up and away

LOL, this must be the 21st century equivalent of body snatchers I take it. As the only way they will afford it is to quietly dig up the corpse in the mid of night. Nowadays, it's standard practice to have a post mortem, so when they recover the body, it will be missing most of it's main organs. For someone that cares so much for the club, they really must enjoy Russian roulette to take it this close to the wire. Either that or they are just a bunch of chancers with a paper bag to **** in.

This is a valid question which goes against this whole event and I can only assume we have had help from some source related to the club. When we signed the likes of Wotton, Holmes and Perry early doors, a lot thought this as a good sign that things were not so bad. But as was explained to me at the time it was an even worse indicator, in that we were fooked anyway if we could not move on the high earners and in getting in the frees early at least gave us a chance of putting a team on the pitch, than if we left it to the last minute. When we signed Saga we used the logic that even if we could not afford to keep him, we could readily sell him on, possibly at a good profit. Well the bank has seen where that one got us, so I really doubt they would have bought into that scenario. The only thing that makes any sense there is that we had financial help from outside the plc.

This is the choice we have to make, administration or attempt to avoid it with no guarantee we will be successful. With most businesses the plug would already have been pulled and we would be floating don the river, but for some reason football clubs are the equivalent of the cat with nine lives in this respect. Every high earner we have on our books has been available for sale since the end of last season, but we have just not been able to shift enough to plug the hole that is leaking the finances. In addition to getting parity on the wage bill we are still amassing/ed debt from these losses that have to be squared in some manner. If the debt can be restructured then the likes of Surman can remain, otherwise anything that can command a transfer fee will have to be sold to alleviate this problem. The only thing that Saints have on their side is to give the belief to their creditors that by developing our only assets (the youth), they have a far better chance of a return then placing us in administration. This is the position we find ourselves in and we have no one to blame but ourselves. If anyone believes adminstration is the better option then think again. All of the above will still happen, but sold off cheaper and quicker than imagineable and with a 17 point deduction as a going away present.

You blew that wish last time, you think you deserve a second?

There has to be a point where we say that there are players we have to keep because they are worth more for what they bring to the team than the money we get for them. This is a concept that the money men have never understood. There could come to pass a situation whereby the weaker defence means a bad losing streak followed by loss of morale, followed by more games lost, followed by fewer people through the turnstiles, followed by bigger losses. So we are f*cked by following this path also, but will probably go under with a whimper rather than a bang in the process. What you fail to clarify is that going out with a bang actually means administration and that's F*cked with a capital F. Why do you feel the current board are employing this policy? to maximise profits to return a dividend? Not only Lowe is saying this, but Wilde has equally painted the picture that fans do not realise how close we are to administration. Equally blinding is that Crouch has joined some religious order and taken a vow of silence on the subject. I fully expect once the transfer and loan windows have closed, we will be treated to accounts showing you exactly why we have no other option. When you are having to release players on a free or keep loaning them out shows exactly what a tenuous position we are in. When you have two 20+ goal scorers for this division and you can only offload one by loan because of their high salaries just shows you what a mess we have got ourselves into.

It's only one fookin year with a measly one year extension option FCS. By the time we get his knee popped back in, he will be off. Alpines giving some yodellers some **** at the moment, so just standing in till he's back.

The reality is that he was preparing for games with what he knew he would have available. If offers came in for Saga, Rasiak and John, I am sure all would have gone. But it looks like we have not had a decent nibble for John so he will end up remaining by default, so now JP can make use of him. Same thing with Kelvin, but they all accepted pretty early we had no chance with that one. Rasiak wanted to stay and it was not a question of attitude, only of finance.

I know a lot of the stewards and in the main they are pretty good bunch and the main reason they do it is because they are Saints fans. But as with any person who is there to do a job, I imagine they get fed up having to repeat continuously to fans what is expected of them. You get incidents happen which they were not witness to and are expected to give a judgement of Solomon to someone who's in your face and irate with them. It's on a par with being a referee, where the best you can hope for is to come out breaking even. Talk to those that no longer steward and I expect the main reason to be because it was not worth the hassle. Those that stay on get battle hardened to the situation, but I am not sure can you can lay the lions share of blame at their feet. What really ****es me off is that sections use any excuse to beat the club with or give succour to those that do. Irrespective of knowing the facts or merely based upon some idiot met down the pub, or even worse, some idiot your mate met down the pub.

How exactly does a football crowd coming in on match days add to the local economy, except burgers and programmes? Most prefer to do their socialising in town on match days, as with most other clubs. When you have so many travelling together it is difficult to see much of the surroundings, you definitely don't stop and linger with that sort of volume moving in one direction. I don't say it is totally impossible, but am racking my memory where this has worked previously with a similar situation such as Saints? The club is restricted in how it can generate revenue from non footballing aspects by the council, but there is definite room for improvement in such enterprises as conferences. But again St Mary's will never be for the big ones due to their covered capacity and location, especially when you look at the competition they are going up against. You only have to look at the money Pompey and ManC have thrown at the football, just to be away from the relegation scrap, to see this can realistically never make a profit.

This just does not add up. Why does the club need to be the centre piece? There is no financial or local issue that brings this into play. The council will bend over backwards to redevelop the area with or without the club being involved. Financially, it makes so much more sense not to have the club tied to the project than imagination can extend. Then the small fact that investors would be required to plough their hard earned into the football club even before the profitable bit, otherwise the club would see no money for a long time in the future. Football clubs are the Mints equivalent for investors, of what to do with old bank notes. I would not say we don't need investment and should not upset the Dutch revolution already started, because financial pressures will bring that to it's knees the way things are heading at the moment. But someone coming in just to saddle us with more debt with greater fiscal responsibility is just nuts in this division. Far better off to negotiate with the threat of administration over our lenders than that avenue.

I don't know of anyone who does not believe that investment is desperately needed. But after all this time, with an ever worsening loan and property market, you have to be deluded to believe a take over will happen without the club going into administration. Then to consistently keep promoting different managers that will be taking the club forward upon this next Friday take over? you would expect Looney Tunes to be in the credits.

Have you considered that this group does not have the money? And the only way they could afford to take over the club, is if we went into administration to remove our outstanding debts and get rid of all the high earners in a stroke?

Like a dripping tap or consistently nagging tart, it just goes on and on without abate. Just like the passenger on "Airplane", where any form of suicide is a viable alternative.

I get the nasty feeling you are correct here. I heard recently that investment was a necessity and Cowen said something similar at the Saints forum last night (never heard it precisely, so waiting on that play back). Then the rumblings from the Fulthorpe camp, who as I see it only have the money to afford to pick up the pieces once the fan has done the work load. We must be looking down the barrel of the gun if we fail to reduce our wage bill and bring in capital to offset our losses. All the high earning senior players have been available for sale from the beginning of the season, with the hope that enough revenue could be generated and drastically reduce the wage bill. Fans can point at the signings of Holmes, Perry and Wotton as an indication that things are not that bad, with these being signed before we offloaded. But as was explained to me, we were jacobed if we failed to move the high earners on anyway. So we might as well be ready if we do get things sorted, as it really will not make a lot of difference if things go pear. The Schniederlin signing bucks all this, but I get the feeling that someone has lent a helping hand here. When all this came up at the end of last season with the Dutch coming in and the youth being promoted, I felt we were on for a hiding what ever happened and just hoped to make the best out of a bad job. But after recently seeing the team play (especially against West ham), I suddenly realised that we were in with a real shout with these kids. Not only of escaping relegation, but of possibly better. The fact we never off loaded the high earners before now and brought in the youth players far earlier as Crystal Palace and Norwich had done, now looks far more stupid and harder to take.

Money for Shearer, players etc pie in the sky and crashing and burning come to mind. You have hit the nail on the head. Leave well alone, forget takeovers and get back to the unity of the football team. If you posters don't watch the team you have no idea what we are talking about. Get back to SMS and watch the revolution. I was surprised, and overwhelmed by the team. I've watched 60 matches in the last two seasons, most of them total dross. This team is something else. As much as I am encouraged by what I have seen from the team, we are still desperate for financing. My fear is that administration is creeping up on us if we cannot move on enough players from our books. Having the support of the bank is exactly the same for us, as it is for the club. Get to a certain limit and it disappears. I heard rumours they were trying to renegotiate things to restructure our debt, giving us a longer time frame to get on an even keel, but until we are squared you can never be sure. As for Fulthorpe that looks less of an attractive option as time goes by. Comments keep appearing as to the manager they will or will not employ, which seems pretty rich for someone just waggling their **** in the air. The plan presented by Fulthorpe just looks less and less possible with every passing day. A massive redevelopment of the area with Saints at it's heart, with the profit / investment generating the revenue for Saints. Why Saints has to be at the heart of it no one can logically explain, so I am having difficulty nailing Saints to this scheme. Then the small fact that profits are going to be a long way away, these investors will be coughing up cash to Saints first? Then taking the current boom in the financial and development sectors, we are led to belive that funds unable to be previously sourced are now readily available. Yep, that makes a lot of sense. If Fulthorpes scheme makes any sense to a developer or investor, there appears nothing to stop them doing the same without having the cost of Saints involved.

Why ever not? Most of the previous staff will have been temporary and getting more in to mix with the existing staff will be no problem what soever. They will know from ticket sales and the previous walk ups what their match day numbers will be and will act upon a certain volume at a certain cut off date. When you get to that sort of numbers the policing will already be close to full strength and the whole thing will be close to an automatic reaction.

If, and it still looks a big if, we can get a solid back four with Svennson and Davies in the middle, then we are in with a big shout. Get that solid platform for the rug rats to go out and do their stuff and I would be very optimistic from what we have shown so far.

For someone trying to avoid something, you devoted 50% of the original post to exactly the opposite.

We will have to see what happens in a week or two but I suspect that the coaching team don't want the game being slowed down by "senior players". If someone can't hack the pace it will ruin the whole system. Looks and sounds promising but we shall see . I think physically several of the senior pro's are more than adequate. What I view as a real problem of trying to marry them to this system is more the speed of thought and ability to understand what is required. The other major point is that I don't see any of them with sufficient a passing game to fit well enough. Maybe I am being a bit unfair here, but until I actually see it I will have reservations.

I can't see us putting out the starting 11 for Cardiff against Stoke, this is assuming that was the starting 11 against West ham (which if it was not before hand, certainly looks like it now). They really knocked their pan out against West Ham and it's just too much for a young team with so many games to come. I don't see it as wise doing the same with last years team, let alone this one. Use this game to get the rest of the squad fit and pointers for any to break through.

So we'd do fine as long as the Championship was populated with teams like West Ham and Arsenal? I would put the house on you not being at this game. Tackles snapping in from the rug rats that made you concerned for them, as equally the opposition. They did not like it up em one bit. This performance would bring a smile to any Saints fan and had you beaming with pride at the end of it. So many good performances but Lloyd James just about capped it for me, though Thompson was equally as good. McGoldrick looked a different player after his goal and it was difficult to pick out a poor player. Bart flapped a bit but generally was good, defence let him down a bit but it was a fair result. We still have not got the balance right between defending and attacking but it was so much better than against Celtic. This game does not mean much when it comes to how we will fare in the CCC, but I am a lot less worried about the season than I originally thought. If things continue the way JP has started things out, it will truly be a miracle.