once_bitterne

I don't believe that is true for a second. Hoddle wanted to come back here and understood from Lowe that he would be offered the job. Unf the view of some of the fans got to Lowe/the board and changed the situation. When Hoddle realised he was not going to be offered the job he quickly arranged the 20 minute interview with SSN held at some golf club to give the impression that it was HIS decision not to come back. This was a total PR effort by Hoddle and the interview was held a matter of hours before Sturrock was unveiled.

Without doubt his biggest mistake was allowing the vocal section of fans to sway his mind in the re-appointment of Hoddle after WGS left. That was the first domino falling that has led us to where we are today. It also no doubt influenced the way Lowe workd today in that he is sure not bow to fan pressure again which must have played a part in the decsion not to retain Pearson. This may end up being his second biggest mistake and really was a decision that made no logic behind it except 'I'm doing things my way this time'. Keeping Pearson would have in effect given him Lowe an 'extra life' where if things had gone tits up then he could lay the blame on those who apointed NP. As far as mistakes go, appointing Woote might be up there too, if we had gone for Dowie who would surely have accepted the job, then I think we would have had a good chance of surviving. But then again if Crouch had gone for Dowie and not NP I feel we would have done better than surviving by the skin of our teeth and given that, Lowe may well have allowed him to remain in situe.

Crouch is far too concerned about being viewed as a fan and liked by all to be able to deal with the situation the club is in. There isn't a hope in hell he would have made the hugely unpopular financial decisions to sell anyone we could, ship off all the high earners who couldn't be sold on loan and replace them in the team with kids and players like Molyneux who could be paid in buttons. We would have had John, Rasiak and the rest in the team at the start of the season and would have plunged into admin because of this already. We might well of have a couple more wins because of this (tho John can't even get in the Bristol City team now!) but we would have the 10 point deduction and would now be in the grips of administrators who would have sold everything including the kitchen sink. Some fans really do need to relalise that if Lowe is to be hounded out we do need a viable alternative. More than any other club in the country we need to realise 'Anyone But' campaigns do us far more harm that good. 'Anyone But Hoddle' got us Sturrockwigelyredknapp and relegation 'Anyone But Lowe' got us Wilde then Crouch and then the brink of admin. We don't seem ever to learn......

try pointlessemailsdestinedforthebin@barclays.co.uk

Yes, I mean Crouch was such a great success as a Chairman..... One things for sure, if he was still Chairman we would we in admin already.

So statistically Pearson was a worse manager than Burley? I didn't realise he was quite that bad.....

That's why we still have BWP in the squad. He's a good utility criminal....

Wasn't McG the player rumoured to be bullying his own team mates when he was in the youth team?

Nothing to do with this allegation as the BWP/McG thing was said to have taken place at the Giddy Bridge.

Our debt really isn't that much of an issue. The majority of the debt you mention is in the mortgage which is a long term debt with very managable yearly payments even in L1. What would cause the club to hit admin is cash flow problems but once the last of the big earners like Skacel, Euell, BWP, etc are sold or out of contract then our wage bill for the likes of McG, James, Seijs, Perry and the rest is very managable indeed. Even in L1......

Grow up. Man City, Leeds, Forest and Leicester have all fallen to the third tier of English football in the past decade. If it does happen to us it won't mean the end of SFC. Ten years ago Hull were rock bottom the Div 4 and look where they are now so keep the faith. If we do go down then fan numbers will have a major effect on our chance of going up as we will be one of the richer clubs in L1 if we can average 15k-20k when many other teams in the league struggle to get more than 10. There will still be games to go to next year so only the fickle fans will drift away. I'm sure they wil return if/when our fortunes improve.

FFS, grow up! LOL! For a start we are a plc and not member of the public who has their account with a branch managed by nice Mr Mainwaring.... Our account is looked after by their corporate team which is based in Reading (not in the Reading Barclays bank!) I wouldn't bother wasting your keystrokes tbh.....

The crowd figure will include all s/t holders and those who have already bought tickets regardless of whether a light dusting of snow 'forced' them to stay at home under the duvet so I doubt the crowd will be significantly effected by playing tonight. It makes you wonder how countries like Canada cope.....

Fair point but I often think the same of you! I cannot really believe that a person with the extreme manic depressive tendencies you exhibit here each and every day is in fact a human being with a wife and kids and not under constant medical care. I prefer to believe your posts are auto generated by a computer.

Nope. They seemed to have signed another defender on loan instead.

It's amazing the list of rich businessmen who are Saints fans who get their names in the press but then come up short when it comes to parting with any readies... Trant Davies Goodenough David Frost

As has been said already, bar one month Dyer's wages have been paid by Sheff Utd and Swansea this season. I don't think one months pay for him will equal what he will be flogged for so it remains an astute move to give him a new contract in the Summer rather than let him walk away for nothing.

Looks like he will be sold for at least a few hundred grand in the Summer. In which case well done to Lowe for offering him the new contract. If he had not then Dyer would have walked away for nothing. Funny how some on here could not see why Dyer was given a new contract!

One utterly pointless question mind you....

You were banned remember? (about 20 times....)

I agree. Unfortunately fan pressure does not help clubs. Fans established Prem teams who get relegated want to see effort made to get straight back up. If a chairman took the decision to be careful with this cash and use it to secure the future of club from administration and not on some high priced players he will on a hiding to nothing from the fans.

The parachute payments help but by no means can compensate for losing most of a club's tv revenue. In fact it could be argued they do more harm than good as the injection of funds allows a relegated team to go for a sh it or bust gamble in trying to get promoted in the first two seasons in the CCC but if this gamble fails they club is in even more trouble than before. This is exactly what we did in giving Burley 8m+ in our playoff season. That gamble failed which made things even worse for us.

Pointless. Our current plight has nothing to do with us becoming a plc. In fact post 97 we improved our league position from being a perennial relegtion candiate to a top 10 team under Hoddle and WGS, built a stadium fitting of football in the 21st Century and reached a Cup final. It's pointless trying to pin the blame for relgation on any one person, relegation is a fact of life in football and happens to three Prem teams every season. Take a look at the CCC table just about every club there has been relegted from the Prem at some point and in its history only two clubs apart from the Big 4 (Villa and Spurs have been PL everpresents. Relegation was always going to happen at some stage to a club of our size not bankrolled by a billionaire. We are where we are now for one reason and one reason only, the HUGE disparity in TV revenue money from the Prem to the CCC. This means that any club relegation loses about 80% of its total revenue overnight. This means any and every established Prem club that gets relegated is going to struggle to avoid administration in subsequent years. Take a look at Leeds, Forest, Norwich, Charlton, etc. They all faced or are facing exactly the same problems as us but amazingly Lowe cannot be blamed for their fate. IMHO, the only way to resolve this would be to have a PL2 and more evenly share the tv revenue between the two leagues. Ideally the big 4 could be kicked out to compete in a European Super League too and then we would have some competition as to who would win the PL each season....

Crouch should have appointed Dowie when he had the chance. The fact NP did so badly here and only survived on the last day of the season gave Lowe the ammunition to give him the bullet. Get Dowie in now.

Posts like this do nothing more than strengthen Lowe's position. By all means critisise him for things that hare his fault but stuff like this is utter rubbish. It's been posted many many times that the club spent all the money it had available in WGS's time. What might be questioned was how what WGS did with the money he had available to him. Mccann and Crainey anyone?? Bar the big 4 we spent as much as other clubs in that time. To push on to this mythical next level would have taken at least £30m. As were/are a plc with no rich sugar daddy to pump in the cash as happened at Wigan, Reading, Pompey, etc where was this money to come from? Beans? A money press? The arguement put forward in this thread is total rubbish. The reason why we are where we are is that we did not appoint the right manager after WGS left. And when a club over achieves with a manager and then that manager leaves then the team struggles, need proof, then just ask Charlton fans and the lot down the road are going the same way too.