Wes Tender

And then produce an anonymous letter at the AGM telling him what a splendid job he is doing and that he should ignore the naysayers who are the paying customers, as they are utter morons.

Don't you see? Lowe is the idiotic minority himself.

Although this sounds good to us Southampton folk, I would have more of a suspicion that a rich billionaire based in New York would have a home in the USA Southampton millionaires resort area, rather than the original English one. If you can indeed prove that he lives at this Southampton, that would add credence to linking his name, but I suspect you cannot.

International Financial Services Group....Aviva???

Couldn't agree more. He still stands tall in my estimation for at least trying to do something positive for us all.

I don't dispute any of that. What does have me laughing in the aisles is your assertion that one of the biggest wind-up merchants on here would make a suitable person to find somebody suitable to run this club. Or do you reckon that the poacher turned gamekeeper / employ a thief to catch a thief strategy has merit?

You were doing fine until your last paragraph. GM is as capable if not more so of producing wind-ups and spouting bull**** as any of the protagonists who have been the bit players who have led us to this sorry state over the past few weeks.

I share your concern that after apparently being the subject of interest of 4 groups, we are now down to one, but still feel that until we know who this Swiss group are, we might yet be in for a pleasant surprise to come. Having been forced into a position of extreme pessimism by the events of the past several weeks, the fact that only one potential buyer remains does not necessarily mean that they are the worst of the lot, merely that they may have entered the fray later than others who have fallen by the wayside. Even though I do not know who they are, I am encouraged to believe that they might be more serious contenders than the Jackson lot, for example.

I'll reserve judgement on that when more is known about them.

So she's from the thick branch of the family, eh?

Well, if they do, then it's goodbye from me until they are gone again.

Of course not. It should go without saying that the main architects of our downfall would be precluded as a matter of course.

Desperate measures are called for; does that painting of the steam train given to Lowe by Doncaster have any value?

The light at the end of the tunnel has just been switched off.

And of course, had the old board not shown undue haste to get into bed with the owners of a small retirement homes business, instead of waiting a short while to review what the two or three other consortia rumoured to be interested in us had to offer, then there's also a good chance that we might not have ended up where we are now.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Hoddle? Dalek would be creaming his pants.

Butlins?

Don't give up the day job, whatever that is.

The main difference with comparing the apparent laziness of Le Tiss with that of McGoldrick, is that Le Tiss would drag his markers way out of position and then deliver a devastating pass 30/40 yards when the defence was absent. Or his markers would get sidetracked by his ambling around the pitch and follow the action elsewhere and Le Tiss would suddenly pounce and produce something out of nothing that would alter the entire course of a game. Not to mention his abilities from any dead ball situation or penalty taking. McGoldrick doesn't have the passing ability, deadball ability or the playmaking abilitity, so doesn't in reality bring much to the team at all apart from the odd goal or two and even then nothing above average for the division. McGoldrick was distinctly average and I'd be very surprised if he even manages to measure up to those other strikers of ours brought up through the youth system and sold on, his contemporaries, Best and Blackstock

Mainly those who thought that you were any good.

I agree with this. When he was with us, he certainly wasn't the finished article by a long way. He needed half a dozen attempts to score and often missed when it would have been easier to score. He wasn't a good penalty taker either. He mostly flattered to deceive and seemed to have a belief in himself that was not commensurate to his abilities, possibly gained from being able to score against youth team defenders. But as you say, Davies is exactly the no nonsense, no bullsh*t, straight talking manager to crush any primadonna illusions that McGoldrick has about himself and only give him praise when he has become a player prepared to graft sufficiently to prove himself worthy of a place in his first team.

Perhaps I phrased that badly. There are numerous examples of managers who have been successful in their own countries, but who have not achieved the same level of success in other countries. The same applies to players who have excelled in one country, but have not shone when playing in another country.

Sometimes. It equally applies to players of different nationalities playing in leagues foreign to them. Factors such as the understanding of how the game is played in that country and communication skills come into the equation. There are sufficiently numerous examples of managers from one country not being successful at another to add weight to the point, the same with players.

They're welcome to either or both of them, as they are both useless. Neither were able to perform well under two Dutch managers, so why would they do any better under another Dutch manager? Didn't they hear that Ryan Smith was a World Class player, according to Wotte?