Wes Tender

Not strictly correct, surely? If you had added "purely" between decisions and based, then you might have a point. Otherwise it can be argued that as a large percentage of the revenue of the current business is generated by the paying fans, then taking decisions that ignore their wishes or alienate them, would be stupid.

Funny really that you were able to surmise something solid about the guy that reassured you from watching how he behaved with the players. I arrived at a similar conclusion from watching his first televised interview. It was so cogently and eloquently expressed, completely fluent, devoid of the usual cliches that most managers employ. I instinctively made a judgement on his character and personality based on that. Probably like you, I have not had any cause to revise my initial judgement of him since then. If anything, he has gone up further in my estimation for the quiet dignity in which he goes about things, never blowing his own trumpet or making waves. It seems that his players have great respect for the man and that he has the ability to inspire them to play beyond themselves. What a contrast with Poortvliet and Wotte. Although purely speculative, assessing what he might have achieved with us under the same circumstances that governed this season, I bet most of us would believe that we might have survived relegation under him and even with greater crowds generated without Lowe's presence and with a few more home wins under our belt, we probably would have survived financially too.

What? Like Hone, or Dulieu for example? I don't require a Chairman who sinks pints in the same bar before a match, but one who treats the fans with respect would be nice.

I agree with Foxstone that Nineteen's reply is lucid and reasonable. On the other hand, it does not absolve the blame for the resulting failure from Lowe's shoulders. Yes, there were extenuating financial circumstances that dictated the restraints under which the club was run, but to suggest that the path chosen by Lowe was the only one is untrue. Looked at in the cold light of day, what occurred has been proven to be a bizarre experiment, not an expedient and balanced approach. The reasonable approach was to appoint somebody who knew their way around this division, had useful contacts and some measure of experience of working with youngsters, although a team balanced between youthful exuberance but with a spine of older experienced players was obviously more sensible than a team comprising mostly youngsters. We actually had such a manager in situ, but let him go. Nineteen admits that Poortvliet should have been dismissed earlier, but doesn't seem to be able to accept that he should not have been appointed in the first place. That appointment was purely down to Lowe and will count as one of his biggest misjudgements alongside the appointments of Gray and Wigley. Stating that the baffling decisions cannot be taken out of the context of the financial restraints imposed on us is not true. At least Nineteen has admitted that the decisions were baffling, which is a start. But for the reasons I have given, those decisions that Lowe made were not the only options open to him and because he went down that particular route instead of others, the responsibility for the destination reached is mostly down to him

Ah! So you cannot provide ANY evidence to support your assertion that nobody is buying the club. As usual, it is all bluster from you, this time tied up with insults. One always knows when somebody is floundering in a debate when they have to resort to insults and you haven't disappointed. If nobody buys the club in the next couple of weeks, then feel free to come on here and crow about how right you were. In the meantime, wiser people will keep their counsel and see what transpires. Such a pity for you at a time when you might have been a good source of advice about matters financial, that you have chosen to illustrate such shallowness and Clapham Saint appears on the scene seemingly to demonstrate a far greater depth of expertise.

That is your opinion. Most would state that 90% of the damage had been completed the moment that the referee blew his whistle at the end of the match against Manchester United that sealed our relegation from the Premiership. Regardless of whether people hold that opinion or any other opinion as to where blame can be apportioned, we can now move forward together anyway, provided that somebody buys us and that consortium does not include any of the protagonists responsible for our demise.

You have evidence that nobody is going to buy the club? Pray, do share it with us; we really would like to be party to your information. As it stands at the moment, most of us were under the impression that there might be as many as three interested parties/consortia and that one of them had made an offer and the other two were serious about putting one together. But if you know otherwise, please do us all a favour and put us out of our misery.

I'm not at all sorry to see Smith go. He has been a dismal failure. He obviously showed promise at an earlier stage of his career, but has failed to deliver. Millwall didn't want him and he has proved why that was. Wotte has been made to look an idiot with his comments about him having World class abilities. Those abilities must be buried very deep for them not to manifest themselves at the level that we have been playing, or indeed in the division below.

Agreed. Burley had been a top manager and should have set the target for automatic promotion, not scraping in to the play-off positions. Mind you, when he was interviewed, had that been his ambition, it was up to those interviewing the candidates to reject anybody who did not have the ambition and the self-belief to get us promoted. Why would the players raise their game if their manager had set the bar too low? Hopefully our next manager will be one who sets the target at promotion back to the Fizzy pop division, regardless of the ten point deduction and is capable of instilling the belief in the players that they can do it.

Wilde can speak out all he likes, but nobody is really interested in what he has to say. The long and short of it is that we really would have been better off had he not even got involved with the club at all. But his last involvement in bringing back Lowe was the last straw and he completely lost most of the respect that anybody had for him up until then. It was the action of a Quisling, a traitor, a turncoat. People without principle like that are worthy only of the deepest contempt. I despise him almost as much as I despise Lowe and Askham.

The game of football is such that there are other factors that have an affect on the success or failure of clubs. There are many elements of chance involved and a fine balance needing to be struck between investing money in players at the right level. In our case for example, it might have been better had we bought fewer players of real quality, rather than many of mediocre quality. The same applies to the appointing and paying of a manager. The old adage that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys is usually very apt. Did I see it mentioned that the useless Poortvliet was only on £60,000? As I have said many times, we are a facet of the entertainment industry and the level of success achievable is reliant on several factors, such as the price and the actual quality of the matchday experience, which hinges on the ability of the players. From that perspective, I think it is fair to say that most home fans did not get value for money going every other week to only see four wins. It will be interesting to see whether attendances pick up with lower prices, the team actually winning home games, comprising players who actually seem to care, led by a decent manager.

I'll tell you after the event, Micky; with the benefit of that rarest of traits, hindsight.

If I could turn back time, I'd strangle Rupert Lowe at birth and Guy Askham too. As for this thread's choice, Hypochondriac is right. As we do not know yet who may or may not take us over, it is utterly pointless having an opinion either way. If you have a penchant to ask retrospective questions, why not speculate on what might have happened had not Askham's board exercised such undue haste to jump into bed with Lowe when there were other consortia waiting to make offers?

Hindsight isn't extremely rare at all; it's extremely commonplace. Accurate foresight is the rare thing.

Unless he's changed it due to reduced financial circumstances, Lowe's car was a Volkswagon Phaeton. And I hope that we never see it anywhere near St Mary's ever again.

It is perfectly clear why the emphasis was on having a decent British manager; a British manager is far more likely to a) Understand the British game b) Have a better knowledge of the players who might do a good job for us at this level. c) Have contacts in the game who could be useful d) Communicate better with the British players that we are more likely to have in our team at this level. Of course there are good managers at the top level from other countries, but as we are not likely to be attracting the likes of Mourinho, Scolari, Wenger, Houllier, Benites, etc, perhaps you would care to name me some others that have experience of managing in the British game at this level besides the two you mentioned who actually did play in this country. As it stands, our club's experience of foreign managers even at the level above where we will be playing next season, does not exactly fill other British teams with a desire to follow the Southampton model initiated by the ground-breaking innovator Lowe, does it? If anything, Poortvliet and Wotte have probably set back the cause of foreign managers at anything below the top level and I'd be most surprised if they gained any further employment in the British game after the debacle of their failure here with us. If you categorise these reasons for wanting a British manager small-minded, then who cares? As for you interpreting them as fascist at worst, I find your thought processes to be quite bizarre sometimes.

Thank God that this season is over. Today's game illustrated yet again why we went down. A really good first half, then the rival manager proves as always that he has far more understanding of how the British game is played, susses out why we were effective and where his team needed adjustments, makes them at half time and then they are all over us like a rash the second half and come away with all three points. To paraphrase Rhett Butler, quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn about the team this season, or the manager or anybody who has been associated with the running of this club the past decade or so. As far as I'm concerned, the only ones worth keeping will be those who will be sold. the others are just so much dross that I couldn't care whether they ever get to wear a Saints shirt again. If we manage to get a buyer soon, let's get rid of Wotte who is no more useful than Poortvliet, get a decent British replacement and start again from square one next season.

So pray tell us Mr Perrin, what exactly is the point of starting an entirely new thread just to decry the furore on the other existing thread? What precisely have you added here that could not have been added to the other thread?

What are you talking about? A lot of the bile when Burley left was out of spite because he was leaving and it is only natural under those circumstances to feel that way, as some feel betrayed. I know he had his critics, but I bet that most would reckon him to do a better job either than Poortvliet or Wotte. Were there those who were enthused over Poortvliet's arrival, apart from idiots like Lowe? I seem to recall much being said about him being a lower league non-entity who was expected by many to fail this season. Much the same cautious pessimism greeted the appointment of Gorman and Dodd. But your enquiry about who was out there after Burley left who could replace him and your suggestion that you are still looking, seems to suggest that the obvious candidate has gone completely under your radar. Nigel Pearson was that man. Lowe should never have dismissed him for the incompetant Dutch duo and Pearson has already demonstrated his ability to both save a floundering team in the Fizzy pop league and how to gain promotion from the third division.

I'm quite happy that Wotte might perhaps be kept on as a coach of the juniors if he wants, but no way should he be in charge of the first team. I was not impressed with the fitness of the team, their commitment or his strategical nous. Furthermore, he knows nothing about getting us the sort of player who could do a job for us in this division.

Do you know what? Given the two scenarios, I wouldn't change. Your crowds now are bigger than we had at The Dell for the simple reason that we were sold out every week in a stadium holding only 15000. For many of the matches when we transferred to St Mary's, we had 30000 or so regularly and that proved the potential that we could achieve. As you do not have a stadium holding more than 19000, whether you could achieve the 30000 with any regularity in a bigger stadium is pure conjecture. Also whether you get a stadium to match ours is looking increasingly unlikely too. Best option seems to make do and mend with your current place, shifting it around 90 degrees. After peaking under Redcrap, you are hovering precariously around the relegation zone and if you spend money on improving the capacity of your hole, you will be adding to the debt. We know full well what happens when you accumulate stadium debt and then suffer relegation afterwards. You will have to sell some of your more valuable and higher earning players and hope that what you have left is enough to ensure your survival next season. But you have been in the position that we now arrive at comparatively quite recently. You ought to know how quickly the pendulum can swing. You have an owner wanting to get shot of you and have to hope that what you get to replace him will be good for you. The time to make that same assessment about us will be very shortly when we know who is taking us on. Although I agree it is highly unlikely, we could both be together in the Fizzy Pop league the season after next, us on the way back up and you on the way back down to your natural environment.

Very sensible, Nick

Even you can see that Lowe's attendance in a high profile environment such as the rival club's directors' box at our last match of the season is provocative. You admit the probability that 2000 away fans will be antagonised by his presence. So I ask again. If even you can realise that, why can't Lowe? And by the way, surely it is by definition that football fanaticism requires an extraordinarily obsessional behaviour. Why would that surprise you?

Ah! I see that you've escaped from the cage again. It obviously escapes you that the emptying of the club's coffers was mostly affected by the first relegation from the gravy train known as the Premiership under the stewardship of one Rupert Graham Lowe. What followed was largely as a result of that. And yes, let's blame him for trying to turn it around, with his bizarre strategy of dismissing somebody capable and replacing them with incompetant nondescripts resulting in our further relegation to the third division.

Thanks Nick. You weren't on the list, as although we have disagreed on some things, I felt that you would sensibly consider this to be an inept and provocative action by Lowe. He either did it deliberately to rub our noses in it, or else he just did not comprehend that it was a provocation, which might indeed be the case given his lack of understanding of what makes most ordinary fans tick.