Beckster Von Doodle

And the alternative to Lowe is? And I am blind to this - do you not think that the likes of Wilde & Crouch have do none of the damage? When Lowe was ousted the crowds were well above 20,000, the numbers were dwindling last season before his return. I do not deny that Lowe needs to go but what are our options, who can do better, what can vbe done to get the fans back? Being anti Lowe is easy, and as we are using extreme metaphors it is like saying we'll just get rid of Saddam Hussein, what is difficult is having tugged on that thread and wathched the whole shooting match unravel we have to fill the void. Until we have a suitable replacement with a proper plan to rebuild the squad, the finances and everything else there is no alternative. So you can continue to wage your war against Lowe a la George Bush, whilst people like me try and hold onto the reins to ensure there is a decent exit plan. I demand no medals for going, but I will not be preached to transparent fools who would rather see the club disappear under the waves whilst using Lowe as an excuse. Football is not politics to me. The running of SFC is another issue, but I want to save the football team and whatever little I can do I will.

I think the "we have no options" bit covered what you are saying. However enlighten me, who can make it happen?

Although I don't ytotally agree with all of SB's views just exactly when was this club 'great'? I have had a greater desire to go to games in the past, yes we have won the FA Cup 33 years ago, we have had a couple of appearances in Finals and a few trips to Europe which have all ended relatively early on. We have also been relegated in 1974 and evened struggled for a couple of seasons in Div 2 before regaining promotions as runners up. There may have even been a better atmosphere in the ground and greater cammeraderie among the supporters. But do you really think a) we are any different to any other club of our size, Bolton, Charlton, Fulham, Watford etc. and b) do think the change in our views are any different to those of supporters at others clubs and it is actually the whole game that has changed and not the supporters? When did anyone ever discuss chairmen in the 90's, 80's and before? How many chairmen of other football clubs could you name? Did you actually know who ours was without looking it up? The real issue is that everybody is criticising Lowe but nobody is coming up with an answer, the only real answer is for the club to be taken over and there is no queue for that or nothing all but a connected few can do. The thing is that if you try and do the same as the rest the best you can do is achieve the same results and the worst you can do is fail, if you try something different, as Lowe is doing, then maybe you achieve more, or you may still fail what woudl you rather do? I would like Lowe out, but unlike Duncan (apologies to him if I am wrong) and many others, I am not willing to repeat the mistake we made last time and get rid at any cost. Better some stability both in the boardroom and at pitchside just now than mare upheaval.

What a load of tosh!!! Please explain how a) Why you feel I am a Lowe apologist, b) why I am to blame for where we are? As for self glorification and self justification this is something that cannot be said of those with an anti Lowe agenda of course!

Isn't this creating a scenario to fit your agenda then? You are bending the facts to fit your story not using them to support an argument. More anti Lowe rhetoric! If you do not believe I read everything then you are mistaken.

Careful you'll be accused of blaming the fans for Lowe's failings, truth is there are 8000 misiing on last seasons average and over a season that is significant dosh. The real fear is that the January window is a damp squid unless we have plyers that the very richest clubs are interested in, banks will not be lending money to football clubs to speculate with when the contract for the TV is up next year for negotiation and the numbers should not be anywhere near those of past deals. If we can find someone to buy the club for a £1 having enter administration that is not the issue, they will still have to pay off the debts which may include the mortgage us having defaulted on the old one. So that may mean someone having to fill a £30m hole - not so appealing now is it? Then there will be funds on top of that for ongoing running costs. There are other ways around it but that will mean even bigger points deductions a la Luton. You are very right in what you say, some on here are blinded by their hate of Lowe, others use it as an easy excuse because they are PL plastic fans, and there will be those who just cannot afford it at the moment. I will be there Saturday - to support Saints come what may, because that is what the real fans do, others will be listening to their radios, updating teletext ot refreshing their phones, because that is what real fans do. Others will be at home moaning about Lowe's involvement rather than supporting the team they profess to love. They are the 'customers' we need to get back.

That's a first for you, you usually just make the situations fit your agenda.

This is scaremongering. Nobody knows to what degree, if any, he is involved in selection other than by default ruling players out by transfering or loaning them out. What is not working is that the senior players are not stepping up to the plate. Wotton has not fulfilled the role I expected of him, Perry does not appear to be flavour of the month, Skacel is a shadow of what he should be, Svensson will never be fit enough to do what he is capable of, and David can do precious little from goal. Players like Surman and McGoldrick who have played enough senior football to know what it is about need to have some responsibility shifted onto their shoulders and a striker is needed. The relevance of finance to the Lowe's involvement is that we appear to be open to all offers and whether or not the players are integral to the current team is irrelevant. I am not sure what can be done here as we are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea as far as finances are concerned. Sell and be criticsed for lack of ambition, or hold onto them and be criticised for running the club into the ground. The truth is Chairmen and coaching staff need to work together to produce the best 15 players for the league we are in, both will have input. Tactics, finances, available personnel etc are all relevant to our current position but I suspect that the ultimate choice of players from the squad lies with JP, the players in that squad have up til now been governed by the actions of the board dictated by the conditions imposed by the bank.

Agree with all you said but feel this is a bit out of place. I am not sure Lowe is directly picking the side, he is dictating who is picked by loaning out everyone on a high wage but this in turn is being dictated by the financial position. I actually think I have seen better football and more spirit from a Saints side this year than I have for 5 years. I have also seen some of the worst and most naive football in that same period. Is that JP's fault I don't know - he is a breath of fresh air, he is candid in his analysis yet still encouraging to both fans and players, something Redkanpp never was here.

Good question. If we were winning would anyone care who was picking the team? My feeling on this is that the chairman should employ a manager to manage and I do not want to get into symantics about coach, manager job titles. As in any business the manager should identify a) any glaring weaknesses and b) where the team could be strengthened by the inclusion and/or replacement of a player. The manager should also identify preferred selections of players he wants. The chairman should identify the strategy he wants the manager to employ, eg develop young players ahead of buying expensive established pro's. At some point there has to be some negotiation between the Chairman (board members responsible) and the manager as to the best way forward. Personally I would like to see a manager given a budget transfers and wages and it is his job to identify players to fit that budget and keep all the players happy (wages issues outside a structure method we used to employ). The chairman should do the negotiations and offload unwanted players to maintain the budgets accordingly. In simple terms it should be a partnership with both sides driving each other to maintain objectives and work within budgets.

I think this supports the the approach, the trouble is where and how much are players like Case (Robbie Savage??), ****erill, Osman, Ruddock and Rideout going to cost in these times. Going back to a previous team, Katalinic Golac Holmes Williams Nicholl Waldron Keegan Channon Moran Armstrong Ball, the nearest equivilent of Keegan now is Owen, $100k a week and £10m to buy at a guess, Armstrong probably the best midfielder outside the England set-up at the time, an equivilent would be say the guy from Bolton who scored a few goals a season or so ago (name???), again probably £4-5m. This is the difference in today's money game clubs like us cannot afford even the second rate players and have to grow from within - we may just about be able to afford £4-5m if in the PL and I was asking for this long before we went down - bring in one or two good players rather than a raft of average ones. We ended up with a big squad of nobody's in the end.

What ever your views pro or anti Lowe I think this sums the situation up pretty well, excellent piece.

You mean because it does not support your anti Lowe view you are dismissing it as contrived. Maybe it is the press being economical with their quotes to make a story? Rather than all of this bullsh1t can we not just agree that as soon as a better offer comes along from a proper investor we then ask Lowe to go - up until that point all of this is being destructive to what JP and the team are trying to do.

More damning about the other forwards. How many did Crouch get? The problem was defensively IMO which initiated in an unfit and demotivated midfield.

That is the whole problem too many look backwards instead of looking forward, Vrouch chasing former glories with McEnemy, Wilde doing the same and still we ran head ong into the parked car in front of us. The problem is we have three minority shareholders who have differing idealistic views of how the club should progress. What we need is the debts piad up, a pot of money and someone with a single vision!! Fulthorpe is not the answer he seems to have more visions than Jesus!!

When he could be @rsed!!!

Here we go again!! Redknapp only had a contract until the end of the season in the PL to be re-evaluated then. I have never seen the interview with Clifford so can not comment, but why would Clifford be privvy to such information when he had nothing to do with the first team and secondly was only here for a short period? If Lowe did ask Harry to play the youngsters then I am sure he did not mean en mass! This is typical of Redknapp never accepts he is wrong at anything and will not listen to new ideas proved by his comments regarding SCW and Lowe. Had he of drip fed the better players into the side or used them as impact players rather than just put out a side full of them with no preparation (Like Mansfield) then maybe we would have had a better chance to develop them with decent senior pros around them. As for no money he madea bid of £1.8m for Morrison which was turned down, and Lowe has said himself that money is available, and Harry said that he wanted the right player at the right price etc. He was also given significant funding the year we were relegated, bringing in Redknapp, Bernard, Quashie, Davenport and Camara so I estimate around £5m plus wages. So Harry had the means but did not have the motivation. He talked our players down every week to the media and looked totally disinterested by February. For that alone I condemn the guy for what he did to us. As far as everything else goes, he has left clubs potless when he has gone, Bournemouth, West Ham, and now Portsmouth, I owuld not be surprised if the police eventually find something to nail him with as there were huge rumours about his departure from West Ham. He has been very lucky at Spurs just by telling players that they are good!! Why could he not do it here? I don't like him but wish him no ill.

Who although Scottish played for Derby and Forest I believe which of course is English football!!!

All things are relevant, some had better squads in better leagues some had more money. I think the CCC this year is as close at it evr has been and apart from Readin who I think will end up winning the league by a mile again anybody else even us could sneak in. That said I don't thinkk we will, but a run of three or four wins will move any team from bottom top very rapidly. So worst league and probably our weakest squad.

If you manipulate them they can. I think this is a fairly good metre stick - all the facts are there not just that say, JP has won more games than any of the others. What can be added is that JP has done it with no money, relatively, a bunch of kids fresh out of the academy and with no previous experience of English football other than having the ball poked between his legs by Archie Gemmill in 1978. You could of course argue the above points until the cows come home as to whether they are good or bad but for now I will stick with him. What we need now is an experienced player for the centre of the park to hold everything together, how about Robbie Savage? I hate the guy and the way he plays football but he does seem to ooze enthusiasm and maybe what the kids need to gel them a bit better. I think another mistake was keeping Perry and not Lucketti, the latter would have been better for us this season. Also JP has had probably more 'intervention' by the board than any other manager - however finiancial issues are probably driving this at the moment and therefore criticism although justified needs to be tempered with that fact.

Unfortunately not..... you need to pay a tenner for every shirt that is removed!!

Not sure if this is what you are saying. But as it IS coming out of the individuals pocket then surely it makes the gesture more meaningful. It would be easy to give stuff away if someone else was paying however little £45 may be to them.

I have to agree, but it is a whole new world now. We had pretty much the best defence on paper in the League, the midfield were the best players not in the England side and up front was Moran and Worthington (?? I think). When you look at the likes of Osgood and Keegan at the Dell it would be similar to us signing say Shearer and Owen by todays standards, getting hold of Alan Ball for example, todays equivilent would be someone like Beckham. The comparison between the affordability of such players then and now is so different. To the degree I think it has ruined our football (English Leagues) the likes of Saints, Norwich, Ipswich, Forest etc will never compete with the top four again, the money in the CL and that brought in by private investement is so huge. Even at the end of his career Beckham can control contracts from clubs as big as Inter Milan. The change came through the 90's when our ground restricted our ability to bring in top players, or more so keep the likes of Shearer, Ruddock, Wright, Flowers even the promising youngsters moved on like Maddison. Which brings us full circle and I'll ask again what clubs have done any better than Saints, or any worse without substantial private investment. There are a few but not many. Een Newcastle could be in trouble this year!

No it is her partner David.