sidthesquid

And when I manage to think of something I damn well will

Quote: But remember that he (Lowe) still has his supporters who regularly post on here and will by doing so continue to perpetuate the division between the fans. It's comments like this that make me a) despair for the future of this club & b) want to say something nice about Rupert

How about Rupert Lowe? He'd be cheap He's available He has ties to the club Deep knowledge of football...... Oh b*gger, it was going so well up till then

One of the more depressing things is how both Nottm Forest & Doncaster not only outfought us but outplayed us. Both teams seemed full of busy, skillful players that played decent football & didn't just hoof it and try to bludgeon us into submission. I still think this league is very tight - Donny looked no better or worse really than Reading did -but sadly our team of prodigees from the Academy don't stand up to close comparison with anyone at the moment. At best we have a bunch of reasonable/average CCC players like most other teams at the cheap end of the division who are doing their best but it is currently barely adequate. But that is all a club as financially f*cked as us can afford

My player ratings for what it's worth Davies - 8.5 - no chance with goals, made some vital saves James - 6.5 - okay, got forward well, always seemed exposed when they attacked (mind you the lino in the 1st half missed at least four offsides) Molyneux - 5.5 - not great but not terrible, he's cheap, young & will do a job Perry - 5 - looked leggy at times, but solid Saeijs - 7 - like the look of him Holmes -5 - why play him on the wrong side. He looked like a left winger playing on the right Surman & Shneiderlin - 5 - neither imposed themselves on the opposition but had some good moments Wright-Phillips - 3 - back to his clueless worst. (One of his many failings is that he never anticipates, never makes runs for the possibility of a pass or a mistake.) McGoldrick - 4.5 - guilty of the above also, but did work hard without ever looking like he'd get a goal Saganowski - 5 - only gets the extra half point for the goal, but looked pretty ineffective until then Lallana - 6 - still looks a classy player, but still needs to make it count Smith - 6 - tried to be positive Poortvliet - 4- Brave substitutions but why play Holmes & BWP on the wrong wings Team - 3 - Our team as a whole is yet again less than the sum of its individual parts Fans - 2 - Get behind the team & stop fighting each other, it's embarrassing

This moment will go down as the moment when the English love affair with football ended. When Abramovich first came to Chelski he at least allowed a manager to assemble a team with a vague semblance of business about it and I enjoyed seeing the Man Us and Arsenals get stirred up. But they were happier, more prosperous times, now it just seems obscene, removing Prem football that little bit more from Joe Public. I've never had Sky, but of the six blokes I knew at work who had it, four have cancelled subscriptions, one has dropped the Sky Sports part and the other is about to. There is going to be a lot less dosh in football in two years time and the gulf between the foreign-owned teams full of foreigners and the real world will become too big to heal. True fans keep on going to matches, no matter how bad it gets, plastic fans watch it on Sky and if they can't afford it or they get bored or their mates start mocking them for following a plastic team they can walk away (unlike me!) Kaka is the straw that will break the camel's back

"But if I’m no longer wanted, I would rather the club tell me, then I can start to look elsewhere." I think they have tried hinting very strongly and repeatedly that he is no longer wanted, but he isn't going to rush off elsewhere else because he isn't worth 20% of his current deal and he knows it. This is merely him hinting that perhaps he might be amenable to a compromise on his pay-off

Oh ye we do

If he or Folly was playing for us now everyone on here would say they were sh1te, but because they're not they're brilliant. Griffit was just another in a long, long line of nippy little wingers who have some talent but no application who promise a lot before drifting off down the leagues. Folly is an adequate CCC holding midfielder, but you wouldn't rate him if you saw him every week and you wouldn't swap him for Surman or Schneiderlin

Most under-rated manager ever - Chris Nicholl. Came in on the back of Lawrie's fading glory days, had to sell most of his big name players and start again with the kids - Franny, MLT, Dodd etc. Most clubs of our size in that situation inevitably fall on hard times & get relegated, but we didn't. Instead we expected him to do better than Lawrie, which he couldn't quite achieve and it was only after we replaced him with Branfoot, who almost tore his promising team apart, that we realised what a mistake we'd made.

Oops, I forgot old Whiskey George - probably in there joint third with Souey

1 Redknapp - shafted us all ways then a long way behind come the rest.... 2 Branfoot - well meaning but crapp 3 Souness - talked a good game, but only just behind the above 2 4= Gray & Wigley - good coaches that were ultimately not up to the job, but unlucky

I'm with Tim. There are far too many people on here who, to quote Mrs Doyle - 'like the misery.' They wouldn't know how to cope if we started doing well. Blame, recrimination, navel-gazing and re-writing history on all sides of the argument gets us no-where. People were even blaming the finance director chap yesterday as they'd run out of people to blame And now I'm doing it, blaming the people who go round blaming everyone else..... Where does it end? Madness, but not a good madness like Tim's. So I absolve you all. 2009 is going to be a good year for Saints - we'll definitely finish the year higher than we started it and by 2010 we wil be back above the Skates and order will have been restored to the chaotic universe. I'm going for a little down now before I take my medication.....

He's a bean-counter. And as all good bean-counters know, you keep your head down when the big decisions are made and just tell them afterwards how much they have lost. It's what bean-counters do - dynamic/egotistical people don't sit and tally numbers all day

Can we have some more Harry ones. BTW I see he is back to slagging of the squad he inherited - terrible squad at Tottenham apparently, unbalanced, needs majoroverhaul etc etc etc. The man really is a **** & a **** & a ****

It always seems to me that the people who crave Saga or Skacel or Euell back in te team are not the ones who watch them regularly. It is hope born of past reputations and a lack of recent knowledge. Last season he didn't look like he could put one past Supersaint at half time & he has hardly been prolific since he last played for us, has he?

I still don't believe Skacel looks any better than anyone else in our team, but that wasn't the issue. We had to, and still need to, get one of our biggest earners off the books. It wasn't a footballing decision but a financial one because of our desperate need for cash. It really is as simple as that

Reasons why I love football 1. I love the tribalism - that's the whole point. I love the world cup - I always want one team to win more than the other - some link to an ex-player or past holiday, some irrational desire to see Scotland/Germany/France etc lose and if I can't find that reason to support one team I probably won't watch. I only watched the cup final to hope to see Pompey lose. I check the results seeing if my other teams - mostly southerners or old sentimental ties - have won. 2. I love seeing young lads come through and develop and in the good old days go on to play for England. My favourite players were always Channon & Holmes & Williams & MLT & Oakley & Bridgey & and I'd follow the careers of all our ex-players, even knowing that the Bury manager (I think) is Alan Knill an ex-apprentice of ours 3. I love watching my lad play (under 15s in the county league) and if he starts playing regularly on a Saturday afternoon I might just give up St Marys 4. Nearly 40 years of highs and lows, Saints has outlived everything in my life bar my family 5. The hope that our mad experiment of a team of young academy graduates might just turn the overpaid corporate business that football has become on its head 6. The chance to be bigoted and irrational and angry when things don't go right and to loathe another human being for their stupidity (are you reading this Mr Riley?) Is that enough to be going on with?

Why are people surprised by what he has said? It was obvious that we were desperate for Ipswich to buy him (allegedly for £1million) as he was the only senior player we seemingly received a bid for, then he refused to go because they wouldn't match his ludicrously large Southampton salary. So Rupert attempted to force his hand by trying to freeze him out, then, when it became clear he wasn't going they decided to let him play and earn his keep. I don't see where the issue is - football is a tough business. Also, I still think he is wildly overrated and most of those that rave about him on here seem to come from faraway places where (I'm generalising a little, before you all point out you travel across the world for every home game) and don't watch him every week. As a deadball specialist he makes Idiakez look missed and looks no better than all our much maligned lads in their first senior season despite his wage and experience

I would just like to add that there are a lot of unrealistic moaners on here. What did anyone expect. We are broke, reduced to playing youngsters (and if anyone who watched Jason Euell against Reading thinks he would have improved us should really find a new sport to follow as they don't understand this one) and played with 10 men against the best and richest club in England (or the world, perhaps). We didn't look like scoring and it could have been worse, but we fought hard & they all did the best they were capable of. That is our reality, a skint & struggling CCC team full of lads. But we will finish 2009 in a higher position than we start it

I'm going to take a few positives from today 1 We kept trying & there was no disgrace in the performance or the result 2 It was at least half a contest until the sending-off and that crap penalty. I don't think we were ever capable of winning, but as a CCC team against Man U you really need the luck to go your way not theirs 3 None of our lads froze (except possibly Gobern, but perhaps he was worrying about school tomorrow) 4 My Man U mate I went with was impressed with our play, but thought our boys weren't quite ready, not surprising when you think half our team had never started a senior game before August, but that there was a lot of talent & potential on show 5 They send on Wayne Rooney, we send on MacLaggon. They don't even bring Ronaldo, we struggled to find 7 fit subs - what result do people really expect? 6 I nearly lost the faith after Nottm Forest, but after Reading & today I still think that we will stay up and next year we will be whole lot better. (As a for inst, I thought, and my Man U mate and the people behind us all thought that Lloyd James did well today. He has now had half a season in the first time & he looks like he believes that he belongs there, likewise McGoldrick. Give some of the others - Gobern, Patterson, Lancashire, MacLaggon the same & I think we will start to do better)

Why are people constantly surprised that the OS pushes the party line. That is their job, regardless of who is in the boardroom. There cannot surely be a single football club or any other business in the world whose website does differently. It's what it is there for. If you want independent news try this site or the Echo or any other independent website, but not the official website for the club.

That still doesn't make Dyer any good, though

A friend of mine met someone who taught Dyer at school and they said he was always a pain in the Rse with a confrontational attitude so it sounds like nothing has changed. Also, don't forget McLaggon's appearance in the team - as somebody said last week, he looked like Dyer with pace and an end product. I agree with the idea that we took a gamble on offering him a contract, hoping at the very least, to get a transfer fee for him, but unless he sets the world on fire at Swansea he's going to be hard to shift, but a fair gamble nonetheless.

Out All offers considered for Surman, Lallana & Schneiderlin A rapid shake of the hand if anyone out there is daft enough to agree to take on the ludicrous wages of Euell, Skacel, BWP or Saggy A reluctant shake of the hand to take Davis off the wage bill In More teenage loanees and a couple of frees (teenage) Gloomy though my predictions are, is there any alternative? (In the real world, I mean, not the fantasy buyout or we've got lots of money but Lowe won't spend it world)