No it hasn't. Statements like that clearly illustrate what's wrong with the club today. You couldn't be more wrong.

I agree. I thought at the time that we would be better off trying Mills, because Davenport, whilst not a bad player, was just too similar to Claus, and Claus needed to play with a stronger centre half.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=80086&dict=CALD http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7771014.stm

That's the spirit!

Cheer up, you miserable f*ckers!

I've got to say, I think that our fans at the moment are a disgrace. I'm not saying that fans don't have the right to boo their own players, but I do think that you've got to be a f*cking moron to do so *during a game*. I'm not saying that it's the only reason, but I really do think it's contributing to our appalling home form. It just does not help the players one iota. And if you don't want to take my word for it, how about Alan Hansen's: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7771014.stm I really think that if we'd had the kind of atmosphere back at the Dell, we'd have been relegated years ago. We witnessed some utter sh*te back then, but the fans frequently tried to lift the side. Remember the 3-1 Newcastle game, when we were appalling for sixty minutes, lucky to only be one down, part of the Archer's stood up and started chanting. Then some genius on the tannoy decides to tell the fans to sit down, so the whole of the Archer's stood up and joined in. We start playing better, and bang in three in three minutes at the end of the match. Yeah, sure we're in a tough situation right now, but we're tearing ourselves apart and making it worse.

I'm looking forward to it - first game of the season for me, get to see my mates, go for a nice meal afterwards.

I imagine it rather depends on whether Perry can manage two games in four days, really.

Wouldn't Norwich Union just get possession of the stadium - I assume that the loan for the stadium is secured against it? And, given the number of players we had last year, and some of the stupid salaries they were on, I wouldn't rule out HMRC being over that 25% threshold.

Creditors Voluntary Agreement - basically where all the people who are owed money have to agree to accept a lower sum, usually between 1-10% of the debt. Apart from the players, who have to be paid in full, or the FA will throw the book at you. The problem now is that the Inland Revenue has had enough of getting shafted by football clubs, and so is refusing to accept CVAs whilst the players are getting paid in full. And if you can't get a CVA (i think it has to be sorted out before the new season starts), then you get docked a further 17 points, as has happened to Rotherham, Bournemouth and Luton this season. So I think that it's a given that going in to administration will cost ten points this season, and seventeen next season, and there's no guarantee that Lowe and Wilde wouldn't still be in charge!