Ivan Katalinic's 'tache

As long as it's "the Administrator to Southampton Football Club is pleased to announce the sale of the club to the Leibherr Group" and not "Mark Fry is confident the deal will be sealed in the next 48 hours".

I'd imagine that if the deal has been signed this morning, and an announcement is not made until this afternoon, then I doubt whether there would be a PC today anyway. Way too rushed! Hopefully Diggers' rumour of an announcement this afternoon will prove to be true and a PC can follow whenever it likes, once the ink is dry on the paper!!!

I swore blind I wouldn't be checking this regularly today and then the Echo produces an article like this. F5, F5, F5...

aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

The 4-2 win over Newcastle when Kachloul got a couple. Fantastic game - we were one down at half time, if I remember correctly, and then came out 2nd half and scored four before the Toon nicked one back. It's particularly memorable, for me, for Stuart Ripley setting one up for Hassan and then running back to continue an argument he was having with a fella on the halfway line, while the rest of the team were celebrating!!

Would be fantastic, if so, but I thought he had a medical with West Ham on Tuesday? My wildly optimistic nature is hoping that a deal (with the Swiss?) could be close if Kelvin is even contemplating the possibility of turning down a move to a Prem side for us!!!

Agreed. The bloke has conducted himself with real dignity in quite uncertain and trying times and this at least gives the club some semblance of stability. He could (& probably should!) have walked away, especially with all the (as it turned out) presumptuous announcements from Pinnacle that they had an English manager lined up, but he didn't and that at least shows a bit of loyalty that many associated with the club have lacked in recent years.

Yes, they'll do. Now we've decided who our new owners will be, there's no excuse for not getting the deal done Mr Fry.

Well where are they then, when the club needs them most?! When Saints were first placed into administration there were many cries from public figures of "we'll not let them go bust, just ask us and we'll do anything" - the one from Craig David is uppermost in my mind but I'm also sure seriously wealthy chaps like Gavyn Davies etc were vowing we wouldn't go under. Well, just in case they haven't noticed, we're pretty bl**dy close to going under now!! If I had the money, I'd be getting off my arse and doing something either to pump funds into the club or ringing contacts to find someone who could. Maybe I think with my heart rather than my head, which is probably why they are significantly richer than me, and maybe they are, behind the scenes, as I write but, if they were, then surely someone would know. What this club needs right now are saviours not people sitting on their backsides professing to be ardent Saints fans.

Good press conference (Saints taken over, money to spend) or bad press conference (no one able to complete, assets to be sold off: "who can I interest in this lovely picture of a train?")?

So basically, we can get rid of a lot of the players who believe they're better than they are and who's ineptitude conspired to get us relegated without having to pay up their contracts? Take us over on Friday Pinnacle and it's win, win!!

My 3 year old boy is called Matthew too, after the great man. My daughter would have been called Lucy but this plan was thwarted when my missus realised after whom...

Don't worry, be happy - Bobby McFerrin

Friday, I'm in love - The Cure

Take your sensible notions back to P*mpey and allow us to continue our delusions of grandure and feelings of being mistreated!!! I know you're P*mpey but, even then, it helps to have perspective from someone from outside.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/8113850.stm At the end of this article it says that TL says the staff will paid (obviously I'm more concerned about the support staff rather than the overpaid numpties who consigned us to League 1)! That shows a certain degree of confidence that Pinnacle will close out the deal soon.

At this late stage, it does smack a of lack of confidence as to whether this will get done. If TL is as confident as he seems, then let's know who the money man is because it'll all be sorted soon n'est pas?

I can't sit tight much longer. It's turtle head time - things need sorting fast.

If (and it's a big if) the FL did back down, you can bet it will be dressed up in a way that suggests the situation was of our own making. It would probably something along the lines of "being presented with fresh evidence" and "if Southampton FC had not terminated discussions with independent investigation early then this could have been resolved more swiftly" - i.e. we're backing down but it's your own fault that it even came to this.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/4451357.Pearson_not_interested_in_Saints_return/ The Echo believes it to be Peter Reid too. League 1 or the international footballing great that is Thailand - a tough choice for Reidy.

Thanks for the update! Nice for the fans to be presented with an awareness of the situation (as much as can be made available, anyway). What a pleasant change... I can't say my mind is totally at rest but it's thinking about finding an armchair and having a cuppa, on the back of this. On a more surreal note, one image I can't get out of my head, with the FL when they're supposedly discussing matters, is whether they resemble the Newman & Baddiel History Today characters: "You see that Iain Dowie?" "I'm aware of his presence" "That's your girlfriend that is..."

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11700_5228800,00.html About halfway down this report, at the time SLH went into administration, Lord Mawhinney indicated we had a right to appeal the 10 point deduction. At no point has it ever been mentioned that if we found a new owner, who wanted to take up that option, would we lose that right of appeal (which would be a nonsense in itself).

Agreed. We know we had to satisfy the FL's 'fit & proper person' test but it seems like we overlooked the 'have you got any outstanding disputes which we might lose' test.

Can't we just agree with the FL that the 2 were linked, to get the takeover done, but secretly have our fingers crossed?!

Pardon us for wanting to dispute an injustice!