sadoldgit

I can relate to what you are saying. As much as I love Le Tiss, everytime I pick my all time best Saints X1 I have trouble fitting him in the side as I have to have Davies, Channon, Paine, Williams, Armstrong etc. Mind you, I have an awesome bench (incl MLT, Shearer and Keegan!)

Right info, wrong country!

Don't sit on the fence Windmill, tell us what you really think! Seriously though, the cr*p might have been worthwhile if ML stays the course and rebuilds this club without debt and on solid foundations. Just think without "him" this would not have happened! To quote the dear departed Mr Dury, "Reasons to be cheeful"

When is the bloody thing on. I recorded it on Easter Monday but have missed every episode since!!! Grrrrrrr

After his run in with Willy and the BA big guns he probably sees Rupert as a pussycat now!

I think you are right. The only other alternative might be a break away European league (volcanos permitting) leaving behind a watered down Premiership.

Yep, I'm just off to root through the dirty Calvins looking for the irony (p.s. I am still waiting to hear how much it will cost us to buy promotion)

I understand that Burley is running the London Marathon, not bad for an alchy is it? Isn't this what we are talking about? The likes of Alpine seem to think that if Burley spends £7m in the CCC and Pardew £3m in Div 1 then it should guarantee promotion. Why should it?

Depends what you mean by success Mr Fry.

There were all sorts of worries over the hedge fund though weren't there?

Ron, thanks for this. I did have some recollection of Barclays pulling the rug out of the blue. Trouble is, as time passes and as more people put their interpretaion on what happened, or what they think happened, things get clouded. There is a fascinating book to be written about our decline and fall (and hopefully rise!). Duncan, you up for it?

If you can't be bothered to engage in a sensible discussion do us all a favour and go somewhere else will you? For someone who thinks he knows so much you actually know very, very little. Tell you what, go and draw up a list of all of the managers that you would like to replace Pardew and when you have a top three come and tell us who they are. That should keep you busy for a while. Then we can have a meaningful discussion about their merits and your reason for wanting them over Pardew. Ok?

I suppose where there is life there is hope - and stranger things have happened so maybe you can't blame him for hoping something would come out of the woodwork. As you say Duncan, we think we have had problems but when you look elsewhere it could have been worse. I'd rather be us than Portsmouth, Cup Final and all!

Wot? Alpine in slagging someone off who is trying to get a balanced view shocker! You seem to know an awful lot about what went on inside the club for someone so far away. Source?

Sorry Panda, I was writing my post when you had made yours, but this pretty much answers my question. I keep hearing other clubs referring to us a "cheats" for going into Administration which is pretty weird as we had no say in the matter!

This is what I am trying to get my head around. Again my memory is hazy on this point but I thought that Lowe wasn't expecting us to end up in Administration and was running the club as if the plug wasn't going to be pulled. If you think you re afloat and trading and don't know that the bank are about to pull the plug, why would you put the club into administration? And yes, it did work out well in the end (although we dodged a bullet with Pinnacle!!).

What a strange individual you are. I haven't slagged Keane off. I have simply made the point that spending shedloads of cash does not guarantee you success. Do you think that is a concept that you can handle? If you are so sure that money can buy success please tell me what is the amount you have to spend a) to guarantee winning the European Champions Cup and b) Divison 1. Surely then all Chelsea and Southampton have to do is to spend that money and we are sorted!

Go and read some of the replies on here. It would appear that some people would have been very happy if we had been knocked out of every cup at the first round stage (even though there is absolutely no guarantee that we would have any more points on the board if we had).

The way the money is divided up in football nowdays sux big time. It is about to get even more unfair if this measure goes through.

Can someone who knows what they are talking about help me out here please? I have seen lots of posts blaming Lowe for deliberately timing administation so that we would lose 10 points this season along with relegation. My understanding when it happened was that the timing had nothing to do with Lowe and that it came about because the bank pulled the plug on us at that particular point in the season. So who instigated it? Lowe or Barclays?

No one knows (apart from our lucky fans with crystal balls). It did hurt clubs that have done doubles and trebles and you could argue that good cup runs increase confidence and help performances in league games. perhaps without good cup runs we wouldnot be doing so well now? You only have to look at some of the points dropped by some of the other "top" teams to see that long cup runs don't affect their ability to put in a cr*p performance. We must be one of the only clubs who have won b*gger all for years and finally win something then moan about it!!!

You have completely lost me with this one Alpine. The only thing I see in the washing basket is washing???

You have completely missed the point here Wes. Yes I am a shades of grey man (as opposed to a shades of black ). All I am doing is trying to get Alpine to fess up. Personally I think that Pardew has done more than enough to prove his is good enough (and ambitious enough) to carry on his rebuilding job next season but I don't think that Alps believs that himself. So it was a cheeky attempt to get him to a) at least answer a question and b) let us all know where he nails his colours. Of course we know where he nails his colours and that is not on this manager's mast if he loses another match or two..thing is every managers gets things wrong ad lose matches - it just seems like ours are not allowed to? As for the paraphrasing again Alps, please get it right. I have no problem with NC's ambition (over ambition as you bizarely put it). What I have an issue with is the fact he went public when it should have been done behind closed doors between him and Pardew. Also the fact that it would be nice to see him give Pardew some praise for the good job he has done this season. To me his announcement smacked very much at putting distance between him and us not getting promotion. No doubt he saw the stick that Lowe got and has decided very early on that the buck stops with the manager (even if he does call the shots on the transfers). We ALL want promotion don't we? It is just that there are some people who can see why it was going to be tough this season and if we have to wait another season so be it. I assume that ML and NC both saw it like this when they announced their 5 year plan - unless it was promotion this year and 4 years to get our of the CCC???? Personally I don't see why it is a problem to support someone who is obviously committed to doing his best for us and has already won some silverware. This constant sniping when he drops a point or three is what winds me up. By all means criticise players bought or tactics, but with APs record for us thus far to come out with "I am not calling for his head yet" seems more than a little previous to me and very disrepectful to a good manager doing a good job. At the end of the day it really doesn't make any diffrence does it? Alpine is very hard on managers (oddly apart from Pearson who only managed to win 3 out of 13 matches for us) but thats the way he is. It is all a bit of internet banter but I am not the only one who gets irritated by Alpine's negativity and attitude on here am I?

No...............next question

You have probably forgotten but we made the play offs and would have made the final if not for a couple of individual mistakes by a couple of players. We were winning every other game. Doesn't happen to us very often but we are doing thta now and yu still can't bring yourself to back the manager 100%. Still, who needs stats eh. As for attention...how many poss exactly??? ps Do you have any comment about the money Keane has spent and where they are in the league???