Wes Tender

This execution you talk about, Frank; is that where the headless chickens come in? I know that you fall into category © yourself Frank and I've got nothing against that, but where the balance is lacking is where you have no category for those who have opinions towards Lowe who actually loved him and cannot admit that he did any wrong. Those same people are the few who despise Crouch and Lawrie as the anti-heroes. They also despised Wilde until he became the Quisling, whereupon they saw him in an entirely different light.

Agreed. Alan Pardew ought to be able to assess what he needs in terms of new players in a couple of weeks. Even as I write, I'm sure that he's on the blower assessing availability of some new blood. I'm pretty certain that ML would be happy to get us out of this division as soon as possible and we quickly need to get through the -10 points and pressing upwards. If we spend now, we can hit the ground running and there is still a chance of either automatic promotion, or the playoffs. Even if we don't get promoted this season, there is still something to be said for having a team together for as long as possible so that they get used to playing together as a unit. This has been a problem for us these past few seasons.

I wholeheartedly concur. Chickens continue to run about or twitch for minutes after they are beheaded and this is akin to what we are witnessing on here with all the Loweites. Hopefully, they will soon tire of it, I predict shortly after the start of the new season, when there will be other more important things to discuss.

Yes, that's all true. Also factor in that the super wealthy clubs probably pay inflated prices to begin with because everybody knows they're rich. When they come to sell through necessity because they are desperate for the money to reduce debt, then the price is forced down because everybody knows that they have to sell. Look at us; when we had to sell Surman, Dyer, McGoldrick, etc, we got low offers which were taking the p*ss, but had to accept them. Wolves offer a stupid price for Lallana and we all of a sudden are in a position to tell them to come back with a realistic price, or sod off. But when we are now needing to replenish our team with new players, everybody will believe that they can value the players we want at a higher price because our owner is minted.

You were forced by circumstances to travel all over the place for your work. Alan Pardew isn't. You might not have felt any less committed to doing your work well, but it is obvious that time spent travelling to your work and the tiredness caused by it, would have had a detrimental effect on your efficiency. Although there is no reason to complain if he commutes a distance to work, provided that he does his job efficiently, there is still that extra element of commitment to the club and the community if he lives within it.

Yes. He could buy up a repossessed property at auction and get a real bargain.

;)

No. If Markus Leibherr wanted to invite Lowe or any of the other charlatans into his owner's box, then it is up to him. I would just have to satisfy myself that if they were only watching the match, firstly they had had to pay for the privilege and secondly that they could do no harm to the club just watching, apart that is from causing some fan resentment on seeing him there. But thankfully, Markus is obviously far more astute than to parade such hate figures in front of the fans.

Hmmm.....get her.

In view of our circumstances, with four of the better players having been sold recently, it was a creditable performance. We didn't disgrace ourselves. After all, what else would anybody have expected watching a third division team taking on one of the historically big names in European football? And when we scored first, it even looked as if we might get something from the match. For a while, it looked a familiar pattern from over the past season. There was a team playing the legendary total Dutch football, passing the ball around well, but facing a team that sat back until they got to the final third, robbed them of the ball and hoofed it upfield to exploit the open spaces behind them. The only difference was that it wasn't us playing the Dutch total football, thank God. But neither had we re-adjusted back to playing the typical British game with a 4-4-2, sadly. Had we done so, perhaps we might have asked a few more questions of them. There were some positives to take away from the match though. We did better than Bristol City from the division above, who failed to score against them. A few performances shone out or offered a glimmer of hope for the future if those players remain and receive some good coaching. Mills stood out in many instances and took the goal well, generally put himself about and showed good commitment. Of the youngsters, Gillett was also his usual combative self. Lallana and Schneiderlin obviously have talent and it will be interesting to see what Pardew can make of it. The player who is already excellent and has committed himself to stay, is Kelvin. Yesterday he produced some World class saves, preventing Ajax from adding a certain extra couple of goals to their tally. The defence in front of him was generally sound for much of the match, until we started tinkering with it. Thomas gave a good account of himself, Perry was always reliable, as was Murty, who needs to sharpen up with his fitness, but like Dodd before him, shows that often when an older defender lacks pace, he can often make up for it by canny positioning and anticipation. Like others, I find it difficult to know exactly what Wotton brings to the team, apart from commitment. Overall, it was a great day because of the introduction of our new owner and manager and an opportunity for them to have a good look at us too. Apart from those leaving early before the presentation of the trophy, I hope that their impressions were favourable. Both should have a pretty fair idea of what needs to be done to improve the team, who to keep and who to let go.

For all those who are somehow upset that McMenemy gets to sit in the directors' box, then I say tough titties. Perhaps it has passed them by, but we have a new owner. Who gets to sit in the box is entirely up to him. It is his train set, he can do what he wants with it within reason.

Welcome to the forum Mornington. Apparently sotonjoe is a she. As for putting her off posting, just have a look at some of the other threads and tell me whether I've put her off. It would be helpful to her to contextualise her criticisms of the former board members by boning up on people like Askham, Richards, Wiseman etc and therefore seeing what part they played in our decline.

Do you work for the Government as a Civil Servant? I'm getting undertones of Sir Humphrey here. Anyway, I'm off to the match. You carry on the discussion with sotonjoe...

There are currenly eight threads on which you are currently listed as being the last contributor. As I asked before, are you after some record for being the most prolific poster in the shortest time? When I get back from the match later, I'll be interested to see whether you've been on here picking an argument with yourself.

OK, let's all stop chanting players names if they do something good on the pitch, as other players will get upset because we haven't chanted their names. When a new player is signed, let's not dare chant their name in case the other players think that we didn't do it quite as loudly for them. Let's not chant anything for our new owner especially, as we wouldn't want him to know that we appreciate him taking us over. In fact, let's not go to the match at all, as it's only a friendly with us having a crap team. Pardew's birthday was mentioned on the OS. Now, of course, nobody reads that, do they? So you're quite right, everybody will think that it has only been mentioned on here. If you don't reckon that there is anything out of the ordinary in having a new manager attend the stadium to see his new team and the owner for the first match here on his birthday, then fine. Don't chant. Nobody is forcing you. We wouldn't want any chanting disturbing the quietness or your sleep.

Well, I was there at that AGM and fully support Lawrie's opinion and his right to express that opinion. Were you there? If not, then it is surely difficult to express an opinion on the meeting or the behaviour of those there. Most people in the room agreed with what he said. Had you been there, then you would have realised that the whole tone of the meeting was set by Lowe reading out his anonymous letter preening his ego, so any hopes of a concilliatory atmosphere were lost in the first few minutes. Most are also quite happy to consign that period of Lowe's tenure to the dustbin of history. Raking over the coals is becoming extremely tedious.

Was Markus Leiberr here with him to watch a match too?

I reckon some crossbows in the hands of randomly chosen fans aimed at apples stuck on the heads of former board members might make agreeable entertainment.

You turn up on here only recently and prove by this statement that your knowledge of Saints cannot be that deep. I suspect that most serious Saints fans would have little difficulty in employing their grey cells to the nickname and realising the person named Guy who is most associated with the club and who fits the epithet of snake, is Guy Askham.

I think that whenever sotonjoe posts ad nauseum, we ought to just end the debate there and then. It would be funny waiting to see how long it would take for him to post asking why nobody had any further opinions.

This is precisely the response given to another post just above. Is it some macho thing with you, attempting to gain some sort of posting record in the shortest period of time? It's often the case that the faster a river flows, the shallower it is.

Agreed. I don't have much recollection of sotonjoe's presence on here until quite recently and all of a sudden he's all over the place like a rash; appropriate word really, as rash also describes much of what he says too.

Why? Are you a bit of an Anorak? Would you rather be standing on the bridge over the railway on a Saturday afternoon, notebook in hand?

Who is this Pardue guy of whom you speak?