sadoldgit

We are not and have never been a "big club." We are currently a third tier club with Premiership aspirations. Even at our peak in the 80's we were not a "big club." How other clubs perceive us who knows (and to be honest, who cares). It is all very well getting impatient with getting out of League 1 but it took a "big club" (and they are more than us) in Leeds a while to get out too. There is no magic wand, just hard work and an element of luck. If we make it this year, fantastic, if we don't we are just yet another club with aspirations who have not been successful in acheiving them.

Some people's excuses are other people's reasons. The thread says, me I am out of pateince. Thing is with you Alps you never had any to start with. The good times? Yeah, because we won everything going in the past. Last year we won a cup, had a competitive team and but for the minus 10 points would have been strong contenders. THis season is only 2 league games old but you have us written off already. You have it all down to Pardew right? If what FF tells us is true and Pardew is one of 4 people on the transfer committe, and you think a lot of the problems are down to lack of transfer activity so far, logic dictates that the infamous Alpine spleen should be vented in the direction of the 4 man transfer committee. Thing is, Cortese sits on that committee, and he is fireproof, right? You need to get some persepctive mate. I know you don't go to matches but those that do say that the main problem is not converting chances. Me, I'd be more worried if we were not making chances. In the summer you moaned that we had sorted out the defence. Within days the defence was sorted. Now you moan about midfield. Guly has signed. Give these people (and us) a break. Pardew and Cortese ar professional people working to a budget. The decisions they make will either bring success or not. If the answer is not, I suspect that thobbing purple vein on your forehead will explode but do you know what, the world will keep turning. Tell us Alps, what will make you happy? Even when we were in the promised land of the Premiership you found plenty to complain about. "Ain't looking good" - last season was our most competitive for years. Most people here enjoyed it and saw that the manager was working hard and taking us in the right direction. To say it is all doom and gloom after 2 league games is crazy, even by your standards Alps.

No it won't, he can still bring in loans. Cast your mind back, when have we last been left with "nothing?"

TT, we are where we are. We don't have a divine right to be anywhere and you only have to look at all of the other teams who have fallen on hard times to see that SFC is not immune to the outrageous fortunes of the football league. The beauty of sport is that there are no givens. If there were, what would be the point. Pardew has his work cut out, as do the players. They need support but many here have already decided that Pardew is useless and the squad poor. I am looking forward to things turning round but if they don't, life goes on.

Disappointing start yes, but two league games in...hardly dummy throwing time. We have just signed a new midfielder with more to come hopefully. We are making chances. As has been said, we have a decent squad and a decent manager, to be fair I don't think we are looking at the end of the world just yet. As Pardew says, we need to get rid of the negativity, trouble is some thrive on it!

Let's look on the brightside. A lot of people here said our cup runs cost as a play off place last year. Best get knocked out of them all early doors.

Try to hold on till you get home.....

Thanks goodness the wrist slitters have been out in force over the last few days. Pardew must have read the threads about lack of signings and pulled his finger out! : )

I am sure you are right Nick. What I find interesting in this is that NC said that he and Markus discussed things about SFC a lot and I am surprised that Markus would have backed him on something like this.

Papa and Antonio were both risks and they didn't turn out to badly. The other day you were unhappy that we hadn't signed anyone lately, now you are unhappy (sorry, underwhelmed) because we have. Before you cast judgement Alps why not wait to see if the guy can play?

Nice to see that Alps hasn't lost his negative touch! Welcome to the club Guly and I hope you do the biz for us. You do have to chuckle though don't you. If the guy was any other nationality would the media put his country before his name? But because he is Brazilian they do. It is as if every manchild born in Brazil plays like Pele! He may well be Brazilian but he is signing for an English 3rd Divison club.

He said he wants to play in England at the highest possible level - do you think he thinks League 1 is the Premiership???

Thanks Toomer, thats right.

Sadly not. Even when we were on a roll last season and doing well he had his critics, you being one of them Alps.

I still think it makes no sense to panic after 2 league games.

This is the big question. If Pardew is shown the door, who will follow and will they do any better? Big call.

Because you constantly behave like a child. 2 games in and you are throwing your dummy out of the pram. I remember you managing to turn a 6-0 away win into a chance to have a dig at the manager at the time. It is a game Alpine. Whatever manager we have at any given point is doing his best to win matches, just as the opposition team manager is doing to us. We are not going to win every game, no matter who our manager or CEO is. If you can grasp those issues maybe we can have a grown up debate?

The issue about no "preseason" last year was more about the fact that we had a whole new management/ownership structure start at the club. Once everything bedded down we did become a very competative club.

I shall explain it t you once more Alps as you seem to miss the point entirely. I am not overly bothered about Cortese's PR gaffes although you would think that someone so self aware would know better. The bloke may well be a control freak and I am not going to lose any sleep over that, as I didn't with Lowe. There are two issues I have. The first is that there seems to be little difference between Cortese and Lowe, yet for you, Cortese can do no wrong and Lowe did no right. The second, which is actually very important, is that he pointedly failed to support his manager last season and even when he was forced into making a statement was less than supportive. It is very important that the CEO and manager have a good working relationship - expecially when expectations are so high. We were told that Lowe should butt out of football/team matters as he was not a football man. Cortese also comes from a business background and is not a football man. Suddenly it is ok. Cortese has a very big decision to make. He either has to decide to keep Pardew and back him to the hilt now. If he really doesn't believe in Pardew, then he must sack him and get someone else in. That is fine, but he was the man who employed Pardew in the first place remember. So here is the thing. If Cortese has, in the course of one season, become very clued up in this game and can see that Pardew's tactics and methods are flawed, great. If on the other hand, he has had a hissy fit because he didn't get promotion in year one and that is why he is down on Pardew, then we have a problem and can look forward to another period of revolving doors at the club.

I thought there was about 3 of them, Beattie being another?

Once again Alpine, pot, kettle black. Still now that we know that Cortese sits on a 4 man transfer committee (and no doubt shares his humungous knowledge of quality lower league players with his colleagues) I am sure that you will direct your scorn re the non signings of players recently towards him as much as Pardew? After all, we all know how much you hate hypocricy!

I think there was an issue of a certain white substance and that is why he fell foul of WGS.

We have had 2 league games. If in the next week or so we bring in 2 players who improve our results what is the problem. If we don't make any signing and are struggling after 10 games, by all means slit your wrists, but after 2 games when you know we are looking to strengthen - jeez.

Can't understand why, surely all those years in banking have set Nicola up for this committe perfectly? I'd love to be a fly on the wall in those meetings.

Absolutely. And WGS bottled his team selection for the final. We lost it at Highbury in effect.