Rebel

well there were no Man U fans sat near me in the Chapel today (although there was a Pompey fans sat beside me with his Saints supporting son - he takes after his mum's side of the family apparently!) no problem with away fans watching the game in the home end (I've taken Man Utd, Liverpool, Plymouth and Reading fans to see their teams as St Mary's in the past) but if they are going to jump up and down when they score they are asking for trouble I remember seeing Chelsea and West Ham fans get clobbered at the Dell when sitting in the home end and celebrating a goal although when I took my Pompey brother-in-law to the Dell to see Saints beat them in the cup me and my mates had to jump on him when we scored to make it look like he was celebrating as some of the people around us picked up on the fact he was a Skate after he failed to 'celebrate' saints first goal and were less than happy about it our cunning plan didn't work and we had a few words with fellow Saints fans at the end of the game - luckily as there were 5 or 6 of us it didn't come to fisticuffs - but only just!

I'd get rid of Euell, BWP and McG all three of them have far more good days than bad on the football pitch sure BWP can look great in flashes but is scared of the physical side of the game - one heavy challenge and he's out of the game! and he rarely puts 100% in McG seems to think he's the Daddy! problem is he's not even the step son! he's got ability on the ball but a big time charlie attitude, a lack of pace, no movement of the ball and a glory hunters attitude to passing the ball Euell - he was good once - but I don't know how. seems he can barely control the ball nowadays best part of £20K a week wasted there! and then there's Dyer - all running around but no end product - certainly can't pass of cross the ball. And he's another player with a tattoo and diamond studded ear ring attitude to life we should have used the Portsmouth incident as an excuse to sack Dyer and BWP and saved ourselves the wasted wages!

Wilde got Ken Dulieu's company to do this - it was the whole point of him being Chairman - that's what his company do - forensic accounting, investigate fraud etc thing is they found nothing Lowe and Co took a lot of money out of SFC but it was all legal - high salaries for directors (exec and no-exec), large dividends for shareholders, lots of expenses and bonus payments for directors based upon financial performance, lucrative contracts for other companies owned by them (rebuilding the training ground anyone) you could argue that Hone, Hoos and Oldknow managed the club negligently - and against the shareholders wishes - but Wilde let them do this spending £7 million we didn't have, not sacking Burley, overpaying for and then overpaying palyers, not too mention their own over inflated salaries - but mainly running the club in the hope it would be bought rather than running it within its means

cant they all just f*ck off!

Now that Cork has gone and left us (and who can blame him?) can we get a right back in on loan or maybe even buy one!?! Cork going leaves Lloyd James as our only recognised right back in the first team squad - and even then he's an attacking central midfielder learning the position! It's not his fault but its not exactly his best position - and its a weak spot for other teams to attack! Bit like the left back slot if and when Skacel leaves! Lets hope Molyneux is brilliant! How about Phil Ifil from Colchester - he looked the part when he was here on loan? Or a premiership squad player on loan!?

Surman came very close to leaving for Reading in the Summer - and is thinking about leaving in the January transfer window he'd like to stay at Saints but he wants to play in the Premiership and improve as a player if Saints were looking at the play-offs he'd stay until the end of the season (and beyond) if we went up but we're not and he's got an England U21 place to think off and a career to make saying all that I'd be p*ss*d off if he went to another CCC club - even Reading - or a club like Stoke who look like they are coming back down again. If he went somewhere like Fulham or Everton I could understand it Even then its probably better for him to move in the Summer so he can get a pre-season under his belt at his new club same goes for Lallana and Schneiderlin

Surman to Reading Schneiderlin to Arsenal Lallana to Fulham Davis on loan to Newcastle Saga on loan to Reading Skacel on loan to Ipswich Euell/BWP staying at Saints! Seeing players like Jay Simpson and Kieran Gibbs go on loan to CCC rivals yet more 'we were unlucky today it was just on of those days' from Jan or player

[quote=aintforever;150141. My understanding of it is - because it is set up as an official trust then it gets certain privileges, like after every board meeting it gets a report on what happened by a board member. But because of it's official status it cannot, by law, criticise or campaign against individuals - only comment on policies etc.. that's complete rubbish - where do people get this stuff from!?A

well it looks like the Skates are in freefall so that wish may come true! I just hope we are still there to do the CCC double over them next season!

a fit Thomas would make a real difference - he was superb against Birmingham in the cup once he stopped trying to pass the ball and did the ugly stuff beautifully

we should try and get Baird back on loan if we can! we need some fire and steel in midfield/defence

if you ask me all Saints fans are welcome at St Mary's to see us play Man United I don't really care whether they are season tickets holders, whether they've been to away games only this season or whether like me they've only been two a couple of home games so far this season - or none so far all that really matters to me is that they are Saints fans I say come back to St Marys - like you did for the last game of last season - and lets show people how good Southampton's support can be

No no no and no again! It's not the same city, it would be a policing nightmare, not to mention a transportation disaster - and that's just to start with! Southampton FC is Hampshire FC - Hampshire is the county of Southampton after all Portsmouth is an island full of skate b@stards and mockneys - its not really Hampshire proper is it?!?! so Pompey are going to go bust with their massive debts, massive wage bill and cr*ppy little stadium - too bad lets just sit back and watch from our nice 32,000 + capacity stadium (and hope our finances aren't as bad as some people fear!) as for Bournemouth - they should just be our B team besides what's the point of history - or even football come to that if we are just going to go and merge with our biggest rivals when things get a bit tough what are we - a bunch of Americans! perhaps misguided missile should switch his allegiance to a lesser sport like American Football where teams can just up and move cities whenever they like (and the sooner MK Dons die the better as well)

at 36 I don't think Perry can play two games in a week for a strart - plus I think he's been carrying a minor injury for a while (age again doesn't help) that's the problem with having a defence made up of over 30s and under 20s - there is no one with the necessary mixture of experience, fitnes, agression, energy, youth even to command the back line for us

Crouch was destructive at the board meetings - so that much is true and he was playing Lowe and Wilde off against each other to get a seat on the board right up to the wire Crouch sided with Hone to drive Wilde out of the boardroom and then with Trant opposed Hone, Hoos and Oldknow in virtually every matter until he could force them out Wilde then returned the favour Jones was a yes man to Lowe and then to Hone - unfortunately there are no saviours or good guys amongst the motley crew of directors we've been inflicted with over the last decade or so Hone, Hoos, Oldknow, Crouch, Wilde, Lowe, Cowan, Askham, Richards, Wiseman - they are all as bad as each other - put their egos first and their own interests above those of SFC

Crouch ousted Wilde with the help of Hone Hone and Crouch then fell out and paralysed the club. Hone then tried to sideline Crouch who in return forced Hone and Oldknow out. Wilde then returned the favour ganging up with Lowe to get rid of Crouch

Henri Camara Calum Davenport Olivier Barnard Nigel Quashie Jamie Redknapp possiblly the worst set of players SFC has ever signed reason enought to hate him - let alone for his complete lack of commitment to the job at SFC - and his greed in taking the job and the money - even when he got us relegated

maybe we should try and get him in on loan in January!

with a full St Mary's and the FA cup run in 2003 Saints were the 7th biggest English club on revenue and the 10th on attendance - or something like that I'm sure Steve Grant will have the exact figures somewhere St Mary's was a good move for us - the board at the time failed to spend the extra money it generated properly it went on a squad of nearly 40 journeymen players, 10 years of dividends and bonus payments (we had the highest paid chairman and CEO in the league at one point) and a lot of money paid out in expenses and to other companies for various things now all probably legal - but I bet a fair bit of that money ended up in a small group of peoples bank accounts through various routes Our turnover was £52 million at one point and our player wage bill less than £25 million. Surely a lot of that extra cash could have been used to massively reduce the mortgage on the stadium crowd numbers have gone down because of poor performance on the pitch, a false messiah in Wilde, the standard of the opposition, the crapness of Burley, the blind management of Hone, Hoos and Oldknow and return of Lowe - not too mention the mainaining of ticket prices at a level that's far too high ticket prices at St Mary's are symptomatic of football though - its all about money - and its all for the players nearly all football players earn too much - a journeyman player cam earn £20K+ a week in the premiership whereas the average wage in the CCC is £3K a week (still over £150K a year) -still far too much for clubs without TV money we simply can't afford to lower prices - tickets should be £15 a game - if we did price tickets at that level we'd get nearer 25,000 a week easy two adults and two kids - a family ticket - for £40 is about right -but right now its the best past of £100 I can't afford that! People are falling out of love with football for a lot of reasons - the big 4 monopoly - the foreign owners, the overkill on TV, the celebrity players and their WAGS, the England Team - and Saints are seeing that in their gates! the gap between the PL and the CCC is so big the parachute payments don't come anywhere near bridging it! Charlton have too many bad players - who because they are overpaid they simply can't get rid off - and if they do go bust it will be those players wages that take precdence over any other debts!

maybe we should send him a bill for the lost transfer revenue

Lowe made a lots of mistakes when we got relegated - compounding the mistakes he made that got us relegated Lowe kept Redknapp and his cronies on board - real old school boys - and brought in Woodward and Clifford - who had a new way of doing things - so we were niether one thinhg nor the other - just a real mess! we just kept going down the middle and straight on to the rocks the other big mistake was with the team - we got rid of too many players - but at the same time we didn't get rid of enough we should have either kept the team together and given our all to have gone straight back up - or cleared out the lot and used it as an opportunity to rebuild the club from the ground up instead we let too many key players go - but still kept too many high earners - so we were stuck in a position where we were leaking money - but still had no chance of going up the ship was truly rudderless with Admiral Lowe at the helm! the Burley, Wilde, Hone, Hoos, Oldknow and spending the £7 million we didn't have mess is a whole different story though Lowe should take the blame for appointing Burley - although I think we all thought it was a good decision at the time! Once we were relegated we should have sacked Redknapp and his mates straight away, moved on all of the first team apart from Oakley, Prutton and Baird, put these 3 on new long term contracts, to cut our wage bill right back to manageable CCC levels We then should have brought in players like Brian Howard and Frank Simek on free transfers, and signed other like Hoyte, Kirkland and Le Tallec on loan We then should have brought through our youngsters like Surman, Griffit, Folly, Best, Blackstock, Jones, Mills and Cranie but put them on long term contracts so they couldn't be snatched away by other clubs we also should have appointed a technical or football director, brought in Woodward as Head of Sports Science, Clifford as skills coach and then made Glen Hoddle head coach Huw Jennings should also have been tied down - maybe as football director we also should have kept Wigley in some way shape or from to look aftet the kids - and who know maybe even brought in Poortvliet to replace Georges Prost! as least that way we would have had some real direction and a vision to follow we might not have got promoted in the first two years on parachute payment - but we'd be in a much better position than we are now - financially strong and either pushing for promotion still - or actually promoted see its easy really!

Lowe made a lots of mistakes when we got relegated - compounding the mistakes he made that got us relegated Lowe kept Redknapp and his cronies on board - real old school boys - and brought in Woodward and Clifford - who had a new way of doing things - so we were niether one thinhg nor the other - just a real mess! we just kept going down the middle and straight on to the rocks the other big mistake was with the team - we got rid of too many players - but at the same time we didn't get rid of enough we should have either kept the team together and given our all to have gone straight back up - or cleared out the lot and used it as an opportunity to rebuild the club from the ground up instead we let too many key players go - but still kept too many high earners - so we were stuck in a position where we were leaking money - but still had no chance of going up the ship was truly rudderless with Admiral Lowe at the helm! the Burley, Wilde, Hone, Hoos, Oldknow and spending the £7 million we didn't have mess is a whole different story though Lowe should take the blame for appointing Burley - although I think we all thought it was a good decision at the time! Once we were relegated we should have sacked Redknapp and his mates straight away, moved on all of the first team apart from Oakley, Prutton and Baird, put these 3 on new long term contracts, to cut our wage bill right back to manageable CCC levels We then should have brought in players like Brian Howard and Frank Simek on free transfers, and signed other like Hoyte, Kirkland and Le Tallec on loan We then should have brought through our youngsters like Surman, Griffit, Folly, Best, Blackstock, Jones, Mills and Cranie but put them on long term contracts so they couldn't be snatched away by other clubs we also should have appointed a technical or football director, brought in Woodward as Head of Sports Science, Clifford as skills coach and then made Glen Hoddle head coach Huw Jennings should also have been tied down - maybe as football director we also should have kept Wigley in some way shape or from to look aftet the kids - and who know maybe even brought in Poortvliet to replace Georges Prost! as least that way we would have had some real direction and a vision to follow we might not have got promoted in the first two years on parachute payment - but we'd be in a much better position than we are now - financially strong and either pushing for promotion still - or actually promoted see its easy really!

all I can say is you know what to do - for the good of your club and your nephew have a word with your nephew and his dad

A friend of my brother in law (they are both Skates) supposedly saw Beckham at Fratton Park on Thursday!! if he turns up at Spurs now we'll know it was true I guess! It has been fun at work today winding up all the Pompey and Spurs fans!!! Pointing out the the Skates that he's left them for a bigger club twice now! Asking where Arry's spiritual home is now? Having loud discussions with other Saints fans as to which Pompey players he'll come back for in January - and for the Spurs fans - about which excuses he'll trot out this time!

most people tipped Plymouth, Saints and the three that came up to be the favourites for relegation this season I'm not so sure its that simple - look at Plymouth now! Also we keep talking about our debt - its big but there are a lot of clubs in a worse position than us. We have somewhere between £5 and £7 million of unsecured debt if the worst is to be believed and a £22 million pound mortgage on the stadium Charlton are £20 million in debt, Cardiff are supposedly in debt a lot more than than that!