Panda

Pardon? Run that past me again in English this time ...

Sadly, its a fact of life Bridgey. Wives get quite angry with husbands who get ill, it is just another one of our failings. Who visits the doctor most in your family?

It's pretty obvious Crawley have beaten us for his signature. Damn!

van Geobel (spelling?) left back.

Because sparrowhawks 'hawk' sparrows and other small birds in gardens using their agility to swoop in unnoticed whereas peregrines make their presence known, get pigeons or jackdaws to fly up in panic and then use speed to take one out of mid air.

a) 16 b) Head down, follow through c) 22 volts! [Looking at your grip you should see two knuckles on the left hand, two on the right hand a V pointing over your shoulder]

Chrome for me! I use Firefox, IE and Safari to make an alternative check on my website but for every day use its Chrome every time. I can't see the attraction of Firefox, it just seemed to be the trendy thing to use when it first came out as it was free and open source but the others are free too. Chrome is stable, fast and functional.

What's the difference between Matthew Le God and God? Matthew Le God thinks he's God, whereas God knows he's God! (Sorry MLG, nothing personal - just adapting an old 'Yes Minister' joke!)

and: 4) Lambert is not out of contract so we would want a fee that Norwich could not afford 5) Norwich have no manager so are unlikely to make big signings before that is resolved 6) It just does not make any sense at all from anyone's perspective. That is surely not a decent source as you say!

Great memories of P-Rod there

I think the problem many of have is that we have been Saints supporters for a long time and do not let ourselves think big! For many years we punched above our weight perhaps and for the last seven years we have been on the ropes and down on the canvas at times. NC does not carry this baggage, he is used to being successful. It is quite possible (I am not ITK) that NC told NA from the start, "Get us to the Prem and I will make you a rich man but once that objective is achieved I make you no promises - we may need someone to take us further than you can go." That might explain NA comments at the ends of the season. A mixture of joy at success and being rich and a moment of sorrow knowing he may soon be parted from the team he had worked so well with. We have no idea what it is like to have control of so much money, we have no idea how much is invested in the project, we have no idea whether more will now be invested on development. NC comes from a Swiss banking background, he is used to making rich people even richer! If you can protect the value of peoples' investment and give them a good return then you have a successful business and people will want to invest further. For NC, staying with NA may be too much of a risk because he (NC) has to deliver to the investors and needs to be sure that those working for him can deliver too. This talk of Champions League may seem crazy to us little, long time, Southampton supporters but to those investing it may be what they are demanding. The club changed the day ML & NC rode in to town. We may love the eventual outcome, we may not. One thing is for sure - things will never be the same as they once were, times have changed but there is nothing we can do about it but enjoy the ride while we can. NC may seem a crazy and impulsive man but I am pretty certain that could not be further from the truth. I suspect he is pretty ruthless though!

Is he young? No Is he hungry? No Fails the Fit and Proper Players Test!

Anyone else remember this edition of the Bumblies with their racing car, the Bumbliari? It seems like only yesterday ...

Now let's think about this. Young? Hardly!!!!! Hungry? Not by the look of him. Sorry, I think he fails the FAPP [Fit and Proper Players] test for me.

It could be that Chainrai sees two options, Birch liquidates them or he does! Surely he would rather be in control of that process and govern the time scale and decide what offers to accept for the assets (hahaha). If Birch does it he will want to get it over and done with quickly and will accept the first offers that come along. Birch is encouraging the Trust 'buy-out' as a means of a new start up rather than purchase of a going concern. It is also in Birch's interests to raise as much cash as he can from player sales for the creditors pot before Chainrai comes back. If BC does get back in control he could, conceivably, put them back in to administration, voluntarily this time, and appoint his own administrator to do the winding up for BC's benefit. I wonder who would get that job?

A Company pays tax on its profits so by making a legitimate business payment you reduce your profit so you pay less tax. That assumes you made a profit in the first place of course. If we paid Aviva the £4m that was widely speculated and we made a profit before that in excess of £4m then the net 'outlay' would have been nearer £2.5m - still a lot of money!

We have had thirty 'senior' professionals on the books for this sewason and I expect ten will leave one way or another over the coming weeks as they are surplus to requirements: Radhi Jiadi; Jonathon Forte; David Connolly; Ryan Dickson; Lee Holmes; Danny Seaborne; Ben Reeves; Ryan Doble; Jason Puncheon and Tommy Forecast! That will leave twenty to form the basis going forward maintaining continuity and team ethos, etc. I believe we have to name a 25 man squad for the prem? That means five in: 2nd choice keeper (Bart becomes third) Central defender Left midfielder Central midfielder Right midfielder Sadly, I am not sure any of the current development squad is ready to take any of those five spaces, a year or so too early for them perhaps, so that means buying in five new faces and that is something that can be successfully done without too much difficulty in integration. None of the ten going will be greatly missed in the dressing room as they have hardly figured this year for one reason or another. Of course, one or two of the twenty 'retainees' may decide to leave of their own accord if they think their opportunities will be limited; Steve de Ridder for example or Lee Barnard both both are on longish contracts but may choose to seek a new opportunity elsewhere. I seem to recall that in our squad of twenty five there are some requirements to name 'home grown' players. Players who have been on the clubs books for a while and are under a certain age? MLG will know and can put us in the picture! I would guess that Adam Lalana, Morgan Schniederlin, Aaron Martin and Bartosz Bailkowski would help towards these requirements otherwise we might have to consider keeping Ben Reeves or promote someone from the development squad. Overall, given Nigel's assertion that the squad will evolve, then ten surplus out and five in seems like a manageable evolution: but we will see!!!

I wish you all a very happy promotion day!

This is it in my opinion too. If BC lets TB liquidate he has no control over what gets sold to whom for what and when. TB will also earn more fees so letting TB liquidate is a non-starter for BC, he would have been happier if AA liquidated of course! If he buys at as low a price as he can, as RedKeith pointed out, he will get almost half back through the CVA and then he can sell off the assets himself over time and raise more that way to get his money back. If, by any miracle, the team is successful in L1 then he stands to get a bit more back. Firstly, though,he needs TB to do the dirty business of reducing the outgoings to a minimal level and then he can come in as the good, honest, white knight they have longed for!

An interesting debate, despite the usual personal acrimony between posters and no doubt I will attract some too! The fact is we have too little information but the club will certainly have it. In general though, the difference is surely going to be whether we have to borrow to expand (as RL had to) and pay interest or whether we have people with the money to invest and create a return on that investment (per ML model). For example, IF it costs another £15m to expand SMS and I want a return of 15% per annum I am looking for additional income generation of £2.25m per season. If the average spend per person per game is, say £40 with programmes, refreshments, etc on top of ticket then I need to increase the average attendance by 1400 people a game more than it would be if the stadium was not expanded. If ten times a season we go over the current capacity to around 38k we would get the return we want. Whether that is what happens will depend on NC and the Leibhier funds chosen strategy.

Looks like Sol Campbell's experience at Pimpley has had such a positive effect on him he wants Arsenal to follow the same strategy! http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17690468

With respect, I did not challenge an 'official statement' I challenged the way the press worded it and the implied slant on it. The 'debt' has not been 'written off', it has been transferred to equity. The Leibher's do expect a return on their investment, to suggest they don't is ridiculous.

They have not 'written off' £33m in loans, that is a totally inaccurate slant. They have invested £33m in return for shares which means that if the club is successful they will get a return on their shares/investment and if they sell their shares for more than £33m they make a profit. If the club is unsuccessful they lose, they made a bad investment, just like Rupert! There is absolutely nothing wrong with investment if it is used wisely and, to me, it looks as though it is being used very wisely!!!!! Incurring unserviceable loans/debt is of course 'cheating'!

Sorry, but was it ever in doubt he was here for the 'duration'? Is this not what he has always said?

Bl00dy hell! 60 years supporting Saints but have I ever been through anything like that before? .................................................................................................................................. yes, probably; but It gets harder to take this sort of tension as time goes on. Thanks Trousers, that photo says it all!