rallyboy

well I'm happy to combine the two, proud to see Hampshire win at Lords and I came home with red and white legs. My mate was in his Saints shirt, only got abuse a couple of times but while they were up there giving him stick their sisters must have been enjoying a day of not being 'bothered' back home in the caravan.

I can understand the concern about the potential problems of having one owner. But if we look around the leagues I would suggest that OUR one owner has credibility, a proven track record, respect in the business community, and has done everything in a professional and sensible manner that gives me confidence in his ability to move the club forward and not regard Saints as a flats/hotel development that happens to have some annoying sporting club attached. Bates, Gaydamak, Hamman, non-Dr Hydra-'sue me for your money back' - not men I would want near my club. Chelsea is a hotel complex financed on a whim by Russian oil 'given' to people by a crumbling govt, the Glazers bought Man utd with the club's own money, Liverpool has the 'benefit' of two owners and all that goes with boardroom egos, QPR has a cosy consortium that has bought some great chandliers, and Leeds have just picked up a huge bill for Bates' latest legal loss, though of course the club is owned by a mystery trail of off shore investment vehicle companies. I would be nervous with some of those people pulling the strings, but we are not in that position, one owner can be a problem if it's the wrong owner. Unless he goes a bit bonkers at some point, I will be very comfortable with ours.

I would love us to charge straight up this table and grab the title by the throat. BUT we are currently cursed with the bare bones remains of the poorest team in our history and a new manager is desperately trying to bring in players, so experience suggests these things won't gel overnight. If we get just a point from the first two games then a few people are in for a reality check. 1st target - Club survival - DONE. 2nd target - Stay up - maybe by Christmas we will know.... 3rd target - Playoffs or close to. 4th target - Promotion. 5th target - Champions. I am pleased that AP is targetting the top two but IMO anyone putting money on automatic promotion needs their head tested, it's a very long shot - and please note this post so you can drag it out when we do go up, I will be as pleased as anyone if I am wrong!! Please Mr P, make me look stupid!!! This isn't 'loser talk', just a touch of reality, I am sure Fialka had us in the Champion's League within two years, that doesn't make him a winner, or ambitious, whatever his mum thinks. Steady everyone, we will get there.....we will return.

There must be half a dozen people out there who consider they were in principle offered the Southampton job recently, but I don't think the man who actually owns the club was doing the offering. Fialka's wishlist must be a lengthy document. In Pardew we trust.

this is a real blow and sets us back, Euell was to be the spine of our promotion-winning team and he offered excellent value for money when you think of the games that he won us single-handed last season. In my view he will be a very difficult player to replace for that sort of wage, he was so much more than just a free-scoring midfield general. Then again my view is slightly-impaired by the mind-altering ****tail of drugs that the nurses sedate me with, so I may be confusing him with a hat stand or a small tree. Pardew must be chuffed, that's one less awkward conversation he has to have with an overpaid underachiever.

So he's scraped his pennies together then, though I note that the league has approved him but have said they will be monitoring any changes....meaning they will be asking questions if his legal problems escalate, or if perhaps a mystery investor suddenly pops up in the background thinking the coast is clear. I wonder if the non-doctor may be on his credit limit without the torturer's backing, it should be an enlightening transfer window. If he doesn't spend within a week then we will all know that the game is up - he doesn't have the finance for the team or a ground, but if he does spend, then we know that he can clear the debt and move the club forward. And he needs to spend BIG if he is serious about keeping them in the Prem. Either way, we will be reunited soon!

Mail online headline - 'Pompey in trouble....' - now reporting that Hydra investors are taking legal action, a further complication for someone in the middle of a fit and proper persons test. An interesting development, unlike his apartments. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1200615/Portsmouth-trouble-Al-Fahim-takeover-bid-probed.html

I think some are being mischievous and confusing museums with trophy cabinets... Twenty years ago there was more than enough stuff to fill a boardroom wall at The Dell, pennants and gifts from visiting clubs and tours, minor tournament silverware, add to that old programmes, photos, player-loaned shirts and boots, some multi-media action and interview stuff and you would have a cracking museum. The club has a few well-respected historians to assist, it would really link the post-admin club to the history. A great idea, and not a huge expense I wouldn't have thought. Extended stadium tours - see the ground, learn about the history, buy stuff in the shop, come back on Saturday and spend more, come back for the rest of your life.

Sad news for those who hadn't heard about Sammy the club mascot... He'd been unwell for a few years and his last couple of owners had not cared for him properly, his last big walk was in 2003 and after that he was malnourished, starved of love and forgotten. To save a vet bill, Mark Fry backed his Montego over the poor thing to put him out of his misery. It wasn't all bad though, he made lovely seat covers, and Fry used the £25 he raised through their sale to pay off Barclays.

Good tip, but it must be said that if Rupert offered ANYONE the Saints job in Feb they would have run a mile, and rightly so! ''Come work for me, I'll help you pick the team, you get a tenner a week and as much as Edam and Advocat as you can stomach, the players are crap and can't be arsed, and you have to pay for your own fuel in the company Micra - and of course you will qualify for constant abuse from the forum''. Maybe not... Think I'd settle for the few months off and the offer of a proper job from what is once again a proper club. Because we are a proper club again! Just need some players now.

I would give full marks to the new owners. A quiet but thorough takeover, a similar hunt for a manager, the season ticket system was up and running immediately, we are still against the clock but everything is happening. Taking over a business that was on life support can't have been an easy thing and I am impressed. Right Mr P, you need to bring in approx fifteen players, you have a week or two, get on with it, there's a good chap!

I just checked my account too and it looks like most of us were overcharged for the last four or five seasons... Hopefully value for money is the way forward.

could we just clarify that their takeover hasn't collapsed and people should stop posting on here, all you are doing is adding to the thread for no reason other than filling space. And some people write far too much to explain that simple fact. They don't need to. So it must stop. Soon.

didn't follow every legal detail but got the idea! An interesting read, one might observe that he makes Ridsdale look like a shrewd character who made a decent attempt at running the club. And presumably just as Leeds are trying to rebuild their finances they will be saddled with an additional £1.5 million legal bill that could have been easily avoided. I'm not sure that Leeds have hit rock bottom yet, and the longer time goes on the less their glorious history will count when it comes to bringing in funding. No one will do that under Mr Bates' tenure, and if he keeps on doing business in his distinctive style, he might one day meet his match - swimming with sharks ain't a hobby for the faint-hearted. When people say there are no longer any characters in the game, they only need to look in some of the boardrooms, and I don't mean 'characters' in an affectionate nostalgic way, more the Lock Stock style.

sorry Alain I must have missed the second occasion when he showed everyone what a great leader he was, do enlighten me. I agree that we can learn from other sports but not at huge expense and as one of several disastrous experiments that took us to the brink. Diet, fitness and correct training have always been key since the beginning of time, even though it took British football a few years to embrace that. Teams have worked with sprint coaches, even used ballet to improve balance, shrewd football coaches have always looked for an edge, this was not new stuff and he wasn't the messiah. Woodward wasn't a rocket scientist introducing football to revolutionary practice, he was offering expensive left-field experimental ideas that didn't earn Southampton a single point, and this sporting lab work was financed by us. And with the other failed jobs and his rugby legacy with England and the Lions, sadly his great achievement in 2003 now looks like a small oasis of good fortune and timing, in a vast desert of mediocrity.

I was only reading today how many of the 03 players rated his people skills as zero and within the rugby squad he had a cowardly approach to selection - not a good combination unless you are a sporting giant, which he isn't. Beyond running up huge bills at Staplewood on crackpot ideas and being at the helm of a debacle of a Lions tour, his last great success was gathering the right people around him six years ago. Olympic-wise I am sure the coaches of the cycling and rowing teams must have welcomed his input on where they were going wrong, or maybe they recognised him as a weirdo chancer who had got lucky, just once. He's just a comic footnote in the soap opera that we became for a while, it's funny now, but it was ludicrous at the time.

Wotton talks the talk, maybe he's found his level, let's remember at this time we need players to get us out of LgOne not to the Prem. If he needs any motivation from within, when that final whistle went in the last game and we were relegated it must have been like a kick in the teeth for him.

RonManager is indeed correct, that goal was so impressive that several maidens did faint and required leech treatment, while I was so overcome that I instructed one of my footmen to nod in modest approval on my behalf. Furthermore following a witty song by Lord Hansen on the subject of zonal marking and the inability of the Corinthians' custodian to dominate the pomo, the blaggard was horse-whipped for his trouble, and rightly so.

The future is bright, the past is a different country, very funny attempt at dragging the last ounce of life out of a dead subject. Rupert who?

heart says they are heading for oblivion, but head fears it will go through eventually. Maybe - 1. He can't raise all of the cash without some dodgy backing - he needs more than £100million immediately, then a further £20-30M for the team, £100M for a stadium, training ground, big wage bill etc - this is not a great investment, Newcastle looks like a bargain, you would do better finding a well-structured and supported club with a good ground and huge fanbase that has fallen on hard times, you can get them for under £15M and they are great! or maybe 2. They are haggling over the price because the landscape is changing by the day - players going, debt repayment due, difficult to nail down what they are buying. 3. He has the funds but is holding out for a price knowing they are desperate to sell. 4. He has the funding but the league will give him the big thumbs down. 5. He lives with his mum and dad in Barnet. Next four weeks will decide their next ten years, wouldn't want them to go out of business. But would like them to plummet down through a dozen divisions.

thankfully Mr Serious-Help himself rode into town this week. I wouldn't fancy starting the new season without a billionaire on board, it's kind of comforting, and on a fashion level, not having one would be so last year...

just seen Wotte interviewed on the way out of the club, came across really well, wished the club luck and finished with a good gag. He couldn't manage a bunch of misfits but a promising cabaret career awaits. Good decision to get a new man in, but good luck to him.

We have suffered six years in the wilderness. It really feels like a corner has been turned, the future won't be easy but the depression we have had to endure is surely lifting, didn't we finally discover where rock bottom was ten days ago? And let's not forget that there are plenty more teams on the brink, they might have to dish out three more points penalties that will lift us up the table before Christmas, and the way our luck is going this week, maybe earlier!! It's a great week to be a Saints fan, and when could you last say that - 2003? Life is good.

What Mr L has done today buys a HUGE amount of fan support and a decent honeymoon period - or it should. I am 100% behind whoever he appoints because we all want the same thing, and he is financing our dream. Though Gary Glitter for youth development could leave the club open to criticism.

Mr Liebherr, we love you! X I always knew Fry was a top bloke who would sort us out good and proper... Big party, then let's not forget that we have a squad to build in no time at all and we are starting the season as relegation favourites, BUT this should give us every chance of climbing out of that and showing Mawhinney he can knock us but down but like Chumbawumba, we will get up again! We are back from the brink, we have looked the grim reaper in the eyes, stared him down and now we are off to give the likes of Yeovil and Northampton a good pasting!!