up and away

Why is it you are having so much of a problem with something so basic. If any 2 of the major 3 shareholders did not like the direction the executives were taking, they could remove them at any time. We have seen several examples of this in recent times, so it should not be difficult to understand the mechanics.

The shareholders give the board their position and can take it away at any time. Just calling an EGM and with either Crouch or Wilde voting alongside Lowe would be sufficient. It would not even come to a vote, they would be on their bikes within the month, compensation sorted and gone. The executives were stupid enough to believe Wilde, that is their only real crime. The rest of it just comes down to doing their jobs in a hostile and confrontational environment. I have no love for the executives but that does not mean you can blame anything that ailed Saints at the time. Go back and look at what they were charged to do and that is what happened. Look at their major statements and they look even far more honest today than what they did at the time. If any 2 of the major share holders asked for costs to be reigned in, it would have happened. As those 2 shareholders can request an EGM if their wishes were not acted upon and that is the end of the executives. That simple.

I did not realise that Wilde had any involvement in running the club after he resigned. I thought it was Hone Delieu etc I am sorry if I was wrong. I must admit I never understood how Hone etc got so much power they even got rid of Crouch from being acting Chairman of the football club. Perhaps someone should write a book about the goings on at SFC Ridsdale did at Leeds Utd United We Fall. ill. . London: Macmillan, 2007. Hard Cover ISBN: 780230018662. The exact position is not totally clear cut, you can make up your own mind on that. When the executives found out that there was not sufficient funds to cover the initial overspend they went nuclear. They gave an ultimatum that either control was ceded to them to run the company or they would resign. By run the company that meant operating within all regulations and guidelines but on a mandate set by the share holders. If the major share holders wanted them to make the finances balance, that is the direction they would have taken. They were not dictating policy apart from those requirements required by law. Wilde left the board, with the only major share holder remaining being Crouch. Lowe was completely isolated and kept out of things and could only have any influence if his view tied in with either Wilde or Crouch. Wilde’s role in this is unclear but he must have either allowed Crouch to have his head or acquiesced in some manner. If at any time 2 of the 3 main share holders had demanded that the club was run to a particular financial strategy, it would have happened. When Crouch tried to install Thompson as chairman the executives went to Lowe and Wilde and asked them did they want this to happen. That was rebuffed and the board was then changed to give total control to the executives. If any two of the major share holders said at any point to stop the madness and square us financially it would have to happen. Now I am assuming throughout this that Lowe would back any move to operate within our financial limitations for the long term good of the club. That then would mean that throughout all of this period, that neither Crouch nor Wilde took this position for what ever reason. If you believe that the executives went headlong with this financial master plan without the support of the major share holders, then explain why they were not removed at the first AGM or any subsequent EGM that the share holders wished to call? Look at all the decisions and directions taken by the executives and they were at the direction of the share holders or regulatory requirements.

Listen to the village idiots guide to finance! "These accounts are not that bad, I don't know what the fuss is about". And how many times have we heard you say Wilde was not the real problem, just misunderstood? Well that understanding soon disappeared when he showed up with Lowe in tow and you eventually had to crawl in on yourself to come to terms with the whole episode. Why don't you follow Hiley over to his new website and see if you can get him booted out of that job! You did such a good job last time!

Wilde started the ball rolling and the executives were dumb enough to believe the idiocy that he came out with, but subsequently the the execs played it straight down the line. Go back and look at all their statements and they are all consistent with the actual finacial position of the club. If at any time Crouch had said we must get the finances in order, they would have followed that line, unless Lowe were to back Crouch and demand a spend. We had plenty of time to get out of the financial mire but Crouch had his head in the sand and is still to this day awaiting the magical investment. What a dumb arsed plan. Then go back and look at Crouch's ludicrous statements! We are not that bad off, we don't need to sell players we want? So desperate that unable to find a buyer, he loans them out to try and get out of the mess he has ignored for so long. Then the embarassment over the remainder of the Walcott fee, coming out and denying one small peice to give the impression all of it was untrue. Then go back to the ridiculous fawning over the Paul Allen bid, must be true, look who introduced him? Then you have the other muppets who will not go to St Mary's whilst Lowe is there, yet happily proclaim the 32000 under the biggest idiot we have had in the directors box. There are those that have senior moments, but this one is 24 carat. He could not have created so much mess if he actually intended it in the first place.

You conveniently forget that those comments by Crouch when he was first removed form the football board. " We have lost too many good people, I have fought them at every turn"? Not only do people swallow this crap, some are so blind as to stick it in a roll and apply a line of mustard before eating. Lowe oversaw relegation, Wilde is the culprit by starting this off by the overspend, but Crouch is the architect of where we find ourselves now.

ARGGGGH You are WRONG! There IS an alternative. Tell me which clubs under similar circumstances as ourselves have attempted this? You've eventually got round to understanding that all the senior players were up for sale. You should get round to figuring out that we have not moved enough to square things financially. We have two choices, administration or develop the youth to give the bank a reason to stick with us and not fail to honour cheques. If they believe that by developing the youth there is a good chance they can get more of a return than by pulling the plug, then we have a chance. I doubt the bank will place us in administration directly, but just failing to honour cheques will do the job. We are forced to develop and play the youth because of the financial position we are in. The only question arises as to who is best suited to do this job. Because the Dutch boys favour the system the Academy has been using, it only seems a natural extension to appoint a coach who will be using that system. This will not be a short term measure, but more than likely over a few years and we require the bank to buy into this concept over this period for it to work out. This will mean having to sell some of those youth, but hopefully few if we can get a decent fee. If we don't have the banks support for what ever reason, it all ends there and then.

Many people seem to forget that relegation isn't a financially viable option either. If you sell pretty much the whole first team squad and replace them with kids, you are leaving yourself massively exposed to that risk. Everyone is aware of the risk that is involved, but what few fail to grasp is that there was no real alternative, such is the magnitude of our financial problems. Our only chance of getting out of this is to develop the youth, even though that may mean selling some on to keep us afloat, because of the failure to get enough savings / finance from the senior players. The one thing I believe we have all benefited from is the restraint on comments from all parties, Lowe, Wilde, Crouch and McM. I feel we have had some help along the way to get Schneiderlin and I would guess at Wilde doing something similar along the lines of Crouch with Andrew Davies.

The opening season following relegation, we had the tallest team in the league and it never did us much good. We still leaked headers from set plays and corners, and our own free kicks and corners were more of an attacking opportunity for the opposition, than us. The team was something like, Niemi Hajto Claus Powell Higginbotham Delap Oakley Quashie Kowoloski Fuller Jones

It's the only way to tell when the take over is coming. Keep pressing the refresh button and eventually it will come your way.

I have often wondered how blokes can pour their hearts out to some hairy arsed Bulgarian trucker over the internet, just on the basis of a few selected words and having Sheila as a handle.

Basically agreed, I think I already posted this earlier, the only thing I think is that it was £1m for each 10 appearances, so possibly we may have received a payment at the earliest in about 1 years time when the WC Groups stages end (assuming Theo plays in all 10 qualifiers). Fact still is, its no good having a future payment schedule if we go under bfore those payments are due. Crouch did a good job renegotiating the deal (assuming he did), otherwise as Lowe as pointed out we would be in a worse financial position now than we are actually in, and that basically means we would be in Admin reading between the lines. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen, but Theo could get injured tomorrow and not play again this season, then where would stage payments be. I prefer jam today. It can only be seen as a good job in relation to the financial mess we were in. But when you look at all the bad decisions that created this mess, it is just another domino effect on that avalanche of financial disaster. The sheer stupidity of not introducing the youth far earlier is clear for everyone to now see. Just imagine how much better our squad would be with money to compliment that youth. You did not even need crystal balls to see it coming, it was the only thing that made financial sense, even to teams who never had such a gifted Academy. Crystal Palace and Norwich managed to figure it out whilst losing the parachute payments at the same time as ourselves, so how did we miss this with better talent to draw on?

Where do you get this crap from? What evidence do you have that the failure to keep Pearson was influenced by the fact that LM/LC picked him out? Just look at everything else that would have come up in the selection criteria and it is easy to see why the decision was made without you deciding to make up others. The overriding point will be based upon integrating and utilising the assets we have in the youth. This is the path that Lowe and Wilde had decided upon as being the one with only logical chance of of possibly getting us out of this mess. Then you have to factor in which of the candidates has the best chance of keeping us in the division. The double Dutch have to be seen in this respect as a risk, but was Pearson that much better? As much as I like Pearson and always had the feeling he would do the job, there was not a lot of hard evidence to back that up. His record in the games with us were poor, take away all those loan signings and senior squad members and you soon come to the conclusion we were nailed on for relegation. When you have come to a decision based upon those two points, then find the double Dutch are 1/3 cheaper than Pearson, it is just another indicator to this direction. Keeping Pearson would have been the easy way out and politically a winner in so many ways.

A quality never there in his prime. I thought he had taken over from Thora Herd doing the Stena chair lift adverts.

Very true. We are subject to financial forces and have very limited options open to us. We have effectively bought ourselves to the brink of administration and we now have only one path left to us. Because of the failure to move on enough high earners and gain capital from fees, I doubt if we are at the stage of refusing mediocre offers for our good players come January, but hopefully soon we shall be. This encapsulates exactly our current position "I'm just saying that what Wilde said makes sense and reflects accurately our current state. Whether you like or dislike, trust or distrust Wilde and/or Lowe is in this case irrelevant to the points being made about the club's situation and policy." Where as previous we were betting everything on a single roulette number, but with the odds associated with either red or black.

This should actually read the demise of the British club manager, as it hardly exists elsewhere. Why satchel is so anti the DOF role surprises me, because basically that is all he has been doing. No one in their right mind would call him a coach and tactically the likes of Brian Robson leave him for dead. You will always get good coaches that are equally good in the transfer market, Wenger being your best example. But you do not need the one person to be good at running / coaching the team and spotting talent, you do need both tasks done well. So it is an obvious step for big clubs to divide this function and if the one person proves adept at both aspects, it naturally gravitates that way. But if one of the functions is not working properly, it is far more sensible just to address the aspect that is not working and leave the other in tact. We have had two very good examples of WSG and Hoddle who were very good team managers, but poor when left alone in the transfer market.

The overall direction of your posts here look sound, but a few interesting points. The bank will not be funding the acquisition of prospects like Schneiderlin. They have already seen that theory crash and burn with Saga, with what looked a cast iron case at the time. We must be getting help from outside the PLC here. What success has Lowe had with restructuring our current / impending debts? If this has been converted into a longer term loan then there is a small chance. But our inability to move on high earners, recover significant fees and diminishing gates paint a very bleak future. As I see it, our only chance lies with being able to restructuring our current / impending debts and get the bank / someone to buy into the plan that we can develop the youth to enable financial salvation. In the current economic situation that is a very big ask. It would not surprise me if that figure of £4M is not on the low side, but if we can manage to pull in around £3M investment, we may have a fighting chance of getting out of the mess. Such a pity and so very avoidable, but this is where we find ourselves. For the first time in a long while, I actually feel a pride and connection with our team on the pitch. Under no illusions that being in this league next year will be a big ask, but hopeful of a play off spot the following season, if we can keep enough of them.

This is no different to many other threads upon the direction of the club and is only valid if we have this room to manoeuvre. What is being done at the present is a long term plan that looks like it has some backing, only time will tell on that. Very soon the accounts will be out and everyone can take their obligatory gasp and these threads will diminish.

I would include Fulthorpe in that position as well. We need them all, but they must be pulling in the one direction for the best of the club. I have believed from close to the beginning that the direction we are taking is the right direction. That does not mean that another direction backed by greater finance would not work better without Lowe. But until finance comes along that can make that difference, I would stick with what is currently in motion.

When you look back at the Premier league previous to the massive injections of capital, it was extremely poor and generally way behind much smaller footballing nations. Money has converted the Premier league into the best league in the world and with that have come all the players, techniques and structure used at the best clubs and countries in the world, very little modelled on England. To give you an idea where we would be without the money, just look at Rangers and Celtic. Prior to the Premier these teams were not far off a parallel with the good teams in England. Now how far do their structure and organisation look behind the EPL? The only real difference that has separated us being money. The one country that can be used as a guiding light in punching way above their weight in football is Holland. This was not a natural footballing nation where high percentages of the population were playing football on the beach every weekend. They were skating on frozen canals, cycling, hockey or some other minority sport. Then along came a club called Ajax with an organisational structure that managed to elevate the club to far greater heights than their resources warranted. Soon copied by many other clubs in Holland, it elevated the whole country in the footballing world. Other countries looked at what was going on with Ajax and copied to various degrees across Europe. Whereas in our little back water we had a manager who was responsible for everything, even down to the guy who washed the kit. So where does the DOF fit into all of this? Well you can quote the obvious examples of what the Dutch clubs have done and how they have been copied, but the obvious answer is what is required to give you a winning football team. For a club to be successful someone needs to be getting in the right player, but that does not need to be the coach / manager. We can all give so many examples where clubs would have been far better off if the manager had nothing to do with player transfers. The manager / coach has to be part of the system that brings / sells players at a club, but the amount of influence he / she should have will be directly related to past success / failure. By natural selection the person who selects the fewest duds and better prospects will come to the fore, that may or may not be the coach / manager. On the opposite hand you have managers who are in their position mainly because of their acquisitions in the transfer market and wisely leave the training and tactics to others. The two aspects do not need to go hand in hand with one person for a club to be successful, but the two aspects do need to be done well for a club to be successful. It makes so much sense to have the DOF approach, where you have safe guards attached to the manager / coach to compliment his position rather than erode it and a less emotive objective of what is required. Look at the problems West Ham have had and it looks odds on they will be taking the DOF route in the future, to avoid the waste of resources that could cost them their position in the Premier. Then look at why this happened at Newcastle, exactly for the same reasons that caused Curbishlys position to become untenable. Very early days I know, but if you look at the value for money acquisitions made in the Premier this season and what was required for the club, Newcastles summer acquisitions look very good value. And if you were looking for someone to get in players on a limited budget, Keegans name would be down the bottom of that list, even though you may fancy him as manager.

You only have to look at our best two best managers in recent history, WSG and Hoddle. I doubt most fans would trust them with 10p in a sweet shop, such is their past record. Then you have the likes of Wenger, with most managers being happy to get even near his buying record. So in reality, it will depend upon the individuals involved. I believe the set up Lowe had previously, where there was a group looking at player acquisitions (including the manager/coach), worked extremely well. The other strong point of the system is that it provides far better continuity should the manager / coach leave. The two examples you have cited, Curbishly and Keegan are classic examples of taking on a DOF. Curbishlys buys are sufficient alone to get him bouncing down the road on his arse, with Keegans theory to keep buying players he fancies until he gets one that fits. I thought Newcastle made 3 very good buys in the summer and a big thumbs up in what they were doing. As to the sale of players, Keegan is not considering the financial side one bit with the example of Owen. You are either held to ransom with his wage demands or you can move him on for some sort of a fee at the present. Keegan threw his arms up in the air as soon as he got to Newcastle, saying it was impossible to break into the top 4 without the money. What he should of said, was he was not Arsene Wenger.

Derby released Holmes, otherwise there would have been a tribunal over the compensation to Derby. After all your damning of the OS previously, you now elevate it to biblical status. You should go off on and highlight the problems and inaccuracies on the OS, may even have an effect?

I'm sure the OS was saying that Holmes turned Derby down (sic) because of the Dutch football and the Chairman's youngsters policy. And when did Poortvliet and Lowe relay these comments to Holmes? The day he signed or the day before? Derby had already released Holmes when he came to us, so he never had that option? From the comments of Henderson and Hockaday it is pretty clear they had a large influence upon the arrival of Wotton, Perry, Holmes and Forecast. For the French lads, Lowe has obviously put a lot of faith in Prost. Whether this is right or wrong only time will tell, but everything so far has been pretty acceptable. From Pulis seniors comments, his son looks the only signing you can tie Jan into, unless it was coincidence and polite conversation.

If the evidence was so inconclusive how on Earth did it ever come to court? What a waste of taxpayers money Irrespective of innocent, guilty or just being a thwat, the judge has got this spot on. The original tape showed BWP doing nothing more than acting like a pratt. If he says he thought it was a prank, there is nothing there that shows otherwise. As for the CPS, they put the local nutter Barry George away for years on just a fraction of the evidence here.

Where exactly does the education come in that guess? When you keep quoting soon and the months end up in years, add on a prospective manager every 3 months and you really are in Billy Bullsheite territory. Even your basic monkey should soon see through the necessity of going for a leak every time it's their round. As they have already agreed a price and acceptance of sale of shares, where exactly is the problem? This has the classic hallmarks of a chimps tea party, it all looks vaguely familiar but even a 5 year old can work out what is going on. Yet you still get the adults looking for boats and flags in the tea leaves.