Wes Tender

No, quite. With the money that we have at our disposal now, we ought to be thinking in terms of another big black car that puts the Batmobile in the shade. Kitt from Night Rider.

I think that to a certain extent although there is stuff that had been brought up periodically from the time of the reverse takeover, the Stoneham episode, the lack of investment at the time of Wilde, Crouch's kingmaker role, then Wilde's kingmaker role, that was all to do with the Lowe regime. Will there be a desire to mention that stuff much in the future in light of the fact that everybody associated with that period in our history is gone? I realise that posters like to indulge in a bit of nostalgia about players or managers that we used to have, the old stadium, what mischief they used to get up to in their youth, etc, but even if everything is revealed in all its gory detail about these events, they will still continue to be talked about from time to time, either in the context of nostalgia, or as a grim reminder of how close our beloved club came to extinction. I liken this to a lengthy marriage that ran its time and ended, to be replaced by a new chapter with another partner. Does one rake over those coals from the past, or get on with one's life, looking to the future? I know that it is a good idea to have learned the lessons of mistakes that might have been made, but if one is happy where life's events took you eventually, does one like to darken the mood by looking back?

I don't disagree with what you say, Nineteen, especially if the brief is widened to include other parties who might be implicated at other times over the past three or four years. As you say, if Duncan can find out anything that throws light on these episodes, it would make interesting reading in the future. But many here are just content at the moment that those times are past and are happy to rejoice in our salvation rather than spend too much time agonising over what might have been.

I'd challenge your opinion, but now that I know that you have actually played football at a minor professional level, I wouldn't dare to presume to have better judgement than you. I'll just have to wait and see whether somebody who played at a higher level than you picks Gillett before Wotton to prove that you don't know what you're talking about. By the way, do you have any management experience? I'm assuming that qualification would rate higher than playing experience when it comes to judging players, as good players don't necessarily make good managers.

It didn't stop something happening again after the shenanigans of the reverse takeover, then the horse trading with Wilde and Crouch and then the return of Lowe again. One hopes that now we have a billionaire owner with seemingly a very strong moral and ethical background, the chances of us being surrounded by the charlatans, carpetbaggers, asset-strippers, sharks and vultures that surround the clubs in financial turmoil might be over for several year to come. Why not enjoy the ride until such times as we up for sale again, with luck, many, many years down the line. Let's thank our lucky stars we resolved the situation with the best possible conclusion. And let us reflect that along the M27, the aforementioned sharks, vultures, carpetbaggers, etc, have found another potential carcass to pick on.

I'm judging this one in the light of Pardew's record so far on his other signings. So far, they have been pretty good. Even if it transpires that this signing is not up to the standard of the rest, it is a loan, so we have the facility effectively to have the equivalent of a test drive when thinking of buying a car. Nearly everybody on here recognises the shortcomings of our defence and has been screaming out for it to be addressed. It seems to me that Pardew has not been slow at reaching the right conclusions here. We might gripe about what seemed to be the tactical naivety shown at Swindon, but it looks as if a stronger team is under construction in a relatively short timespan to replace the poor quality of what he inherited.

I suspect that you are right that lots of dubious dealing gets swept under the carpet and is protected by NDAs. Also, there is the risk that some of the people who have possibly been involved in these dodgy dealings are litigious and that might frighten some away from making allegations against them that are difficult to prove conclusively. It also appears to be the case that it must be more difficult for investigative journalists to do some digging and come up with the goods. Our local journos made a first class job of uncovering the moral and ethical shortcomings of the trade in shares of the club at the time of the reverse takeover and that resulted in the Panorama TV programme "The Share Game." It might even be as a result of that to an extent that the club have been meticulous in clamming up with the NDAs or denying the journalists access to anything sensitive. And so it is possible that either there isn't much to uncover in the way of dodgy dealings, or it is tied up watertight in NDAs and so will possibly never come to light. Under those circumstances and because the end result was such a beneficial one for the club, what benefit might be achieved by raking over the coals? Let's move on, unless something floats to the surface which is a cause for concern.

Re your first point. Careers ruined is perhaps a bit strong, but jeopardised might be accurate. Without doubt, several youngsters were thrown in at the deep end before they were ready. Ideally they would have been introduced gradually, learning their trade from the seasoned pros around them. The biggest problem caused by last season in particular was the loss of confidence they received when they had a rude awakening when they were thrown out of their comfort zone where they were expecting to win most games in the academy leagues playing against their contemporaries. All of a sudden, they had the weight of expectation that they should save the club thrust upon their shoulders and were often bullied by the big journeymen in the Fizzy Pop league. I think that some still bear the scars and have fragile confidence now. Re your second point. What do you mean by saying we can't expect other clubs to develop players for SFC? We take some youngsters from other club's academies, either to develop them further, or to buy them as the nearly finished article. We send some of our youngsters out on loan to other clubs for them to develop them. Some clubs don't rely heavily on their academies, being wealthy enough to mostly buy the best younger players from clubs like us. I hope that we continue to invest in our academy as a conveyor belt source of good young players to feed us, but although desirable, ML has potentially rendered the academy less necessary than it was.

So how do you intend to find out? Are you going to stalk them until you get an answer? No, that would be bizarre. How about just writing to them and asking them? Take it to an investigative journalist and pay him to do some digging? And whilst you are at it and in the interest of consistency, why don't you investigate the circumstances of another couple of matters, the 10 points deduction and find out why we didn't go for administration before the deadline. What made Lowe so sure that he could bamboozle the FL into accepting that the club and the PLC were not one and the same? Also why the Fry at Barclays pulled the plug on us and then by a huge coincidence turned up working for the very people who were our administrators. As far as I can see, you are not going to get the answers you want, so why not accept that and move on?

Good point, they were, weren't they? Now here we are with an owner far wealthier than Mandaric. Let's see how Pardew shapes up against Pearson attempting the same feat of getting promotion.

Nineteen, why can't you just accept that the regime at the club has changed, all of the people most responsible for the club's demise are gone and we have a chance to heal the divisions and move on as a united entity? How long must you keep on gnawing at this particular bone?

I heard that the club was being taken over by the owners of the Greyhound Stadium and that dog racing would take place there on nights when there weren't matches. Mind you, I could have gotten the wrong end of the stick when I heard somebody say that Pompey were going to the dogs.

Which bit you quoted could be construed as Daren making a judgement? He says that either (implied) Matt made an error of judgement or he was lied to by Pinnacle. Do you disagree with the assertion of most that they are happy that MLT acted in what he thought were the best interests of the club? I think that most sensible people who support the club will feel that the fond memories they had of MLT as a player will remain untarnished by this sorry episode. Sickening as it might be for one or two on here, the warmth of the ovation that Le Tiss received when he walked around the ground at St Mary's was testament enough that his popularity has not diminished one bit.

Selective memory. Have you forgotten how low we had sunk after Burley went and Dodd & Gormley took over. Pearson managed to obtain visible improvements in a fairly short time. The defence that had leaked like a sieve became hard to beat, the levels of fitness seemed to improve and the team spirit also improved. Just to prove that it wasn't a fluke, Pearson then went on to Leicester, a team just relegated like us who had a management merry-go-round the season before. I suspect that there was a lot of dross amongst the players there too and poor team spirit. He managed to turn that around quite quickly too.

The midfield should be a good holding midfield general to break up attacks and give good distribution, an attacker to forage forward to support the strikers and two nippy wingers. Arguably, we have none of those at the moment. I hope that Dean Hammond might turn out to be the midfield general and it is possible under those circumstances that Mellis might prove to be the attacking midfielder. But as for the nippy wingers, the last one of those we had was Dyer. The last player to get to the byeline and cross in was Murty, our RB. But whereas I agree that the midfield is the problem, so is the defence.

If you only stopped one minute and took the trouble to read back to the beginning of this thread, then you'd see that I had indeed taken the trouble to comment on your OP. But then again, you admitted yourself that you didn't read it. Are we to assume that as well as a MLT, Crouch and McMenemy fixation, you have now added Barry Took too? So Misguided has marked my card, eh? What course of action do you recommend? Should I be quaking in my boots, be taking some prescription medicine to calm myself, or just shrug my shoulders? As for your last post, what exactly does this mean? Is this you bleating on and on again about MLT, Pinnacle, etc, and does it include the previous board, or do they escape your bile? Personally, I would be quite happy to bury the past and move on. Obviously you still prefer to rake over the coals.

Get rid. Now

You beat me to it .comsaint, with exactly the same opening line!

But it isn't just one bad result, is it? Even without the -10 points, this is the sort of form that if it continued would have us headed towards the fourth division. OK, it is still very early days and we have made some decent signings of fresh blood. But it is evident that several other new signings will have to be made, as somehow the current squad is behaving like a rabbit caught in the headlights. We entered a new dawn with new wealthy owners, a manager with a decent reputation of success in this division, some decent new signings. The fans are all on board. What a pity that some of the players don't seem to share the new mood of optimism and confidence.

At least Kelvin Davis is in the form of his life. Without him, the goals against column could be heavier by about 6 or seven more goals.

I've just about calmed down enough to focus my thoughts on the abject lump of ****e that passes for some of our current team. I recall reading some comments on the Charlton site critical of Pardew, saying that sometimes he does things tactically that raised their eyebrows. I'm beginning to see what they mean. Why on earth Wotton ever gets into the first team is a mystery to me. I heard the loudest cheer of the evening from the Saints fans when he was substituted off and detected the irony from my radio speakers. I'm pretty sure that it was a cheer for Wotton's removal rather than a cheer for Gobern coming on. Then we had to wait until 10 minutes from the end before Pardew made his first substitutions, while Merrington and probably every other Saints fan in the land had been shouting for something to be done at the start of the second half, I would think. The possession stats, the corner count, the shots on goal, all tell of a very one-sided match. How have we sunk so low that we can be so comprehensively outplayed by Swindon? I really do think on the evidence so far this season that we ought to keep the new signings only in the team, put all of the old squad in the reserves and replace all of them with new signings. The old team can play reserve football and cover for injuries. While in the reserves, they can be coached again, starting with the football basics, like how to man mark at set pieces, how to pass properly, how to create movement and space. Pardew said from the beginning that he expected every player in the team to give an 8 out 10 performance every game. I get the impression that the only Saints player worthy of that score tonight was once again Kelvin Davis.

I could understand to a certain extent us being mauled by Huddersfield, who many tip for the top or thereabouts. But Swindon? Yet again, we give away a stupid goal where we have failed dismally to defend a dead ball situation. Who the f*ck was responsible for marking Morrison? Whoever it was deserves to spend some time in the reserves until it penetrates his thick skull what the basics of the game are. Yet again, we have a match where the opposition have dominated the midfield and again we have failed to give any sort of service to our strikers and have hardly made their keeper break sweat. What is the point of having a good striker like Lambert is he doesn't get the service up to him? According to Merrington, it is like watching a team of crabs. Too much passing sideways and back. Pardew ought to have a system whereby any player not passing forward when not under pressure ought to be fined. It seems that Wotton has been his usual crap self, giving the ball away with his lack of skill at passing and Schneiderlin has also been ineffective. Is Gillett on the bench? If so, for crissakes take off Wotton and bring Gillett on. I hope that Pardew tells them that if they don't get their act together the second half, some of them will be on the transfer list, or used as make-weights in other player purchases.

I know what you mean. I was settled on the prospect of several years surviving in this division by the skin of our teeth, with low ST prices and the odd win to keep me happy. As things are going, we will get promoted back to the Premiership, ticket prices will soar, all sorts of plastic fans will join us, including many of the worst specimens locally who are currently wearing Skate blue. It will be far more difficult to win games and instead of watching the honest endeavours of the lower division English footballers, we will be watching the imported Johnny foreigners being paid obscene sums of money and diving all over the pitch theatrically. We won't be supporting our local football team, more like pledging allegiance to some Worldwide consumer brand.

Thanks for the sanitised PC version. I thought that Paul Hart stated that it went on all the time.

You prove yet again that your comprehension of the English language is often severely lacking and as a result, you go way off on a tangent trying to construct an argument built on foundations of sand. Best intentions, is a two word phrase and indicates that somebody was acting with the best motives or good reasons, but not necessarily achieving the desired result. Whilst I'm at it, would you like me to explain what the difference is between acting with the best of intentions and performing to the best of one's ability?