up and away

Not trying to put a downer on the players already signed, but our real problem area is midfield? Fonte absolutely class for this division and I would imagine the new RB should be an improvement, but this is not where we will make great leaps forwards. Just have to be patient and wait and see what else Santa belatedly brings us.

Again, it is a mistake to talk about the infrastructure costs of the parking, roads, access, lighting, etc, inferring that they were down to the club exclusively. The same access and parking would have been utilised by the athletics arena, the tennis courts, playing fields, hotel, bowling, restaurants, ice rink and whatever else was placed on the site. As a lot of that was to be built by Eastleigh, then they would have borne a lot of the cost. It's all about the infrastructure and their associated costs. Or do you believe we were investing money into cinema complexes and the like? This was simply a method to share the costs around such that our slice became affordable!

The main point about the additionals to Stoneham were to reduce the cost of the infrastructure, such that the stadium could share those costs and reduce it's outlay. That infrastructure would be the start up cost, parking, roads, access, lighting etc that any complex would require. Again the figure of 25000 is factored against these infrastructure costs and planning for that area. We could not afford to fund any of these other ventures, only come alongside them to reduce the infrastructure burden. When you consider the exceptional value we had at the time with St Mary's, you only have to look at the remaining debt to get some idea of the economic problem to the equation. If Stoneham was anywhere near the same value, we would have bit their hands off. This was just a simple judgement upon what we could afford, even though we were absolutely desperate to move from the Dell.

5-3-2 does have a lot of appeal because of the nature of our full backs, the only problem there is that you have Schneiderlin as your midfield enforcer. Something I can easily seeing go tit's up in a short space of time. I thought Tranmere's full backs were pretty impressive for this league, a lot of pace. Pardew has been trying to move away from the successful 4-1-4-1 with Wooton without the players to make it work. I hope we now have the players to make what ever system he wants to play work, because he has certainly wasted points without them.

So kindly inform us all of the natural conclusion that one has to arrive at from your last sentence. It is that in the absence of any other alternative site to build a stadium locally, we would still be at The Dell with 15000 seats. Please don't forget that at the time of the Stoneham project, there was no other alternative. Your post should be viewed agianst that background and under those circumstances different criteria would have been brought into play regarding it. Not that I agree for one second anyway about your assertion that Stoneham was not viable financially, especially as it would have accommodated an extra 10,000 bums on seats. But I grow tired of arguing the toss against those blinkered individuals who believe that Lowe had no alternatives. It's the same for any business considering investing vast amounts of capital into it's infrastructure, it's got to have a long term objective of being commercially viable. The very fact we had no alternative would make us accept conditions that were less than ideal. The lack of alternative is more of a spur in accepting Stoneham than rejecting it. The reason we kept going back to Eastleigh over god knows how many months, was because we had no alternative, but that does not mean you have to commit financial suicide just to move from the Dell. That would be the equivalent of taking all your various mortgage and credit card debts, to roll up with one all in deal from your local loan shark. Even the idiots accept that the final deal we got on St Mary's was exceptional, so Stoneham would have not come near those figures. Then just look at the debt we were left with St Mary's and things should start to click, with full capacity on 32500, not 25000. When ever anyone of us moves house we abide by some basic rules or you end up having your property repossessed, it has to be affordable in the long term. In the case of a stadium it is even more imperative because you can't take the option of down sizing.

There you go again, trying to engage those two cells without the blessing of synchromesh. Not one person is saying they would prefer Lowe to Cortese and my only slight towards the guy is not calling him Mr when referring to him. The only person that has a real gripe about Cortese is dockerp and I am sure he would gladly rip you a new one if you tried putting those words into his mouth. As for Stoneham, it was not a cluster because we turned it down, what would have been a cluster is accepting those conditions. It's very simple, we could not afford it and had no benefit from moving from the Dell. The equation is very simple, if the move makes financial sense it gets done, otherwise you have to say NO.

Southampton City Council certainly bailed Saints out. Just glad they had the opportunity to do so, by Lowe turning down Stoneham. An even greater financial mess and with a capacity of 25000 to boot. Thank god for that!

Yes, I can see that point, time will tell on that one. I do know from the last couple of seasons how much effects costs had on supporters sitting around me, in a depression with all the travel costs, etc. It is a very big lump out of the average wage earner. The costs are so much higher for the travelling supporter today, of which Saints have a large proportion. The one thing I did notice from some fans who gave up their season tickets, was that the mind set was not necessarily fixated on every other Saturday. With other activities coming into the equation along with a whole host of other pressures, some just drifted away. I think Nick had a point previously but that has long gone and is no longer valid. You have to get the buzz and excitement going again for fans to pay through the pain. Even last year we had a few very high crowds either down to ManU or the price being right to entice fans out. As to the other questions regarding whether we would have similar crowds in this league now under Lowe, I don't think there would be much difference. But Lowe would have to have dropped season tickets to the current level and have been prepared to invest in the team the same as Liebherr. Our gates following Premier relegation were still good and we even managed some massive crowds last season.

I think most of this stems from all the previous comments about fans not going whilst Lowe was there. It has been clearly shown that this was all bollix and I thought Nicks take on this was spot on. Now with all the blaggers out the way you are left with reality and the premise no longer applies. I don't think you can really argue with the crowds we are getting now, things have changed a lot in the last decade or two. Even if you are a fan, you have so much competition for your money over the week, it's only a top rate product that is going to consistently sell out. I am not completely sure we would revert back to our previous full house if we returned to the Premier? That was driven by a very high number of season tickets and about 5000 coming for Premier football, although with a soft spot for Saints, more interested in the football. That left about 5000 for those that bought tickets on the day and extra "away" supports locally. One of the main reasons we had so many season ticket holders before was because of the limited capacity of the Dell resulting in virtually 100% season tickets. That carried on when we moved to St Mary's and when you get such a high level of season ticket holders it has that add on effect. If we don't revert back to those high season ticket levels, it would not surprise me for our average attendances in the Premier to be a couple of thousand down on previous.

This is what I heard, but it does not make sense. If Cortese had an agreement to rent / buy Benali's house then he would be liable in some manner? So I can only assume there was no agreement and they were just considering it? Nothing different here to what you see with a high proportion of any such property negotiations. Must be something more as this just makes Benali look stupid!

Well we'll have to wait and see when the annual accounts are published but I suspect the wage bill with quality managers and players on the books such as Lambert/Jaidi/Hammond is increasing again rather than decreasing . The points you make regarding mortgage payments and debt are perfectly valid of course . With around 40 senior players in the squad now and a large stadium to maintain I suspect our running costs are twice (or more) that of many other 3rd Division clubs , and even with a 20k 'gate' I question whether that can be sustainable in the long run without promotion . All provided of course that creating that rare beast - a profitable football club - is the owners true objective . I can't see we are running at a profit. Our income will be about the same as last season, increased numbers but heavily discounted season tickets. Then take into account players fee's, wages and our expenditure has to be the highest in this league. And if you are talking about a profitable club, you have to consider the compound on buying the club and the additional capital investment in players and facilities. If you took into account everything Liebherr has spent and the interest he would have earned from that money by just investing it in a long term account, its going to be close to £25M come the year period. Just look at the money we are spending to try and get out of this league, up that an order of magnitude for the CCC and again for the Premier. You can easily see that if we made it to the Premier, Liebherr would need to sell at around £40M just to break even and that would be without investing in a Premier squad. Even then you need some mug to buy it. I just can't see Liebherr turning a profit but on the other hand, it's a relatively cheap hobby for himself and Cortese, but only if you are a billionaire. We are exceptionally lucky for this to happen to us! We won't get to see any accounts with only the HMRC getting any idea,

Nope, don't remember that at all. What I do remember is that we never commented on a player signed to another club! I have no reason to disbelieve any of this, but it does show the problems we have in trying to sign any good players in the January window. Those good enough for the CCC will be looking at Saints being in League 1 next season, so you can understand them being tentative. I think the best we can hope for is decent loans, with an option on both sides if we fail to get promotion or the player does not perform. The only problem with that being we may have to wait towards the end of the window for availability. Looking at the targets, this is a massive statement of intent from Cortese, one I never thought they would adopt and really does put us as the ManC of league 1. A lot of the players we have bought / looking to buy I doubt would be suitable to gain promotin from the CCC, so you would tend to end up with a massive squad going this way. Cortese is very serious in trying to get out of this league immediately and that is going to bring pressure to bear on Pardew. The big freeze may actually work to our advantage, such we do have the squad to compete when the games come round. But we must get the players in soon or it could very easily all be too much for us.

Pardew is a good, intelligent manager, but it's not difficult to find better performances even in this league. As for the Premier, why on earth would we want to stick with him when you have the financial backing? I have seen things unravel tactically a few times this season, so theres nothing that labels him a must keep just yet. I would jump at the likes of Billy Davies over Pardew, with the expectation he would get us into the Premier far quicker. But that does not mean I would rate him for managing in the Premier. There may well be concern about Pardew and Saints parting company, but I can see no reason why it's from our side.

If you want to extend that rationale just a smidgen, Stoneham was turned down purely on economic grounds. We had so many meetings with Eastleigh with the whole thing going on for many months, could even be more than a year. There was only one criteria that caused Stoneham to fail, we could not minimise the economic costs with other facilities. God knows how many meetings we had with the council but at the end of the day, we had to walk away from it because we could not afford it.

I would like explaining how he can play regularly for Doncaster, a league higher and well against far better opposition? Someone from here went on to Donny's website and asked how he was doing and they all loved him, something just does not add up here. He was given an extension from December through to sometime about now, so I would assume that has been extended again?

Well, you are in a small minority. I guess then that you have not read AP's comments on the OS. Clearly he thinks we should give it our best shot AND he has had a word with NC and ML to ensure they understand the meaning of the FA Cup which most football supporters in this country also understand. We employ prefessional footballers, they are paid to play football and enjoy playing games (rather than training). They have a week to recover. There is no earthly justification to rest players at this stage. In the end the team was affected by too many enforced changes, and you might even argue that Bart was rested to give Davis a game - will be interesting to see who is picked for the next league game. Conolly and Jaidi were not risked either, how badly are they really injured. And as for the fatuous comment about Donny Rovers, if we get drawn against them then I would fully expect us to get at least a draw, if not a win and we could then stick their train picture up their arse. Bring on R4 of the FA Cup - the greatest club cup competition in the world, we will be the 2nd lowest rnaked club and we can provide an upset at least if we get a home draw. I would agree that my view is in the minority, more significant than minor though. It all depends upon where your priorities lay and for me this lies in the league alone, happy to pick up what ever in the JPT, but never a priority. If we fail to go up this season I am pretty sure we will lose at least one of our good players that we would have been able to hang on to. I just do not believe that Pardew is maximising our chances of getting into the play off's and I would use every advantage to try and achieve that aim. We found a system of getting results by playing 451 with Wooton in front of the back 4. I know it was not perfect, but it was practical. Keep going with that system and minimising the damage until we can bring in the players to make Pardews system work. Keep resting players where ever you can such they can squeak out those extra points in the league. I am looking at managers of the like of Billy Davies, Lambert, even Boothroyd and it's not difficult seeing us being several points better off. Cortese has stated that the league is our priority, well I can see no real indications from Pardews team selections and tactics to indicate this. If Cortese is serious in the league being the priority, Pardew could well be in trouble if we fail to make the play off's. At the end of the day we could well fall on our face and end up with nothing , having failed to give the play off's our best shot.

Then wind back to Preston - Colchester and we really are **** again. There can be no doubt that our performances of late have been very disappointing. Hopefully we can turn things round before it's too late and if we have forsaken everything for the JPT, would we have been better off going to watch an England friendly after that Leeds result? Huddersfield will be a big test for us, with the sort of dynamic midfield I don't believe agrees with us at present. We are desperate for new players to kick start our season again. The trouble is that by the time we get them and the one month bedding in period it took previously, it could all be too late.

That's one way of looking at it. What's more than likely is to find ourselves away to the likes of Doncaster and getting our arses handed to us on a plate. There should be a massive emphasis on us getting into the play off's and this was another chance to rest up more players. I am fully aware we have a week to get over it, but we have hardly been setting the grass alight of late. By the time we get in players and get them up and running the damage could be too big to recover from. Cortese says his main priority is the league, well he had better have a word with Pardew because I don't believe he has caught on to that bit yet.

But it is a point that is more relevant! Because the balance we have at the present is not good enough for the play off's. I think that it is imperative our current balance be corrected. As Pardew does not seem to be able to do that with the current squad, get a shed load in for him to fiddle around with in the hope we can find that correct balance. Alternatively he could revert to the players and formation that got us out of the crap in the first place, but that does not appear to be an option any more?

You have not got a Scooby Do. Show me all these figures that make Stoneham the great business venture that never was! Made financial sense my arse, you don't even make common sense let alone financial. As for football clubs squaring financially, go through the whole football league and give it your best shot! As for our saviour Liebherr, he would still be far better off sticking his money into a long term account, but that's not what it is all about with Liebherr otherwise he would not be here. As Tommy Docerty said, the only way to earn millions from owning a football club, is to start with trillions.

The decision on Stoneham came down to simple economics. How much and over what period. If this equation is not squared, I am really glad Lowe was stubborn and pig headed about it. If we could not make the whole project affordable by the addition of other revenue schemes or cost sharing, what is the point? Lowe never lost us Stoneham, he could have always gone back at any time. Lowe turned Stoneham down, because it did not square financially.

I agree with you in part. The best thing Lowe did was screw up his own plans for Stoneham. All those 'plans' for expanding over the Archers, under the Milton etc etc etc were never actually costed and submitted plans, and happened before Lowe arrived. He alone decided we needed to move to Stoneham (a really crap idea in the first place) and then screwed that plan up by adding extra retail facilities etc. Thankfully SSC had a back up plan. God bless the Labour controlled council of the time. So your master plan would have been to continue with Stoneham, irrespective that we could not afford it, Absolutely priceless!

No, the board of SLH PLC did. As soon as Barclay's bounced Webster's cheque, the board were forced to apply for administration. You can argue this which ever way you like, but the one act precipitating administration, was the of bouncing that cheque. Don't bounce the cheque, no administration.

Southend have just been through this. Once threatened by HMRC they moved heaven and earth and after a week's extension, coughed up thanks to a benefactor. IIRC they owed £250,000. It's going to come down to what the majority of the creditors want, not only HMRC. Someone can still find the money and they are back where they started, but things do look very bleak for them. One point of interest on the Macums site was what possible benefit could the HMRC have in taking this decision. That could in part be down to the parachute payments available to offset losses over time. Not completely certain the Premier league would continue to pay, if the club folded though?

That 1-0 win against Spurs was one of the worst performances we put in at home, still cannot figure out how we managed that win. But the cup game on the Sunday was really special, a pity I never taped it. If I remember correctly, that was the turn around for our season that year? Totally confused as to what year it was when we beat them at the Dell and the Spurs yoof trashed the bogs at the Milton Road end?