rallyboy

I know if I ever want complex financial advice or the details of administration and the consquences to listed companies explained, I always turn to Mark Dennis first.

so players who didn't perform or who weren't committed enough were tortured? Mmmmmm....Interesting idea........

The sheep issue is covered by musical licence, and you can buy them from most newsagents, as long as it is in a song it is okay. You wouldn't go up to someone in the street and ask them where their caravan was but you are allowed to sing old folk songs, it is tradition. Inviting your children to shoot our near neighbours and hanging the chairman from a bridge are okay as long as they are in song....I think....maybe get the lawyers onto that one....can of worms, too late.... On a serious note - incidents that have crossed the line are the gas chamber noises and Munich references at Spurs and United, most other stuff is taken in the spirit of banter, and that is what you should expect if you go to a football stadium.

So administration after the deadline would be punishment-free until next season?...is that correct? If that is the case then we have a new masterplan - scrape out of the bottom three, have a summer firesale and restructure, scrape enough together next season fuelled by big crowds and overcome the ten point penalty - job done, ready for a promotion season in 2010/11. What could be simpler?....other than brain surgery or astro-physics.

if Wotte keeps us up he will have earned the Chelsea job and the decision will be out of our hands! The key is Lowe and I'm not going to harp on about it because we all know the score, he has alienated thousands of fans, worth millions of pounds in income. Simply he would need to leave or perform the biggest U turn of a public apology in history for the club to move forward with him at the helm. I think that is unlikely, so the bank and shareholders will need to protect their dwindling money by inviting him to step down or the business is a dead duck... There are complicated elements to the club BUT playing without your best strikers makes it difficult to win games and having someone unpopular at the top costs you customers.

the sensible approach has always been, never go to war with anyone who buys print ink in bulk, and remember you will meet them on the way down as well. Local papers and clubs need each other but I have yet to see a club that doesn't think it has a divine right to rose-tinted coverage - see the case of Ferguson versus the BBC. Abusing the media while you are in charge is easy, but when Rupert falls, which he will, they will be waiting and it will become a public shaming, fuelled by his own arrogance. And I haven't forgotten how fans were treated when we had full houses and tickets could be hard to come by, so revenge on those that treat fans with contempt works for me .

the sensible approach has always been, never go to war with anyone who buys print ink in bulk, and remember you will meet them on the way down as well. Local papers and clubs need each other but I have yet to see a club that doesn't think it has a divine right to rose-tinted coverage - see the case of Ferguson versus the BBC. Abusing the media while you are in charge is easy, but when Rupert falls, which he will, they will be waiting and it will become a public shaming, fuelled by his own arrogance. And I haven't forgotten how fans were treated when we had full houses and tickets could be hard to come by, so revenge on those that treat fans with contempt works for me .

One swallow don't make a summer but yes, it is a good time to go on a run. Would also have been a good time at any point in the last seven months if only we had thought of it. (mental note for next season, start winning as soon as possible, try and play strikers, gather points....)

Well done Mr Wotte, and the players, a great display. I like many have been critical but points are everything and today you delivered. Whether todays sudden tactical U turn was about fan pressure or you just saw the light yourself doesn't matter, the fact that it has taken until now to establish a good tactical approach also won't matter if we stay up. Let's go get more points and stay united behind a team and coach that has finally delivered!

The sun's shining, I feel lucky! By now the Preston players will be recovering from food poisoning/travel sickness/five false fire alarms and may not even have enough subs. By lunchtime a bout of flu will be flowing through their squad and we will cruise to a glorious victory. perhaps.

Hey new boy, less talk, more action! Put the points on the table and then you can be as arrogant as you like. I hope he is more tactically-astute against Preston than he was the day he gave this interview as it is a PR gunshot to the foot.

anyone else catch Perry Groves on the radio apologising for his Saints form the other day? He said he pulled the shirt on but didn't play much! Refreshing honesty. We sound like old gits but we were spoiled back in the late 70s, early 80s, the signing of Keegan was the catalyst for so many other players to come, great era, and the only good thing about getting old is being able to say, I was there. When you get to being a proper old crumbly and you start telling people you saw the 76 cup final or even that you were there when Matt scored against Arsenal, the less aged will be well-impressed. Unless by then they all support Man City/Chelsea or whoever is financial flavour of the month! Looking back is great, especially when the view forwards don't look so pretty.

Sadly I believe the current state of affairs has led us toward too many discussions on share prices and complicated finance that none of us really want to be bothered with, but forum debates on boardroom politics and debt-repayment have become part of what was once a football club and is now a poorly-run business. Points - the gathering of, that is the only thing that matters now.

The result? - Hampshire Police to ease their own budget shortfall by going man-to-man marking with the crowd pushing the club nearer the financial brink by slapping in a ludicrous 'bill'. The game? We play well for 45mins and miss a shedload, they grab two lucky ones and the management/board unite to proclaim that a lot of good things came out of the game and the boys are having two days off before they get back to working hard on the training ground etc, accompanied by the sound of 37 northerners singing, 'going down' - like we don't know. Dave Merrington mutters a lot, David Armstrong finds himself outside, Matt gets lots of stick on Sky, our main rivals claim victories at places we have failed, Pompey win, I take off my shoe to remove a stone and stand in dogs **** that I then walk through the house. Just another day.

Like the last relegation we won't be able to complain about it when it comes sometime in early-april (admin aside) We couldn't beat Swansea as Watford have, and if you lose at home to the teams around you then you ain't unlucky. The only thing that astonishes me is that we are still mathematically in touch with anyone, but we all know the truth of it. Yes, on paper a couple of wins would give us hope but we know that a couple of wins would require a fricking miracle!!! Cutting through the chaos at the bottom, forget Donnie, Forest, even Watford and Barnsley, they have too many points for us, our only hope is 1. to stay ahead of Charlton - a very tall order. 2. To overhaul Norwich, that may be possible with a U turn in form. 3. And finally, for Plymouth not to find form when they change manager as they must - that is unlikely, they will demonstrate to us what can be achieved with a change of coaching set up when you are in trouble. For me that makes our chances of survival VERY slim. Go on Mr Wotte and players, prove me wrong you useless t2ssers. PLEASE!

It has just dawned on me, and you lot are going to have egg on your faces come May. Rupert has been right all along and you can argue all you want BUT he knows best, he is an expert. And when he goes and explains to the league how the table is wrong and he is right, and the authorities have to accept that he is correct again and we are allowed to stay up, well, what are you going to say then??!! Believe in Rupert. There is no elephant in the room.

remember when we thought we had hit rock bottom in May 05? How we misjudged that!! Sorry to be be the bearer of more depressing news but I was in East London yesterday so went to Orient v Crewe. On current form we would not get a point at Brisbane Road and these two teams are struggling to stay in Lg One! They are not great but Orient looked more organised, resilient and committed than we do. Next season will be tough, there is not going to be a speedy return without serious changes. On the bright side, the station is near their ground, there is parking, and apart from one old stand that looks ready for coming down they have redeveloped nicely with some flats in the corners of the ground and it is a good day out, so there is something to look forward to...a cheerier place than when I last went there with Saints on a cup run back in the day. No easy games in Lg One. Prepare for another season of woe, but hey, one more on the top of the last few is no big deal.

And my former sister's mate's secret source tells me that he heard it on good authority that the forum itself will go into administration, thus clearing all current and historical threads based on - Rumours Libel Takeovers Shares The stock exchange Players we will never sign Local engineering company redundancies And perhaps we could then concentrate our future efforts on discussing facts around the simple topics of a. Football b. The best way forward for Saints. I don't have a date for this yet but I can make one up if it makes it more plausible?

I don't think we want Torres, he has a dodgy hamstring, and he looked a bit shell-shocked when he was made to go to Fratton the other week, I bet we get stuck with some losers like Drogba or Tevez.

So is Mandaric likely to cheerfully wave goodbye to his all-conquering manager so that the arms dealer can take him? Looks like a pricey move if it happens, and I think he did great for us but he isn't exactly Mr Instant Fix now is he. Anyway I thought Pompey were going for a dream team of Sven, Venables, Souness, Shankly, Sir Alf Ramsey, Ghandi and Mandela? - Or was that pr spin covering up the fact that they don't have two pennies to rub together? They had to look down the back of the sofa to pay off Adams, and will be praying that they scrape a point in the next game to justify sticking with the cheap caretaker team. I can really see a big name leaping at the Pompey opportunity now when Newcastle and Chelsea could be available in the summer...Pompey are so backward, we started off down this insane route years ago, they are always playing catch up and though they are pushing hard with a mental wage policy, I bet we still beat them to financial collapse. Cheapskates.

''But despite this appallingly predictable game here at St Marys, news is coming through that Norwich and Barnsley have just joined Charlton in administration. Coming on the back of the earlier financial collapses of Blackpool, Watford, Preston, Burnley, Swansea, Doncaster, Coventry, Derby, Cardiff, Forest and both Sheffield teams, this leaves Saints three points outside the play offs with one game to play, that's if their opponents decide to field a team...we could be heading for another no-show walkover here.'' Then cut back to Dave Merrington - ''What the manager needs to do....I don't understand it...that little bit of quality in the final third...naive defending...etc''

think I might wait for some facts. Then we can decide who did what and whether they should have done. Or not.

No consortium would buy into a business and intend to continue with Rupert involved as it is obvious now that he is a liability, unless they intend to drop him once they have used his contacts. A new owner would be aware that Rupert holds back thousands of 'customers' from supporting any new venture. So unless we now finish comfortable mid-table on an astonishing run that forces us all to apologise to him, he is finished. Even he must realise that there would be no point in trying to take control of a business that has lost confidence in you.

I see that as good news, any delay in an important fixture has to give us a chance to scrape together some form as you could be sure of us getting nothing there at the moment. That could be the six points in a week that change our season!! Or it might be three relegated clubs arguing over the seating plan on the Titanic!

for a moment I thought Rupert was going to pull a tactical masterstroke and pull Rasiak back from Watford on the last day of the transfer window and drop them right in it, rebuilding our forward line at the same time. But alas no, we could yet see one of our own players scoring the goals for our relegation rivals that will cost us further millions. Without goalscorers I am afraid it is curtains, and it is also astonishingly predictable to all of us and that makes it bonkers in every way. Should we go down there will be shock in the boardroom, though we have all seen it coming since about October. Very odd, have they not grasped how the table/relegation system operates yet?