Chez

so it could not be both ST and TV money then?

er no, read my post again, the complete opposite.

Season ticket revenue will be around £12m and next season the TV money is over £22m so it could be quite a bit more than £16m.

some of us, having seen our great club and the **** one down the road get close to liquidation, are not happy to just stick our heads in the sand and say "He is Swiss, of course he knows what he is doing. They are all great with money over there, especially the bankers." We want to be sure. We can do **** all other than ask questions. it costs nothing to do that. if you don't give a ****, that is fine. Watchign Saints is a past time, a hobby after all. But for those that nutjobs, to coin a phrase, that like to monitor every move made by the club, this action must be highlighted, discussed and questioned. It's not worrying. Personally I've got far bigger things to fret over, and no one is adding grey hairs as a result, its just the interweb

I recall the skates saying exactly the same thing. Didn't quite work out like that with TBH did it?

surprised he didn't have to go the stadium to collect the letter.

Are you being serious about the dinner invite? I would hope top of your list of questions would be about the loan.

You are on to something there. How about priority seating fee and non allocated seating. That would encourage fans to get into the ground hours before the game to ensure their place (like the old days) and then you'd have more time to sell them **** they don't really want like foul smelling hot dogs.

I wonder how many former programme sellers that have perhaps been selling them for 20 years or more (getting a free ticket as payment) will now shrug their shoulders, say this is progression and then head down the ticket office to buy their £36 ticket? Unless we are selling out and can sell their seats this saves the club nothing That said, automation is everywhere, so why not programmes? Southampton Football Business goes from strength to strength.

I don't know if he is sensible with money or was a successful banker. Being a Swiss banker doesn't mean you are necessarily either, but he's done very well for himself and he's been very successful at SFC that's for sure. However criticising other clubs for spending future income and then doing exactly the same is hypercritical. I'm sure he has everything in hand, but one admin was more than enough and I don't want to see risks taken.

did your source suggest that the owners would not be loaning/gifting any more money? Also any indication that they would be owners for decades?

what makes you say that? Knowing how to squeeze the last penny out of fans or racking up £21m of debt in three seasons? The fans keep paying and the side keeps winning so his decisions have been correct, but football is unpredictable, things could easily have been different. Can you tell me how he has demonstrated he is sensible with money? Yes I'm a cynic, indulge me.

did your source mention any reasons for the need to loan from a third party?

really. Wonder of Kweku Adoboli or Kareem Serageldin will use that line to get their next job?

The Everton loan from Vibrac in 2011 of £14m is suggested to be costing them £1.3m and a previous bank loan in 2010 cost them £1.6m PLUS 3%+bank base rate interest, so these loans are not cheap by any means.

genuine question. Can you give me some details about Cortese's success as an investment banker. I keep hearing on here how successful he was but can't find anything to substantiate it.

why not? The club earns a fortune being in this league. Spend that fortune, but no more. if you get relegated you then aren't faced with a negative bank balance. Simple really.

are you saying that Steve Grant is the dark force?

Financial fair play hasn't kicked in yet has it. Besides I doubt we get close to Man City in terms of owners cash injections. Why go offshore and not to a UK bank? Everton only turned to these guys because they were maxed out at their UK bank. Could loan be to pay for stadium expansion? Straw clutching skate style. I know Cortese will say **** all, but I'd really like an explanation. I didn't expect my 40% ST price increase to be supported with an offshore loan to pay for the new signings.

what the **** are we doing? We almost died as a club five minutes ago by gambling on promotion and yet we seem to be doing the exact same thing here, albeit with a huge set of parachute payments to help. But are they going to cover Ramirez's wages for the next four years if he turns out to be a failure and we can't offload if we need to? All I've heard for three years is we are run `properly' and `as a business'. Yet the only evidence of these claims in my eyes is charging fans to park and to buy tickets, doubling ticket prices and spending vast sums of money, very well I might add, on players and wages to help us get promoted. It has certainly worked to date, but I genuinely thought once we had made it to the Prem we'd cut our cloth accordingly, what with the huge income available to us and the so called non debt ideals many kept telling me on here. Is it a case of needing that cash up front to help us compete? I recall Blackpool struggling to pay promotion bonus until Prem TV money started kicking in. Is it a cash flow thing? If so why haven't the owners provided a short term loan? This is what confuses me most. I don't understand why the owners cleared the debt one minute and then we turn to the BVI and mortgage future earnings for money the next. I for one am very concerned, as I have been a few times over the last three years about our huge wages and growing debt. The owners certainly put my fears to bed when they turned it into equity, but here we are again, but this time going to who knows who cap in hand. Maybe at the next `fans dinner' someone will stop the ass kissing and get the answers.

surprised JWP has not been selected ahead of Lansbury, who couldn't make any impact at Arsenal, after a bright start at Norwich couldn't get in their side, failed to get in the West Ham side last season and has struggled to get in the Forest side since his move.

er, I don't recall there being a single person unhappy at us signing the League 1 PFA team of the year right back. You certainly went against the tide with your support there. rolling eyes

Interesting to read your opinion rather than posts dissecting others. I have to say I agree with the home formation and certainly away from home I think we need a return to having a left and right midfielder who are willing to work up and down the pitch and not be wingers. Away from home this would be as pat of a 5, we're not good enough individually or collectively to go 4-4-2, but I wouldn't go for three central midfielders covering across the park as you suggested. IMO the left and right sides would have to be left and right sided players not Cork and Davis as you suggested. The issue is who we play in those wide roles. Chaplow was effective down the left last season and could so a similar job down the right. He was excellent out there against Palace I recall on return from injury. Lallana perhaps could do the left side job, but I've never thought he was up to much defensively and the third goal at Everton typifies where he is let down by a lack of pace, poor starting position and a tendency to focus on attack rather than defence. He tries, but he's not the right person to do an rigid up and down job. He'd have to reign back on his attacking tendencies and we'd be wasting his talent. What choice is there? Our injury problems in the centre mean JWP and Davis are our only options right now. That leaves one slot for Lallana or Ramirez.

I like Cork, but isn't this just a case of a player getting better every game he's not playing and we aren't winning? He couldn't get in the side towards the end of last season and didn't provide a great deal of protection for the back four in games like Leeds away for example. Obviously its better to have the option, but I don;t see his return to fitness as being the catalyst to a change in our fortune.

having almost literally stolen £1.25m from them for McGoaldraught (subsequently put to great use) I think it is us that still owes them. Many thanks curb crawler.