hughieslastminutegoal

Supposited thread??? Are you telling him where to put his thread, by any chance??

Come on, Wotton was JP's first great signing, wasn't he?

In a nutshell.

So I think would the British Olympic Association.

Ah, yes, that'll be when Rupert was looking at cutting costs... Oh sorry, it was only the last 2 boards who increased costs wasn't it.

Have you been playing "How High Up The Wall" with him again?

A depressing scenario. If our expenditure is CURRENTLY outweighing income by 2:1, without selling, we need to approximately double our home crowd. That isn't going to happen. Selling players helps the overdraft if the capital receipt is used to pay it off, but it only helps a bit on the excess expenditure because it won't and cannot all count as current period income. The "benefit" of selling players is the saving of costs that are all charged to the financial period - i.e. wages/salaries, but if we can only unload youngsters who are earning relatively small wages then I can't see that saving anything like enough. And if agents' fees are chargeable wholly to profit and loss rather than deducted from the capital realised, selling might not be as beneficial as people think. In the football industry a 4.5m loss is not normally such great shakes, Saints have lost more is some years when we were at the Dell. The problem is serious however if there is little prospect of getting into profit again. The real killer in my opinion was in year 1 following relegation, not last year. Were we going to try to get back into the Prem, or not? If the plan was not to try, then costs should have been cut much more drastically then. I'm sorry if people see this as another anti-Lowe rant, but it seems to me that he cut costs to a degree but never set out a real plan. We drifted along more in the hope of getting back. And that ultimately posed a real problem for the incoming board - push the boat out in a last effort, or carry out even more ruthless cuts than Lowe seemed to envisage. But fans' expectations had already been raised by Wilde. Without major savings on the stadium repayments, I don't believe we can ever get back into the black. And with Lowe there, a rights issue will not succeed, because I can't see him and his cronies taking it up. There is no doubt in my mind that Crouch would have been the better person to run Saints this year, and I have a sneaking suspicion that's what Barclays might be thinking as well.

Benali was often denigrated by outside observers (and was voted worst fullback in the top division once) but there is absolutely no arguing the fact that a succession of managers tried to leave him out, but always brought him back in the heat of relegation dog-fights. The man is was all heart and determination, and should be celebrated as such. Le Tiss's goals kept us up, but Franny played his part too in those (seemingly never-ending) battles.

Yes, David Peach for me as well.

Ah ha, someone who has spotted that all this fancy formation stuff just ain't as new as they think it is! AND the wingers actually used to help out their fullbacks (though don't expect much of a tackle)! George O'Brien in the hole?

Andrew Davis was another player who was injured when we bought him, and so was Thomas? They were reported an minor at the time, but we do seem to be "unlucky" with injuries on signing which seem to be the start of a long run of more frequent and more serious injuries. And just to prove we haven't lost the touch, we sign Gasmi, Pulis, Smith... Holmes had previously been out a long time and so had Wotton.. You expect to suffer this from time to time, but we seem to specialise in it.

Ah I remember hearing it in the summer - Rupert Lowe to Michael Wild: "Reach Out, I'll be There" and Michael Wilde's response: "Loving You is Sweeter than Ever".

"A healthy dose of realism helped me avoid getting killed" Lots of sensible soldiers

Only 2 posts before yours even have the word Lowe in them as far as I can see. Show us where exactly in this thread any posts before yours has made up stuff about Lowe in them?

I think he should stop being negative and get behind the boys. All this negativity is killing the club.

Exactly - that's why RL could be looking at a way of getting the ground ownership sufficiently far away from the club, though subject to a club tenancy of it. Then, just perhaps, the ground holding co. could be put into administration at the appropriate time, leaving the football club 'ok' (relatively speaking).

The article included the following: "West Ham United plc are regarded as the member organisation by the Premier League, meaning that the possibility of a sporting sanction against the team, such as the deduction of points, could not be considered in respect of any financial issues relating to the holding company." So as far as Saints are concerned (and accepting that the championship and Premiere League may be different), who is regarded as the 'member organisation'?

I might have missed something, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned West Ham's holding company has gone into administration, and West Ham have not said this will lose them points. Are we seeing a model for SLH/SFC here? But maybe I heard wrong on the radio this morning .........

This is precisely why no one should hope we lose a match. Even if we lose yet another home game, someone will be extrapolating some excitement and effort into an argument that we have turned the corner IF only... Problem is we've had a number of similar pronouncements, only for that "promise" to evaporate the very next game. Nevertheless, if it thrilled the pants off some of us, then that's good enough.... isn't it?

Hmm, I don't think he ever really cut it at right back for us, but did well enough as a central defender, I agree.

Yeah but.. WHO says a player is one we wouldn't want to see sold? As soon as Lowe acepts an offer, by definition the payer is one he is prepared to see sold. And what is a low offer to you and me might be a good enough (or silly in your terms) offer to RL. My point was you said we wouldn't sell anyone we wanted to keep if we got 17000, without the offer being a silly one. I just think that Lowe's idea of who is sellable for a particular offer is VERY different to most of the rest of us, whatever the gate. Having said that, although I'm not sure who we've got who I'd really fight tooth and nail to keep at the moment, selling MUST be dependent on getting a more than adequate replacement who a) isn't already injured when we sign him and b) will fit straight in, preferably playing in his best position, neither of which we've been very good at doing lately. And in any case we are likely to have to loan yet more players to replace the loans who will be returning to their own clubs. So if we lose present loans, and sell others we will probably be seeing a completely different team in January. And how long will it take for them to become a cohesive unit? ..wring hands and resignedly mutter "well thats how it has to be"?

Yes, we seem to continually buy central defenders and then play them at fullback. Recently Thomas, now Cork... Now we seem to be specialising in signing midfielders who actually don't seem to be fit to play at all..... Why don't we just buy what we actually need for once?

Or "Tell your boss we ARE the best foot-balling side you've met this season" "Ah, now I know why you get a-PAIR-ance money"

] He now has one-footed tackle.

On what basis do you so confidently state that those would be the only sales if we were getting 17000? How can you possibly know? I think there would be others even if we were getting 20000, but it is only my opinion, based on my assessment of Lowe's master plan.