Wes Tender

Funnily enough, Jonah, you were one of those who I had included. Some of those others have already made their thoughts clear on this. So you don't think that it is provocative at all, Jonah, Lowe going to the last match that Saints play in this division and sitting in the rival's directors' box as their guest, even though he was the chief architect of our demise? No, of course you don't; silly me. You don't do irony either.

OK, Crouch's anger about Lowe and Richards invitation to watch our last match in this division isn't shared by you, unsurprisingly. I can name another half dozen others who I just know would agree with you. On the other hand, I'm equally sure that the vast majority of fans would share Crouch's indignation and respect that he has a higher media profile than them and quietly thank him for articulating their thoughts. In the spirit of your penultimate paragraph, you obviously don't see any irony in another attention seeking individual parading himself in front of our away fans when as you say it is best that we try and forget the past and move on.

Wotte ought to go, as he was part of the bizarre experiment that got us relegated. Get rid of that other Dutch bloke at the same time. I'm all for a complete clean sweep, new owners, new manager, a root and branch change. As for the players, there are only a few of those I'd keep, but there again, they're the ones that other clubs will want to buy. We need a new manager who knows British football inside out and who can recognise the sort of players who we could afford, but who have the attributes to not only survive, but thrive in this division. Wotte would be totally and utterly clueless about choosing those players and I am not at all convinced that he would know how to motivate them anyway.

That's what I call a comprehensive demolition job of up and away's post.

You're in a cage, prof? Who put you in there?

Yes, Jonah, you've got the message; I completely and utterly detest and despise the arrogant tosser who has come in on the coat tails of the morally bankrupt reverse takeover and ruined our club. Now that the incompetant imbecile has gone and the charlatans that supported him have no shareholdings to secure their power-base, it is not surprising that I will be nervous if he reappears anywhere in a privileged capacity at a match featuring our team, associating himself with people who might bring him back in any position of power in the future. But why should we who share similar feelings towards him and those of his ilk form our own club? Why can't he and his cronies start their own club from scratch, or go and buy into another club and mess up their prospects? Or better still, why can't he take the advice of his wife and just bugger off out of football altogether, never to be seen or heard of again?

Being the devious but astute hard-headed businessman that he likes to portray, he naturally would have considered all of the scenarios that might occur. If he intended to return as part of a takeover bid, do you not believe that he wouldn't have factored in the very scenario that has come to pass? The timing of the administration and the deadline that has been imposed even allows for somebody to buy us out at a cheaper price because of the points deduction and then to appeal the decision and possibly have the points returned to us, doesn't it?

Going one step further into the logic of it all, then one might also conclude the possibility that Lowe even delayed the announcement of the administration of the PLC beyond the deadline for taking the points deduction this seaseon, knowing that the club would be even cheaper to buy as a third division club starting on -10 points. But then, those wouldn't be the actions of somebody who professed to love the club, would they? However, they might indeed be the actions of a megalomaniac egotist who thought that he was the only one capable of running the club effectively and was prepared to take any measure to make it possible, whilst nullifying the shareholdings of Wilde and Crouch at the same time.

What do you reckon will happen? Cowen will come in too, eh, and tell us that ticket prices will remain the same and that they have kindly ignored any inflation increase and we will be getting to watch three cup campaigns instead of the two we had before? And if Lowe's return does happen and fails yet again, then presumably you will still be saying that he ought to have yet another attempt. I have a practical suggestion to make. If Lowe and his cronies have an insatiable desire to meddle in the affairs of a football club, why don't they take over a local Tyro league club, or better still, one in the Gloucester area and practice running a club at that level first? As it is, if they continue messing about as incompetantly with us as before, we will soon be reduced to Tyro league level ourselves anyway.

As the answer to your first point is no, then what does that tell you about who would win a popularity contest between Lowe and Crouch/McMenemy? I would suggest that the most unpopular man in Southampton at the moment is one Rupert Lowe. Do you wish to refute that? I'm sure that most here would prefer unity from amongst the fanbase as being the best option to get us back as a stable club able to progress. But as it is becoming clear that this can never happen should Lowe return, I for one would rather support a new club starting from nowhere rather than the one that has Lowe back in control. But then of course, he would never be able to make it work if half of the fans desserted it, which is really what we should have done the minute he dismissed Pearson and cosied up to the Quisling. Had we put into effect the mass boycott then, he would have been gone within weeks and we might have had time to attract others to invest and appoint a manager who knew what he was doing.

Well, if he returns, I'm not returning again until he's gone. There are a number of local away matches I might attend, but if there are sufficient numbers of fans who think along similar lines to me, then if the club is unsustainable because of lack of support and goes under again, then so be it. As I am perfectly happy to renew STs without him, but not if he stays, then it is clear who would be to blame for whatever transpires if he returns. Him.

I hadn't seen it myself, but will look out for it. IMO this would not be a bad thing provided that we don't get the conflict of egos that we had under the various groupings that we have been associated with before.

How about the possibility that a couple of the interested consortia / individuals are introduced to each other to combine their bids? It's not inconceivable.

I'm all for drawing a line under the events of the past few seasons, indeed the past decade or more and moving on. Provided that we're still going as a club, I'll renew both of my STs and might well go to some of the away matches too, especially as we have several local ones. Whether we might have avoided this situation with Pearson still here, is pure conjecture, but I'm glad for him that he has been a success since leaving us and has pointed the way to what we might achieve provided that we have an owner/s that can finance us. In many ways I'm far more confident and optimistic about our future now than I was one year ago at the end of that season, as soon as I knew that Lowe and Wilde were returning and that Pearson would go.

Maybe, or perhaps they were just tyre-kickers and therefore eliminated by Fry as non-starters. There are some upsides to the relegation in that the club will be cheaper to buy and less expenditure required to get us back up to the CCC level we had. Although it is unlikely without a large input of funds, it is still possible to get back to the Premiership in two seasons with the right manager and players in place. Once that is achieved, we would be a decent proposition, with a good stadium, good infrastructure and catchment area. It's arguable as to whether we are a worse or a better proposition a division lower. It depends on who buys us and what their ambitions are, how much they're worth and whether they're in for the short, medium, or long term.

Yes, I agree that STS has a problem with Crouch, as does Nineteen Canteen. I'd be quite happy for them both to show a bit more balance, but when you state that nearly 100% of posters on here know and recognise Lowe's faults, then those two are a couple of the few that don't readily admit that he has any faults. Or else they have an agenda of excusing Lowe's shortcomings by implicating Crouch as the reason that we are relegated and in administration, whereas it has been the madcap policies of this season that has been the main cause of our demise. Spouting rubbish like this, requires a response:- This is not about bucket collections (you'd need to fill about 5,000 buckets with tenners just to pay off the obscene financial mismanagement of Crouch's chairmanship). If STS wants to debunk the Robin Hoodesque attributes of Crouch, please don't let him attempt to whitewash the actions Sheriff of Nottingham Lowe or his sidekick Sir Guy of Gisbourne Wilde.

And unless you can get some perspective on this and apply as much or more energy to placing the blame proportionately onto the shoulders of those who were most culpable for our current parlous situation, why don't you go away?

There have been numerous examples of players who score hatfuls of goals in the reserves; it means nothing, as the step up to the first team and playing in a proper league match and in front of a large crowd with the attendant pressures is a big one. Yes, of course players showing promise in the reserves deserve a chance. Decent managers introduce them to the higher level gradually, to enhance their development slowly. They don't throw them in at the deep end to either sink or swim. And then a decent manager will have a balance in his team between raw kids and older more experienced hands, often with a decent spine of those more experienced players. As Poortvliet did not do any of the things I mentioned above, I'll place the blame squarely on his shoulders if I feel like it. At the same time, I'll blame the idiot ex-chairman for appointing the incompetant idiot manager. Between the two of them, they almost guaranteed our current demise, especially as the idiot ex-chairman had a much better and more sensible manager here already, did not know when to dismiss the incompetant one and then replaced him with his deputy, who likewise had little or no idea how football worked in this country and at this level. Last season we survived, so patently the team was good enough to compete in the CCC, although only just. This year of course, it isn't. But when you claim that some had fantastic hindsight, you ignore that many posters on here, me included, predicted that Lowe's bizarre experiment would lead most likely lead us to be relegated.

Damn! You beat me to it. That's obviously the reason that Lowe has been quiet; he's having to look for a toadie to pen a letter fulsome in its praise of his financial prowess and brilliant leadership qualities. I can think of a few on this very thread who would gladly oblige him if he wished them to do it. Or did the massive ego that is Lowe write the last missive at the Club's AGM himself?

You're right in what you say. It would be a big boost if he did decide to stay, as he has certainly proved to be better than most keepers at this level and arguably some might consider that he has been Premiership standard. Looking back on his stay at Sunderland, he had a poor defence in front of him and his confidence took a knock. With us, expectations have not been as high and his confidence has taken a big boost because everybody realises that without him we would have been down weeks ago. If he did stay, then he could become a bit of a local legend, as I'm sure that there would be other clubs prepared to make attractive offers for him and nobody could really feel aggrieved if he went, as you say.

I'll quite happily come from behind the veiled attack and give it the full frontal if you like. McGoldrick was not up to the lone striker role and neither has he been a prolific enough striker this season, as his finishing is nowhere near as lethal as it ought to be, either in open play, or from the penalty spot. But as I said, it was the responsibility of the manager to have realised that and to have played somebody alongside him, or to coach penalties. Obviously it was not McGoldrick's fault that he was not up to it quite yet this last season, or that the weight of expectation was placed on his shoulders because we shipped out all three of the senior and more effective strikers. Hopefully, if he stays, he will have found his level in the third division and if he shines there, he might justify being bought to play at a higher level later.

Did I blame McGoldrick for not being up to it, or that out of his depth Dutch idiot from the lower divisions of a foreign league for playing a system that relied heavily on the inexperienced and lightweight youngster? And again, did I blame McGoldrick for missing the penalty, or the management for not utilising the consultation in training of quite possibly the best penalty taker in the modern British game?

The McGoldrick factor has been influential to our relegation one way or another. Blame must be heaped onto the shoulders of hapless Jan for playing just him up front for a large section of the season. He was too young and inexperienced to be given that responsibility in the first place, but did not have enough about him anyway to produce much threat to rival teams all by himself. And then, as others have pointed out, he isn't even a very good penalty taker. Here is another failure at management level, that we still have contact with arguably the greatest penalty taker in modern history, who has not been out of the game for long and yet we hear no anecdotal evidence that he has been asked to coach our players in the art, even though he obviously still bleeds red and white. Of course, had his coaching in penalty taking been exploited much earlier, we might well have been back in the Premiership instead of Derby a couple of seasons ago, as well as having the extra points on the board that we dropped from this and other missed penalties this season.

There are games that define a season, like for example when we were 3-0 up against Leeds and lost 4-3, threw away points in the last few minutes against WBA, Crouch should have kept the ball in the corner and run the clock down, etc. But in each case, it is futile taking just one or two games in isolation. Had we gained points elsewhere, those defining moments would have been irelevant.

So if somebody is a member of a consortium, then they have to put money in, do they? It seems to have escaped you that it is possible to have somebody fronting a consortium as a figurehead and that the money comes from backers?