londonsaint1604

They deserved it thoroughly and I for 1 enjoyed the afternoon despite the result. If they can perform like that again (disregarding the sloppy defending early on of course!) then we'll have nothing to worry about this season.

Well if you've been to many football games you'll know that you don't always get 90 minutes of sheer joy and entertainment for your money. You get less entertainment when your team is not playing very well and not getting results, as is the case with Saints right now. Things tend to change over time, however, so I'm sure that if we're patient we can expect to see some great football and some great results at st marys again, maybe next week against Wolves, maybe next month against Forest or maybe not until next season, who knows. All I'm saying is that things aren't looking good at the moment but moaning about it won't make much difference.

Whereas supporting a football club and eating a steak at a restaurant are basically the same thing. Southampton FC is a club in decline, simple as that. Don't expect to be entertained every time you go st marys, or indeed very often at all! And don't expect to see them winning very much either. Supporting a football club is not the same as being a paying customer at a restaurant, however. You cannot expect that you will get a return on your investment every time you spend £24 on a ticket because it just won't happen sometimes. You have to take the rough with the smooth and right now we are going through a very rough patch indeed, all we can do as fans is support the team and be patient. With such a young side I think it's important they get as much support from the fans as we can muster. It's of little wonder that the away form is better than our home form this season, as the pressure of playing in front of the home fans is clearly getting to these young players. If you want to get on their backs when things aren't going well, or stay away because you don't fancy paying to watch Saints lose, that's up to you, but it's not going to help the club.

Perhaps the clubs with insurmountable levels of debt? I still can't believe we didn't get Scolari while he was available.

I'm sure you will make all the difference mate.

Why can't people just admit that they don't have the stomach for the tough times that lie ahead for saints, and stop hiding behind this 'i hate lowe' ********? The problem is that we have no money and without investment we will struggle for the foreseeable future, without the support of the fans the club faces a real crisis. If you want to blame Lowe for everything at least propose a viable alternative to the current situation.

Probably too early to tell as there are still 34 games to play. The defence needs to improve though, and I guess last night was a start but again it sounds like Kelvin kept us in it. Having said that I think it's very unlikely that we'll go down.

We have been inconsistent and very poor at times but to suggest we would be relegated from league 1 is beyond stupidity. But then no one with half a brain actually believes that would happen anyway, they're being 'drama queens' as someone said earlier.

The teams we would play in league 1 would be different to the teams we play in the championship, and would be of a lower standard. So far we have been very inconsistent, playing some great football but lacking the experience to kill games off and our defence has been awful as you mention. If we can sort out the defence we could finish in the top half comfortably. To say we would not survive league 1 is beyond stupidity and I'm sure you don't actually believe that, you're just overreacting to a couple of very bad results.

Steady on mate, this is neither the time nor the place for sensible comments. Stick with Lowe out! We are all doomed! for now please.

A slight overreaction I think. Also the answer to the original (and incredibly stupid) question "would we survive league 1?" is yes, obviously. Although the question doesn't really deserve to be dignified with an answer. With a competent defence we would be comfortably in the top half of the championship.

Fair enough but it was always around the 20,000 mark. The decline this season has been much sharper than ever before, if we get 18,000 on saturday that will be a good attendance, last season that would have been a poor one. You're quite right though it's a question of expectation. Last season there was still hope after the play-offs the year before, whereas look at some of the message boards now and people are moaning about how we're as good as relegated already. The sad fact is that attitude will only exacerbate the problem, we need everyone to get behind the team, where are all those fans who turned up on the last day against sheff utd? If they cared enough then why, in the space of 3 months, have they decided they're not interested any more?

I remember spending £5 on a pint and a chicken balti pie and the pie was lukewarm.

Last season was bad results-wise but we were still getting over 20,000 for each game. AwaySaint1 you are talking nonsense mate, if you want to stay away and sulk that's up to you. It only shows how little you must have cared to begin with if Rupert Lowe means more to you than Southampton Football Club.

Don't think we have a choice really! Although I am confident we won't go down this season, in fact I'll be surprised if we're in a relegation battle next year as we were earlier this year. Ok we had a slightly better start last season but it just got worse and worse and the players lost all hope, interest and ambition pretty quickly. This time I think there will be ups and downs but I can see the team improving as the season progresses.

Things don't look that bad though. The Championship is always a tight league and that's why a good surge late in the season can see the likes of Hull secure promotion. This time last year they were in 15th place with only 3 wins in 10. Where are they now? Not saying we'll be winning at the Emirates a year from now but we won't be in League 1 that's for sure. In the last 5 games we've won 2, drawn 2 and lost 1 and I don't think that's something to cry about. As long as we improve defensively we will have a much better season than last year.

Ok fair enough, I'll admit I haven't been to many Wigan games this season. My point simply was that it seems like a strange generalisation to say we need to sign strong, black defenders as if those attributes alone make them effective. I used Bramble as an example just because of the cliche that he's rubbish. Davies did very well for us last season and he didn't look like an African to me. Lucketti wasn't bad either, I don't think it makes much difference where they come from, by that reasoning we should be signing the first small forward we can find from argentina in the hope he will be a similar player to Maradona.

Also Titus Bramble is a strong, black central defender but I wouldn't want him playing for us.

In all fairness they are a young and inexperienced team that needs constructive criticism if they're to learn from their mistakes. The defending on Saturday was complete s***e. Of course the manager must take his share of the responsibility but there's no use just whinging about him every time we get a crap result, there will be a few more of those to come this season no doubt! This set up was never going to provide a miraculous recovery for a club that narrowly avoided relegation last year, but there have been some very good performances so far and we've got to have some patience. It's only just October after all.

Nothing to add to the debate but I will say that without Kelvins 2 brilliant saves minutes before our 2nd goal on tuesday we would never have won that game.

Were you there on tuesday night, mate? I have to admit that it was the first home game I've been to this season (other than Claus' testimonial) mainly because I live in London and am not too flush at the moment. I did make it to Cardiff on the first day, however, so that was a decent effort I thought but my point is this: I've never seen such a total lack of atmosphere at st marys, even last season when we were playing ****e we still had 20-25,000 attendances. If it continues the way it's going now the club could be in serious trouble and this is why Long Shot is drawing attention to the problem.