Saints go into the final week of pre-season with plenty of work still to be done.

Alan Pardew has emphasised his need for a centre-back, particularly with the news that Wayne Thomas has picked up another injury, which leaves Chris Perry and Olly Lancashire as the only central defenders with first-team experience. Jan-Paul Saeijs would be a popular recruit from Roda JC in Holland, but Pardew is likely to be looking closer to home.

Trialist Graeme Murty has a contract offer on the table and is expected to sign a one-year deal this week, which would make him eligible for Saturday’s curtain-raiser against Millwall. He’ll bring a wealth of experience to the defence, and the improvement in defensive organisation in the second half at QPR on Saturday when he came off the bench was noticeable. His signing might also allow Lloyd James to revert to his preferred central midfield role, although he’ll face stiff competition for places there.

Despite starting pre-season with a relative embarrassment of riches in the striking department, goalscoring has been a problem in the friendlies this summer. Stern John decided that a one-year deal in the Championship was preferable to a two-year deal in League One - a late decision that annoyed Pardew significantly enough to voice his disapproval in the media. Grzegorz Rasiak has been the subject of interest from Championship sides, but as yet none of them have tabled a bid big enough for us to accept, and it would seem unlikely that there are any clubs at that level who would take a chance with his salary demands. Marek Saganowski appeared the most likely to depart, having moved out of his Southampton home shortly after the end of the season, but to date there’s been little or no interest shown (ironically either by other clubs or the player himself in pre-season).

Pardew has said that he hopes to have four or five new players in by the close of the transfer window at the end of August, with one or two before the Millwall game. That would seem to be the bare minimum required, considering the various problems that have been identified over the course of the last three weeks.

So, it’s April Fools’ Day. Sadly, the news that trading of the shares of Southampton Leisure Holdings plc had been suspended by the Alternative Investment Market was not a seasonal joke.

The full statement to the Stock Exchange reads as follows:

The Company is currently in discussions with a number of parties concerning the injection of additional finance into its business. Unless this funding is secured, the Company will be unable to continue as a viable business for the forthcoming 12 months and is therefore unable to publish half yearly report to 31 December 2008 by 31 March 2009 which it is required to do under the AIM Rules.

Under the AIM Rules, a company that does not publish its half yearly report within 3 months of the period end will have its shares automatically suspended. The Directors expect that the Company will not be able to sign-off its half yearly report for the six months ended 31 December 2008 until the completion of a re-financing. As noted above, the Company is not in a position to publish its half yearly report to 31 December 2008 by 31 March 2009 and, as a consequence, its shares will be suspended from trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange plc, pending publication of its healf yearly reportfor the six months ended 31 December 2008.

It is widely believed that the reason for the PLC being unable to continue as a viable business is the refusal of Barclays Bank to extend the existing overdraft arrangement, which is reported to be £4m. It’s a rather stark and scary outlook of the current picture at St Mary’s, and one that few will be rejoicing about.

However, with reports that Southampton Football Club may not be forced to accept a 10-point deduction either this season or next due to a loophole in the Football League’s insolvency rules, may those who have proclaimed for a long time (with some justification) that the PLC structure is bad for the club ultimately be hailing its existence for maintaining the club’s place in the Championship?

For a bit of background to all of this, we have to go back to the month of my birth - October 1983. Irving Scholar had completed a takeover of Tottenham Hotspur some ten months earlier, and had come up with a plan to generate investment into the club by floating it on the Stock Exchange.

FA and Football League rules prohibited clubs from being public limited companies, but there was no objection by either body when Scholar announced his plan to circumvent these rules by forming a holding company, of which the football club would become a wholly owned subsidiary. This holding company would then be floated.

Fast forward to 1997 and Saints were embarking on a similar path. Southampton Football Club made a reverse takeover into Secure Retirements PLC - which was cheaper, easier and quicker to complete than a standard flotation - and became a subsidiary of the newly-named Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC.

When the finance for the move to St Mary’s was secured, the debt was transferred to St Mary’s Stadium Limited, another subsidiary company set up for the purpose of managing the stadium operations. SMS Ltd is wholly dependent upon the operations of Southampton Football Club Limited in order for it to function and, subsequently, its ability to pay its creditors. SMS Ltd owes some £26m to long-term creditors, according to its latest set of accounts, dated 30th June 2007 and available to download from the Companies House website.

Taking a look at the latest accounts for Southampton Football Club Limited, the company the Football League recognise as “the football club”, reveals a much healthier picture than that of the Group PLC or SMS Ltd - its long-term debt is less than £1m, although short-term debts to service various payments across the group and subsequently out of it result in overall debt of about £8m. The bank overdraft for SFC Ltd is nil, zero, zilch.

Therefore, as far as the Football League are concerned, the particular debt that has been put forward as the cause of the problems (i.e. the overdraft) is owned by the PLC and not SFC Ltd. This is the loophole that the club believe (and have apparently been backed up by the Football League when questioned by the Daily Echo) will enable them to escape the statutory points deduction given to clubs who go into administration.

Whether it is morally right that we should be able to squirm our way out of it is another matter entirely, but if the rules are as black and white as they appear to be in terms of which organisation the Football League recognises, it looks as though there is a way out.

Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that, if we stay up without a deduction, the team who finishes 22nd won’t embark upon a Tevezgate-esque legal challenge. I guess many would say we’ll cross that bridge if/when we come to it, but the ultimate irony is that the very fact that we have a PLC overseeing the football club as a separate entity may prove to be our saving grace, something that might just make a number of people - particularly among the SaintsWeb forum membership - explode!

Saints head coach Mark Wotte has issued a rallying cry for support but could he be making a rod for his own back?

In today’s Daily Echo, Wotte states “I read some stories about some young kids doing a protest march and you just wonder what’s in their minds – are they really supportive or are they waiting for us to go down? I’m not sure sometimes”.

“You can moan every day about Southampton Football Club and probably they are right because we’re not performing well enough – we’re 23rd in the league – but in difficult times you recognise a true fan and the true believers in this club.”

While his words may bear some elements of truth, I can’t help but feel that he would be better served by just getting on with the undeniably difficult job he’s got to drag the team out of the League One-sized hole they currently find themselves in, rather than potentially alienating, annoying and maybe even insulting more supporters. It’s not as if we’re selling out every week and can afford to piss off a few people with some harsh words.

With two tough home games against promotion-chasing opposition to come in the next 8 days, the team undoubtedly need all the support they can get, and while fans will appreciate an outspoken manager at the right times, a fairly constant wave of discontent from Wotte towards the fans is only going to turn more people against him and his employers.

More fans are expected to join a protest march tomorrow which is aimed at putting more pressure on Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde to resign. If it has the same effect as the last one - which produced what was probably the best home atmosphere of the season and a creditable performance against in-form Swansea City - then I’m all for it, although I think most people realise that protest marches aren’t going to make a particularly big impression on the board.

One of two things will force a change, in my opinion:

1. Someone with more money than sense will come in and rescue the club from the brink of relegation and administration, or
2. Barclays Bank will put the club into administration, leaving the day-to-day running of things in the hands of an independent arbitrator.

Certainly the most likely of the two options is the latter, although it’s a situation the club and the fans should be eager to avoid if at all possible. Administration seems to some to be an easy way to rid the club of most of its debt and those who have been in charge in one go, and then the club will automatically be in a position to return to former glories - unfortunately in the real world it simply doesn’t work like that. You only have to look at the likes of Leeds and our near neighbours Bournemouth to see that going into administration is not a long-term solution, and indeed neither club managed to prevent the previous chairman remaining in situ when they eventually returned to normal business. Bates now owns Leeds lock, stock and barrel, and Jeff Mostyn was able to sell to a private consortium at a profit.

The financial situation aside, one guarantee is that relegation will push us much closer to the edge. If people thought the prospect of paying good money to watch Saints struggle against the likes of Barnsley, Blackpool and Burnley was bad, I wonder what they’d make of a trip to Carlisle or the idea of entertaining Rochdale or Wycombe Wanderers week in, week out. While it may appeal to some on the basis of “there’s loads of new grounds to go to”, it soon loses that appeal when the team still continues to struggle. Again, just ask Leeds fans whether they’re “enjoying” being a mediocre side in League One. I doubt you’ll find many with a positive answer.

Whether the players we’ve got are capable of keeping us in the Championship or not, I can’t ever remember a time when the fanbase as a whole had so little belief in the team and so little enthusiasm or determination for the fight to stay up. It’s not as if we’ve not had practice at relegation battles over the years, after all! The people of Southampton appear to have just had enough. Whether that’s a level of apathy that will prove terminal to the future of the club is unclear, but I know of countless fans who just don’t give a toss anymore, for various reasons.

The various shenanigans over the last 5 years would be enough to test most football fans’ staying power. I think Lowe and co may have just exhausted that staying power here.