Wes Tender

It's only a few short weeks that the blue few were laughing at our predicament and boasting that they were about to be taken over by billionaire Arabs, top flight managers were being lined up and that everything in the garden was lovely. A week in football is as long as a week in politics by all acounts.

I resent that. I am not looking to be confrontational, but reserve the right to disagree with posters who attempt to rewrite history or to present conjecture as fact, a fault that 19C has and which you sometimes share too. I have always tried to debate with reason.

Do you want to be in my gang, my gang........whoops!

Strange as it might seem, I was about to post a defense of your post and agree that it was unfair that you had all these cheap jibes about you on a health issue. Then I saw that you had mentioned me by name in the post above and decided to change my mind. You obviously see no irony in people making a judgement call on you without knowing you and you making the same leap of imagination as to what newspapers other people may or may not read based on their opinions on an internet forum. As they say, Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Good. Poles apart, eh? Neither Rasiak nor Saga has set the world on fire recently, whereas John could be good in this division with a strong, young, fast striker alongside him.

Thanks, Foxstone for saving me the bother of saying this. I agree totally. Everybody realises that the match was a friendly, part of the schedule of returning players to match fitness, also a chance for the new manager to cast an eye over the players. As such, those players have an opportunity to make an impression and will not make a good one if they think that the game is a stroll in the park. But the opportunity was also there for Henderson to make an impression too and he failed. We decried those teams who came to St. Mary's the past few seasons, packed their defences and tried to steal a win on the break. I never thought that I would see us play like that on our own home ground, regardless of whether the opposition was of the quality of Ajax. If it had not been that a major part of the occasion was to welcome both our new owner and saviour and our new manager, if I were going just to see the football, I'd have felt cheated. Not because we lost, but because we were so negative. When you say that we have not shown that commitment and will to win since WGS departed, I know from other posts that you, like me, did see a glimmer of those characteristics from Nigel Pearson's team, albeit that he was only here a short while. I am greatly encouraged to hear from one of Pardew's first interviews, that he wants to instill the winning mentality into our players. Judging by the shower that we have currently, either he will have to jettison most of them and replace them with true professionals, or change their attitudes. I look forward to watching the changes taking effect over the coming next few months.

How appropriate calling him Dr Do-little. He used to talk to the animals, didn't he?

If I were you, I'd go and get psychiatric help over this McMenemy fixation you have. It's not healthy.

Even recent FA Cup winning Premiership outfit Pompey, could only manage a 2-2 draw against Havant & Waterlooville last night.

There is a back problem; he needs to be back in the team.

Are you saying that the majority are wrong? Yes, you obviously are. It must make you feel all warm and righteous inside to believe that you part of an elite minority of super intelligent cognoscenti. Mind you, it is by looking at your compadres that doubt creeps in as to the probity of your position. After all, we are judged by the company we keep. (Or in Lowe's case the company that we allow to fall into administration )

Most on here don't wish you into administration; we appear to be getting our wish with you being taken over with this Fahim bloke chancer. I don't reckon that he'll invest much in the club, you haven't got the A1 manager that you lot boasted you'd have, you've had to sell some of your best players and will have to endure that small ground of yours probably for some time to come. Within a couple of years, we'll both be in the fizzy pop league, us on the way up, you on the way down and the natural historic order will be restored with us the biggest club on the South coast. That is what most on here wish for; not for you lot to go out of existence, because that would also mean that we would get some of our plastics back, who left us to support you. We don't really want them, thanks.

That and the same reverse against Tranmere in the FA Cup. Both as bad as each other.

I noticed that too, Derry. Last season in virtually every home match I saw, it was clearly evident that in most of the match, the players were all camped in only two-thirds of the pitch. At least against Ajax we did cover the width of the pitch, although it is a shame that we do not have the players with any pace on the wings currently. Perhaps Pardew will correct that and also get those wingers running to the byeline too. That would be good to watch for a change.

Bye Mike. Have a good one. You're so lucky going now; the takeover is completed and we are one of the wealthiest clubs in terms of our owner in British football, the new manager appointed, new players arriving, etc. Everything is positive, certainly nothing to worry about on holiday. Contrast my personal experience going on holiday to the Far East between 7th - 28th June. Club in turmoil, on the brink of liquidation, tyre-kickers wasting time, the possibility remaining that Lowe and Co. could buy the club for a pittance. I checked the internet every couple of days expecting something to be finalised at least by the end of my holiday and it dragged on a couple of weeks after my return. The way that things are progressing here with Leibherr, we'll have got rid of the dross and replaced them all with decent players by the time you get back.

According to the ITN, the FA has passed Fahim as suitable to be the new owner and confirms him as their new chairman. Seemingly though, it states that he is the sole owner, suggesting that the others who were rumoured to be entering into a consortium with him have dropped out.

You say that Hunt and Gordon were minor players, but the two of them could have voted against the reverse takeover and had some clout. Did they? I suspect that Mike Richards didn't vote against it, because he was clearly in Askham's pocket. Who appointed them as goodwill ambassadors and were they doing it for free? They might have served the club well for many years, but IMO that service turned into a disservice at the time of the reverse takeover. They both benefited on paper when the value of their shares soared at that time and I personally still see that fact as an incentive to go with the takeover by Secure Retirement, accepting it with undue haste when there were rumoured to be other offers ready to be made. Mortimer is a different case, but Gordon, Hunt, Wiseman, Richards, Askham in particular, can all go to hell.

Well, Ian Hunt and Ian Gordon were part of the old board that took part in the reverse takeover, so I won't be shedding any tears about them. I didn't even know that they had ambassadorial roles. No doubt that was a ploy by Lowe to keep them as toadies. Anyway, ML has made it quite clear that everybody from the directors down must pay for their own tickets, so no reason why these hangers-on should have any privileges or freebies.

This is pure and unadulterated conjecture. Instead of would, could or might are more appropriate. We might even have had a chance of avoiding relegation had Lowe had the balls to admit his mistake in hiring the hapless Poortvliet by Christmas. Luckily though, the football was so poor and home wins rarer than hens teeth, so the dwindling attendances drained the coffers and ultimately led to ridding ourselves of all the charlatans and our being taken over by Markus Leibherr. So ultimately I owe Rupert a big thank you.

If you would care to read carefully what I said in response to Frank's post, the word disturbed is one that you have introduced and is suggestive of mental strife or worse. Frank said that Lowe had done nothing to him personally and I responded that he had done something to me by causing me to be upset at our two relegations. Now, you have admitted above that winning makes you happy and that you hat (hate?) it when we lose. (Pretty strong emotion that) So when we were relegated (twice) did you just shrug your shoulders and say that it is only a game, or did it sadden/depress/or make you annoyed? If so, those are the emotions of which I speak and I suspect that most others felt the same way.

quote Thedelldays: Methinks he doth protest his lack of passion for the success (or failure) of the club too much

Quote: Thedelldays: The club and the game obviously don't mean very much to you...or does it?

It's only a game that you me and plenty of others spend a fair amount of our time commenting on on here. I'm sure I don't need to remind of what Bill Shankly would have responded to your comment.

You fail to mention for some reason that there was that year when we finished runner up to the champions, Liverpool, having led for much of the season. Also you do not give any credence to the fact that both Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were considerably bigger clubs than us at the time, making the achievement of getting us anywhere near contention with them a minor miracle.