once_bitterne

Schnierlein was meant to be fit for one of the last two games but ended up playing neither and was not mentioned on the os report of the team selection for Palace. Given that is's getting near to January and he's been rumoured to be one of the ones sold is it safe to assume he isn't likely to be risked in what is left of Dec and we have seen the last of him in a Saints shirt?

Wishing for someones death at Christmas, you really are one classy guy....

.... for Nogoaldrick to miss....

Colin has done a great job at Palace which so far has largely gone unnoticed by the media. They are also in financial trouble, have had to sell quite a few players, couldn't afford to keep Morrison and started off the season at the wrong end of the table. They also have a owner/chairman who says he is stepping down at the end of the year and isn't putting any more money into the club and looks pretty disinterested in the team of late. And yet Warnock has dragged them up the table to the playoff places. No mean feat at all. He may be a ..... but he certainly does know the CCC.

Skacel's playing tho... I really can't believe we think that someone will want to buy Euell in Jan?? Esp if he doesn't really play a few games to prove he doesn't need shoulder surgery and given the pretty huge wages he is on. It's a strange one tho.... Personally I would like to see BWP and Euell up front in a 442.

Squad latest is on the OS now. Again no mention of Euell. I think he has recovered from the injury and I haven't heard of any new injury. I wonder if a deal has been done for him in Jan and we aren't risking him getting injured between now and then?

I'm sorry but that is rubbish. Ironically, the present time with our dire, on the brink of admin, financial position is the first time in all of Lowe's years here that he might just have to do what some fans have been accusing him of doing since 1997, selling a player that does not particularly want to go. Previosuly we have had exactly the same situation as any other club, namely that if a bigger club comes in for a player then the player ends up going. It's just the same for any other club, just ask Spurs... So the reason Bridge, Richards, Bale, Walcott and Beattie went was because they all wanted to not because nasty ol Wupes was trying to turn a quick profit. So if we are now forced to sell Surman, Lallana and Davis just to keep from going into admin then we will have to do that and if the some fans hurl abuse at Lowe for doing this then I'm sure he won't lose too much sleep as it's been happening for the best part of a decade....

The kid from Milwall has been anonymous and the striker from Spurs has fallen well down the Peck(hart)ing order.....

Actually I don't think either of them are lying. To this day I still do not believe that Paul Allen had any interest whatsoever in buying the club. Firstly there is just the sheer unlikelyhood that an American with no previous interest in football who is one of the richest men in the world would buy a team like us in the second tier of English football. To a man to whom money is no object, if he did want to get involved, then it would be in the Prem just as Glazer and Lerner have done. Also, the official line from the club when there were questioned about the Allen saga was that they were contacted by someone purporting to represent Paul Allen who said he was interested in buying the club. However, when they investigated this further they found the individual was not who he said he was and so that was the end of things. This was response was given at either one of the Saints Trust meetings with the club or one of the fan's forums and was reported in the write up on the message boards so I don't for the life of me see how anyone (inc. Crouch) can state the he feels there was any truth in Allen being interested in us. My own belief in this remains as it was. The whole Allen thing was concocted by the then Execs in order to deflect attention that their £8m or bust gamble with George Burley had failed and they had no Plan B. The whole Summer of Allen speculation meant that they managed to get through what could have been a very difficult summer for them to remain in position and instead all attention was directed to thoughts of a mega bucks takeover. I'm sure the fact that the speculation sent the share price through the roof didn’t hurt either. And it's anyone's guess as to how much or how little Wilde knew of this.

Yawn......

Cost cutting by the club. The desk at the ticket office has had to be overshored to Rochdale to take advantage of low labour costs.

How do you know she was cute when you couldn't see her. She was actually a bored, overweight single mother from Rochdale.....

How on earth would a salary cap in the CCC work when, every season, there will be 3 clubs from the Prem coming down with players on wages that will be far in excess of the CCC cap? Some of these contracts, which the clubs will have no legal way of getting out of, may have 3-4 seasons left to run. It's a nice idea but will never happen.

I wouldn't bother wasting your time with reasoned argument with Stanley. He's the forum member formally known as Chester Perry, Up the Saints, UTS, Milla Miglia, etc, etc, etc who has been banned from this forum and its predecessors more times than even the admins can remember! Let's put it this way, he's not exactly the smartest of the club's 'fans'.

I think it was actually on Celtic TV if you are being picky! (tho that is part of the Setenta 'Empire'! From the FA web site article there are only two games being shown on tv for the third round this year. Was the new tv contract with itv and setanta just to show half the number of games than were shown last season? I seem to remember that on the Saturday Sky had the lunchtime game and the BBC the evening one and then on the Sunday Sky had the 4pm kickoff and the Beeb the late evening one. I'm surprised nothing more was made about the new FA Cup tv deal showing only half the number of games than the old Sky/BBC one.

And you know that as Steve Gobwhinge told you so eh Matty! :prayer:

Apparently the club was forced to take down the picture as LM was demanding £1k per month to display it for use of his image rights.....

Are we actually going to make much money from the Cup game? Don't the gate receipts get split 50-50 is in effect all we will be getting is the revenue as if we had an extra home game with 15k attendence? I'm sure this will help pay off a bit of the overdraft but hardly enough to change any decision on which players we have to sell in Janaury. Now, if we get a replay and take them back to OT....

I'm assuming that you are referring to the American meaning of the word fanny?:smt057

Florida eh? I'm glad that, now that your are rapidly approaching your 60th birthday, you have sucummbed to the inevitable and re-located to the land of the Senior Citizen! Good luck with things and I hope you can find a nice female closer to your own age so you can add her to the legendary (albeit cringeworthy beyond belief) cyber bedpost of yours! http://home.btconnect.com/essruu/tt_quiz.htm Enjoy your Pumpkin Pie!

I'm thankful that Tiggy Timothy never lets a post go by without reminding us that has spurned his British nationality in favour of the the more bacward side of the Atlantic! Is this in any way Saints related at all? At least he could have made some vauge refernence to Kyle Davies (who, btw, I believe will make a great centre back in this country. (once he can be convinced to take off the helmet and stop wandering off the field after 10 seconds of play as he's waiting for the adverts....)

We stopped scoring from corners when Monkou left. There would be no point in practising corners against our defenders! If we took 16 we would score from 14 and get penalties from the other 2!!

The Slags?

Exactly. Lowe has played it by the book since returning, any Chief Exec that wanted the club to avoid admin would be doing exactly the same as Lowe is. The only questionable decision was letting Pearson and go and given the players he has JP has done a decent job and I'm yet to be convinced that Pearson is actually any great shakes as manager. Given by far the majority of the 'lost' fans this season are down to results then given the players would be largely of the same skill level no matter who was chairman, then the crowds we would get would be pretty much identical to what they are now even if we had the most popular chairman in the history of football.

I'm sorry but I don't see how this in any way would approve us, baring maybe bringing back the handful of fans that do stay away because of Lowe. Given you great strategy, the 3 main shareholders dip into their pockets and pay for an Expensive chief executive. Great! And then what? Are you hoping that Dein is such a football expert that he would unearth the next Theo Walcott or Gareth Bale. (oh hang on, Lowe re-vitalised our academy that found the originals...) We would still have no money to spend on players. We would still have to cut costs drastically so all the Lowe bashers who would be dancing in the streets if Dein did come in would change their tune pretty quickly when they see that Dein, being a sensible businessman, would also have to see Surman, Lalanna, etc. If our 3 shareholders were too dip into their pockets they would be far better off paying for a decent player than yet another paid executive..... If any rational person looked at the situation at our club they would see that on his return Lowe has done pretty much the best job he could have given the situation. We have cut costs, sold some players where possible and shifted the high earners that could not be sold out on loan. At the same time we are playing some good football (far better to watch than Burley's overpaid stiffs from last season) and have every chance of not getting relegated which will be a pretty good situation given that evey player we had was up for sale in the Summer. The only decision that can be questioned was replacing Pearson with JP and to be honest it is a flip of coin to which of the two is the better manager. JP has done well to take a team made up of youth team and reserve players from last year and have them be competative in the very tough CCC and Pearson is doing well to have Leicester top (though it will be viewed as a failure that will no doubt cost him his job if he doesn't take them up.) We are past the point of it being worthwhile tying to aportion blame for the financial situation of the club, the fact is that we were in a terrible financial position in the Summer and I've been happy at what the new/old baord has done to sort this out and still give us a good chance of staying up. So if we can avoid administration and relegation this season and be able to build for next season then this will be enough to keep me happy without the need for paying a 6 figure salary to see Dein and his perma-tan in the directors box when we will be totally unable to bring anything new to the table....