sadoldgit

Lawrie gave me the best memories I have of Saints and gave us, in my opinion, our best squad ever. For that I shall be eternally grateful. But there is an old saying that you should never go back and I don't think Lawrie should have.

Hmmmm, so we are a club with no ambition (your recent quote) yet we hire the biggest name is sports psychology but you find other spurious reasons to slag off his appointment??? How do you know that he was being groomed as a successor to replace Redknapp simply because he agreed with Lowe? Maybe it was because he had something to offer (knowing a thing or two about sports psychology and winning). I am having a dig because you are inconsistant. I doubt very much if you had complained if Wilde had brought him in. Quite the opposite I suspect.

It never fails to amaze me. Players get slated when they are here, but go elsewere and score a goal and all of a sudden we should never have let them go???

But you slagged off Woodward Alpine, or was that because it was a Lowe appointment?

Blimey Alpine, for the second time ever I agree with you! What made me laugh was it said all the right things through most of the article but right at the end said that questions should be asked if we don't beat Yeovil??? Surely if we are supposed to support him because it is still early today the same could be said come Saturday evening?

He will be gutted. He had probably stocked up the fridge with Champagne.

Poor old Alpine will be gutted.

Roy Keane has spent £8m on a team that are currently in a relegation position. Perhaps it wasn't Burley who couldn't get us up, perhaps it was the players?

WE can talk about players and tactics all day long, but the problem we have as a club is lack of confidence. We never really adapted to life in the CCC and it is no surpise that we are struggling in the third tier. Even when we were doing relatively well a faction of fans were on the managers back (and still are even though he has gone). We expect too much too soon. Very few managers are able to turn things round overnight and most decent teams have taken a while to build. Even the best managers make mistakes in the players the bring in, the teams they select, the tactics they use. There is no magic formula. It takes hard work and patience. Pardew has got a very hard job in removing the losing mentality from the club and the longer we go without a win the harder it gets.

Blimey, if you can see that all the way over there in Austria makes you wonder why Pardew hasn't got it sussed yet? I have said it all along, our biggest mistake was not making you CEO and manager years ago.

You never answer a question do you? Maybe that is why people repeat themselves to you?

Probly because no other manager has managed to get the same results, even those who could field 7 Enngland captains and players of the cabibre of Channon, Keegan, Williams and Armstrong. But of course in some deluded minds the fact that Burley managed to win nearly every other game and has the biggest win ratio of any manager we have had means that he actually "wrecked" the club and was an utter failure. In those same minds a manager who only managed 3 wins in 13 and was 20 minutes away from relegation is seen as a screaming success. Tell me Alpine, what points ratio per game do you consider a reasonable figure to determine whether the manager is doing a good job?

Couldn't have put it better myself Nick, spot on. People soon forget the good things. As you say, he brought on Jones in leaps and bounds. He also knew what a decent keeper Davis was when the cyber jockeys on here thought otherwise. Rasiak, Saga were good buys and didn't he bring in Andrew Davies? Still, there is a faction on here who will never forgive him for being a Lowe/Woodward appointment (apart from a fact that his signing was a real coup at the time) and for not taking us up (as apparently spending a certain amount of money guarantees promotion). Burley had trouble sorting out his defence just as Redknapp could sort out the goalscoring problem when we first went down. Why is the same level of grief not directed at him? Aferall, he said would go up f'sure? But for some individual eors by individual players we would hve made the ply off final in his only full season, how can that be seen as "wrecking the club" as Alpine would have us believe? When he left we were nearer the play offs than we were the relegation zone and again, despite what Alpine would have us believe were not "on the slide" until the following managers took over. It is absurbed to heap derison his way. Okay, he was no Bates or McMenemy but then they were allowed time to make mistakes. Nowdays you are allowed very little time and even finishing in the play off positions is seen as failure.

Burley did a brilliant job at Ipswich and Hearts. In his only full season with us we were as good as any of the top 6 sides but lacked consistancy. To knock someone who averaged 1.54 points a game is just crazy but typical of managing the expectations of some Saints fans. To say that he wrecked this club is ridiculous. Like anyone, he did the job as best he could and better than many we have had but it wasn't quite good enough. We weren't going up with Redknapp and we stayed up by the skin of our teeth under Pearson. Get some perpective. If Burely was way down the list of stats, fine, but he is at the top. Snodin wasn't here when Burley had that great run in to his first season nor was he as Ipswich or Hearts.

He arranged? Sorry but I thought that the remnants of the Wilde bunch were running the business, you know, the bloke you supported?

You do write some tripe Alpine but even by your standards this is total cr*p. Please explain to me how someone who has the best win ration and points per game ratio wrecked the club? Up until the management let Baird, Bale and Jones go from underneath him we were still a reasonable club. Perhap you forgot the day that Hone made his infamous statement which signalled the end of our promotion ambitions? Burley at least gave us the only half decent season we have had since Strachan. His team used to win matches. In fact they averaged over a win every other game. So he played players out of position. So did Strachan, don't see him getting flak for it? Who took us down? Burley or Redknapp? How made a pigs ear of getting us back up at the first go? Redknapp. But you keep having a pop at Burley. You delight in failure and in negativity but your targets are not consistant. No doubt you will continue to single out Burley for abuse even if Pardew continues with his current poor record. No Nick and I are not the same person. We just see you for what you are. By the way, as much as you can't wait for a man to lose his livliehood and will have great fun at his expense if he does, a man who has forgotten more about football than you will ever know (Terry Butcher) has come out in firm support of him, as have others.

Perhaps he thought you might like a pair for a friend with smaller feet?

Enjoy this do you Alpine? What a sad individual you are.

what does it matter?

Yep, because we really do not need any advice from someone who has won a major competition and knows a thing or two about sports psychology. Nope, lets carry on the way we are and who knows, we might even end up as a Sunday park team if we carry on in our current vein of success!

I wish them all the best but it will be more than a tad ironic if they fare worse than the Dutch duo!!!

Just what we need, another Wally at the club!!!

Did all right in the 2nd half though didn't they? Scotland aren't blessed with much talent right now, but why not blamethe manger. They are all in it together, they are all to blame if they don't qualify. Still, what the hell does this have to do with Saints?

All the negativity over the last few years has got us nowhere. I see above someone still is having a pop at a previous manager who has the highest win ration of any of our managers. With that attitude some fans here get exactly what they deserve. GOd knows why anyone would want to come and manage this club. Pardew has been here 5 minutes and is still in the process of rebuilding and already some cyber jockeys are slagging him off. Some fans booed yesterday. Really helpful. FFS grow up and get behind the club. At least we still have one to support.

Ah Robbie, you and your crystal ball, can you let me have the lottery numbers next week please? No one knows whether we would have won or lost under Wotte. What we all know is that we have not yet won a league game and no Wotte or Lowe in sight mate.