Wes Tender

I watched half the match on TV, then had to go to a party in Salisbury, so listened to the second half on the radio, having missed the third goal in the 5 minutes that it took to pack stuff into the car. I'm glad that I've had a few hours to sleep on this defeat, to put it into perpective without a knee-jerk reaction. At the time I felt angry that we hadn't seemed to be capable of beating a team like Coventry who are one of those who were directly our peers just a short while ago and who now seem to be quiet a way ahead of us. But now I just feel numb; I'm not sure that I'm that bothered about it anymore, I'm apathetic. Just when it seems that we might have turned a corner, that we string together a couple of half decent results and are moving in the right direction, along comes a game like this that gives us a reality check. It shows that we are still all over the place, the defence is weak, the attack has little cutting edge and the midfield during the half I watched didn't have control and preferred to pass backwards too often. I thought that the essence of our football was that we should pass quickly and incisively towards goal, or out wide to stretch defences, not p*ss about allowing time for the defences to pack their boxes. Early on in JP's season I thought that we were too one dimensional and that teams would quickly suss us out and learn to negate us. Perhaps it is time to ditch the current formation and revert to a home 4-4-2 and an away formation that packs the midfield and defence and hope to score on the break. And I can't help wondering how Scacel might have been able to add some class and experience to this shambles.

I've just reread this and formed some conclusions from it. HCC do have a very good policy to encourage extra attendances, realising from a couple of perspectives that extra numbers in the ground are good for the club. Even if those extra people get in for free, there is the possibility that they will become hooked to pay themselves at a later date and additional revenue might be generated anyway from refreshments and other revenue streams associated with the game like merchandising. You doubt that such a scheme might work in football because of the compulsory seating allocation. But airlines have to have an allocated seat and hotels allocate specific rooms when they have a policy of lowering prices to fill their hotels or aircraft. Other businesses are intelligent enough to realise that they can maximise their profits by accepting that above a certain level of pricing, it is better to sell some places at reduced prices rather than not to sell them at all. The problem of allocated seats is not insurmountable. A seat could be allocated by the ticket ofice at a set period before the match to allow the administration to be completed. A little increased bureaucracy to a computer based ticket office is surely a price worth paying for the increased revenue it would bring and I'm sure that it is not beyond the wit of Dave Luker to arrange. So the sticking point remains the risk of upsetting the ST holders. As Weston says, HCC seem to have a decent solution for overcoming the problem and that is to award them the ability to purchase extra tickets for their friends and family at concessionary prices. Beyond the price of the STs which already grants a lower price for paying up front, there are additional benefits that ST holders enjoy, such as the same seat guaranteed every home match chosen by them where they want to sit, priority when buying cup tickets and away tickets and vouchers for all sorts of other products and services as well as the avoidance of the inconvenience of buying each ticket every match. Whereas I can understand the ST holders being miffed if it were possible for somebody else to attend all matches at a total price commensurate with what they have to pay up front, there could surely be no real complaint if concessions were given to lowering prices for children, teenagers or pensioners and having price incentives teaming up games or giving discounts for families, or kids for a quid etc. Would STs holders object for example to the occasional lower prices for midweek matches or televised games played at a different time? Would they object at the ability to get a home match at a reduced price if it were married to a specific away match? There are half season tickets, so why not quarter season tickets, or indeed a monthly ticket that gives a slight reduction over paying for each ticket separately? At first, when I read about the idea of having a competition amongst fans to come up with suggestions as to how the marketing of extra seat sales could be improved, incentivised with a % reward of the additional revenue generated, I thought it was a good idea. Thinking about it further, I wonder why the board of directors who are all supposed to be successful businessmen in their own right, don't have the imagination to come up with any viable strategies themselves. Of course, things like this at most clubs are the domain of dedicated Marketing Managers, but we have dismissed ours as it was deemed an economic necessity. This is the situation you get in any business where the control rests mainly with the financial directors; they lack imagination and can't see beyond the bottom line of a balance sheet. They are capable of making cuts to reduce overheads, but have scant understanding that more revenue can sometimes be generated with lower prices or that money spent on effective marketing ought to generate income beyond its cost.

Like you, the match that I saw at Cardiff undoubtedly had Arsenal the much better team, but the scoreline tends to suggest that the game wasn't that one sided, especially as we would have grabbed the equaliser except for Cole's last ditch clearance off the line near the end. What would the outcome have been had that gone in? We were capable of beating Arsenal, as we had proven several times before and WGS's teams would certainly have been at least as fit as Arsenal's for another 30 minutes.

As usual, Somedunce is way wide of the mark in what he says about pretty well everything in his petty vindictive little diatribe. He obviously doesn't see any irony at all between him and Scabby and a handful of others moaning their heads off about the lack of attendances forcing the club towards bankruptcy and posters trying to get those numbers increased by making helpful suggestions as to how this might be achieved. In his small brain, anybody making these suggestions is having a dig at the club and as the variation of the prices would require the intervention of his beloved board, any suggestions are deemed to be critical of them, rather than helpful. Tell me, Somedunce; should a business invite constructive criticism as a way of improving themselves and making their product more attractive, or should they dismiss any criticism from their customers as being tedious moaning? Regarding other assumptions made by Somedunce on the flimsiest of evidence, my personal life is no business of his and certainly of no relevance at all. The very fact that he can even attempt to introduce this into a debate on the Saints just goes to prove what a sad, sad individual he is; truly a screw loose in there somewhere. It did fleetingly cross my mind to respond with similar guesses about your own family, but then I realised that by doing so, I'd only be as bad as you. And I then realised that I am definitely a better person than you, but as that is not a difficult thing, it gives me scant satisfaction.

It obviously doesn't occur to David Luker that the loss of many ST tickets sales the year after relegation might have had more to do with the fact that we were playing in a division lower, that there would be easy availability of tickets on the day, that some couldn't get that excited at the prospect of paying the same money to see Grimsby, etc. If Luker's opinion is along these lines and presumably Lowe and Wilde share that opinion, we really cannot hold out much hope that anything realistic will be done to increase numbers attending. All very well saying that wins will increase attendance, but does he not acknowledge that more fans = better atmosphere = 12th man and increased chance of winning. Conversely, I'm sure that he must realise that less bums on seat = less revenue = mounting losses = administration. Dave, have a read of some of the posts on here suggesting ways that the ST holders can be mollified and yet produce practical methods of increasing attendances and then have the balls to come up with a strategy to implement it.

A very good shout. The young guy writes in an excellent prose style typical of a sports reporter. And typical of the Echo type, there was an error. Stefanovic was the ex Skate, not Stankovic. Otherwise a good read.

BatterseaSaint Thank you for an intelligent response and I agree with most of what you say, your points are well made, even if we have a slightly different perspective. It is only the above section that I chose to debate further. I don't accept that the price required to buy out Lowe's shares needs necessarily to be over-inflated. It could be that he and Wilde might accept that here was a chance to make at least something back on their shareholdings rather than risk getting nothing in the event of administration. The low attendance numbers must be a serious concern to them and if a consortium made a reasonable offer to take over the club, Lowe and Wilde would incur the wrath of the fans if the consortium proved they have money to invest in the team, but made it clear that some of that money earmarked for team improvements would be swallowed up by Lowe and Wilde wanting more than a reasonable amount for their shares. The board of the PLC would have a duty to accept offers deemed to be in the interests of the PLC and would be obliged to put the offer before all shareholders. If it seemed that their own personal greed was a factor in their refusal to accept a takeover, then IMO that is the time that the weapon of last resort might well be used to oust them. That weapon is a mass boycott of home games by the fans. One or two of these demonstrations would have the bank ordering them to accept the takeover, or else they will pull the plug on their loans. I believe that it is only under these circumstances that a fan boycott would achieve the widespread support needed for it to be effective, but I'm equally convinced that it would quickly produce the desired effect of forcing Lowe/Wilde to sell for a reasonable amount. It might well be that the boycott is unecessary and that merely the threat of it is sufficient incentive to concentrate their minds. Regarding your scenario of JP being sacked, a mediocre manager being appointed to buy mediocre players who will give us unexciting mid-table obscurity, surely it does not need to be like that at all. What if the result of the new people coming in was that the main movers behind it were Saints fans who had appreciated the good aspects of Lowe's experiment and instead of the pettiness that has been prevalent between the egos of the past, were pragmatic enough to admit what was good and only attempt to improve what was not good enough? What if the money brought in was used to not only keep the youngsters here long term to develop and grow with us, but to bring in the quality players to supplement them and give more strength in depth? We have the nucleous of a good squad here and there only needs to be some fine tuning with it. Why shouldn't anybody taking us over realise that? The big plus though, is that the new people, totally divorced from any connection to the protagonists who caused our downfall, would have the moral authority to issue a rallying cry to the fans to come and join them in a united attempt in restoring the club to its former glory. One of the things I dislike the most about our current situation is the division and antagonism between fans, most of whom only want the best for the club.

Well done Sheffield United's board for showing some imagination to try and increase numbers on a weekday match. It's just a pity that our board are so heavy with people from Accountancy or Financial backgrounds, who don't have any appreciation of concepts like these.

The referee didn't have a bad game IMO. Generally earlier on he allowed play to continue instead of blowing the whistle every five minutes, but there came a point when some of the Norwich players realised that they had some latitude from him and perhaps thought they would test how far they could push him. That was when he should have produced a card to show where the boundaries were. There was a great link to the Virgin site which clearly showed that the tackle was well inside the box and although it looked a soft penalty, it was clear cut. Lallana is a difficult player to tackle in the box, as he has tricky feet and good close control of the ball, so it is great to see him getting these penalties. Defenders are going to have to be more cautious of him, giving him more chances.

Well, I'm sure that you spent many a happy hour watching every available home reserve or academy match where most of these players were on show for free... And yet another poster who deems himself worthy of speaking on behalf of others. What makes you the spokesman of every real Saints fan, Red & White? Define real Saints fans for me. Presumably by your inferred definition, anybody who liked watching any of the teams of the previous three managers doesn't qualify as a real Saints fan. How about those who do not attend matches for whatever reason, real fans of not? I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

I've already pulled you up for your arrogance in suggesting this. If you can't stand the moaning on this forum, go and post on the Chelski board. Perceived value at Chelsea is operated on the basis that they could fill the stadium many times over at those prices for most matches against some of the best teams in World football. In our case, we are charging prices commensurate with some Premiership clubs to watch youngsters in a half empty stadium. If you can't see that, then you're obviously not a good businessman, as these things are absolutely basic. These principles constitute what is known as supply and demand. Battersea Saint And even if we do have them playing to a full stadium, the increased revenue will only ensure that we avoid administration and keep afloat. It will not mean that if the cream of the crop of youngsters get approaches from Premiership clubs offering to double, treble or quadruple their wages they will not be off like a shot. Would you stay under the same circumstances in their position?

Disingenuous to blame the customers for the lack of profitability and success of a company rather than the various people who have run it rather badly the past few years. Undoubtedly there are many reasons why people stay away, the economic situation, being one, but ultimately anybody who stays away has their own personal reasons for doing so and those reasons must be at least respected even if others do not agree with them. Ultimately, there are exceptional and peculiar circumstances that this business operates under being in the entertainment business, but also having a strong element of fanatical support. The board has therefore mistakenly assumed that their customers will continue to support the team regardless of which division we are in and that provided costs do not increase unecessarily they will not be a factor either. Well, they are mistaken. Apart from the basic concept that customers do not like to be taken for granted, the very board itself is divisive, with a large percentage of the customer base despising them. Until they are replaced, there will never be the unity that is necessary to move forward. They don't have the money to invest in the quality new players needed to add to the youngsters to gain promotion, so we will just bump along the bottom, selling the most promising players to keep afloat financially. The biggest mistake they have made so far though, is in not recognising that the price for the product is not good value and they have done nothing to address this at all. It was naive in the extreme to assume that just because we are fans we would accept paying the same money that we paid to watch the stars of the footballing World in the Premiership as we would to watch the youngsters that we could watch for free last season. Attendances would increase to a certain extent if we won most games, but the board need to address their pricing policies to encourage people to attend because they are getting value, not just because we might be winning games intermittingly. Until they address this problem, then the blame for falling attendances lies firmly at their door.

I think that you've missed the points I made, but perhaps I didn't express them well. Beyond saying elsewhere that if anybody chose to stay away for whatever reason, that is their choice and their reasons are to be respected, I don't think that I otherwise defended those stayaways. That's entirely up to them. Attendance at games is not compulsory. The main thrust of my post was to ask why Sundance felt that he was qualified to be the voice of all those 13/14000 fans and also to take him to task for his arrogance in suggesting that if anybody was unhappy with any aspect of the club currently that they shut up or go and support some other team. Anything you disagree with there?

Just to point out where you contradict yourself. On the one hand you castigate those who stay away and then tell them that they won't be welcome when they return. And I'm sure that the 13/14,000 are happy that you have chosen yourself as their spokesman to explain how they all feel. Personally I would welcome a consortium takeover with open arms. For one thing I'm assuming that they will have more money available than this current shower to keep us afloat. For another, the current lot are hugely devisive and apart from people like you and Scabby, most would welcome the unity that they would bring to the fanbase. As for your last sentence, what brazen arrogance to demand that anybody who doesn't like what is happening to our club should go and support somebody else. To plagiarise you, "You sad ignorant individual. Are you just simple or just a vindictive, vacuous cretin?" When you were ranting on about Crouch with every post when he was chairman, what would you have thought had somebody told you that if you didn't like it, go and support another club?

You're quite happy to moan about the crap (in your opinion) that we played last season, but will have a good whinge at anybody who expresses an opinion that is anything short of orgasmic about the way we have played this season. There's a very simple word that describes people like you - hypocrite.

A very entertaining and satisfying experience, the match tonight. It was a very nervous and tentative start, but once the goal was scored by Robertson, the team's confidence increased. The goal was absolutely glorious; MLT would have been proud to have scored it. I haven't seen the wonder goal by John in the Rotherham game, but I suspect that this is also in the running for our goal of the season. The other highlight of the evening were the two incredible World class saves from KD. He was on fire in goal and if not for him, I think that we would have lost, as Norwich did have the chances. There was also a great save when Norwich were through one on one, but Kelvin wasn't going to beaten tonight by anybody. McGoldrick's penalty was also a good one, probably unstoppable even had Marshall guessed the direction. Once that was dispatched and we had the two goal cushion, the confidence in the team soared and we witnessed some lovely passing possession football. Their Skate having been dismissed for dissent, the spaces suddenly appeared in the Norwich defence and the lads exploited it with a swagger. Had the shooting been less erratic at that stage, we could have scored two or three more, such was their dominance. If the lads go into the next game playing with the same confidence that they left off with tonight, playing attractive passing football, they can build on these couple of wins.

It was no hassle, Somedunce. It only took a short while to get there. As for the increased cost over and above a ST, this way I have the option of not going to matches if the entertainment value deteriorates or if a match is on an inconvenient day when I'm on holiday or away on business. As for passing judgement on those who through their own principles stay away from matches, I wouldn't presume to criticise them for their own personal decisions. You of course have no qualms to in doing that, but then again, you have proven on here many times that you wouldn't recognise a principle if it bit you on the arse.

Bought my tickets half an hour ago and asked how many tickets sold. Apparently only about 13000 so far. Not very good.

A good bit of satire, very clever. I can help on the contents of Barry's briefcase though. He keeps his lunch sandwiches in there.

What? Southampton's very own Lord Haw Haw? Why would anybody want that?

Arizona has answered this admirably. But you have failed to answer my question about the analogy of you starting work on the following Monday and would you be culpable for anything that went wrong when you were being shown around the place? And as your points have the support of the village idiot Scabby, then your case is automatically weakened by default.

What bit are you arguing about, Bob? I qualified my statement in two ways. I said that we ought to be able beat teams like those I mentioned if we are to survive this division. I also said that the division is made up of teams better than us at the moment according to our current position. If we do survive, it will be because there are three teams worse than us. Care to name those teams that you consider fill those positions in your opinion?

It depends on how you define the new regime. Is the new regime the board or the management? If it is the board, then they never gave the previous regime any chance to prove themselves, did they? And they would only constitute a new regime by virtue that Lowe and Wilde had not worked together previously. Apart from that, they both failed when they were chairman individually, weakening any argument that they should be given some latitude now. If you mean that the new management team is the new regime, then the same argument used against the board holds good here too. The previous manager had only short shrift to prove himself too. I'm tired of these arguments that somebody should be given a chance to prove themselves for the sake of stability when the current lot provoked instability by deposing the previous board and then dismissing the manager to install their own candidate. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Some indeed may act with rage, but for others it is simply a humourous diversion. Whereas if one wishes a troll to disappear, the simplest way to achieve that is not to feed him, Scabby is so amusing with his outlandish stereotypical notions, that it is great sport to give the troll the occasional prodding through the cage with a stick, to watch the response that it provokes. It's easy to pick the holes in his goadings which are riddled with inconsistency, which makes laughing at him all the easier. It will be even greater fun anticipating what he will come up with when Lowe and his cronies are deposed later this season. No doubt he will be one of the few harking back to his own personal golden era when everybody else is breaking open the champagne and hanging up the bunting.

Regarding 1:- We'll take all the points we can regardless of how we gain them. But realistically we ought to be beating teams like Doncaster if we are to have any hope of survival in this division. We ought also to be beating teams like Blackpool and Barnsley and although not in this division, Rotherham. But regarding our league position at the moment, the division is in fact made up mostly of teams better then us. Whether that situation persists until the end of the season remains to be seen. Regarding 2 You miss the point. Any disappointment that we didn't play attractive passing football with a resultant ball in the net ending from one of our strikers, is because we were promised revolutionary total football. And if we played attractive passing football in other games and didn't score, then that is not better, as the system didn't work then either. Admittedly, anybody would be naive to believe in the total football concept if applied to a club like us in our circumstances, but that was spin, as you say. The difference between the spin put out by the club, is that is official. Anything that you call spin from the people on this forum, is just opinion.