dubai_phil

Of course, just trying to use them as examples being at the top of the scoring charts for this season. And it does say "offered them less money of course" on the OS. Just trying to use it as a benchmark, would The9 actually be a better investment? :-)

Based on their performances this season, my question would simply be - could we find a BETTER player in League 1 for the same or less money? Then I would ask would anyone else out there feel they would be worth the same (reduced) or more money? Euell with effort and no touch/goals or if they were the same cost or less a Ricky Lambert, Simon Cox, type with a proved goal scoring record at this level? Or someone near the top of the L2 scoring charts or even a proven lower level goal scorer from overseas.

So would Steve Wigley be rated above or below Adams? just so we get our own sliding scale nailed down, surely Adams cannot be worse than Wigley?

Wow, this is a relief then http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/?page_id=11774 BWP & Euell have been offered new contracts. Bet that's gonna scare the pants off the rest of League 1

Who won the GotS over there? Down here it was David Bentley for Spuds V Arsnil which was a corker. BWP made 6th in the FL category, but it was on in the background and didn't see which game it was

yippee another DP dissertation! Never under estimate the importance of a Magners at the right time:p I have only been dismissive of the Salz leaks coming as they do NOW, not 2, 3 or 4 weeks ago. I understand the situation like this for those who can be bothered to read it all. The creditor list is a specific figure, we know that Barclays & Aviva are two big names and have seen much speculation about that, we do not however have any accurate information as to the actual current state of the creditors list (some speculation but no real facts). The nature of the SLH admin is such that SFC Ltd must be "sold as a going concern" rather than being put into admin if 1) there is to be a chance of a legal challenge to the -10 points penalty, and MORE importantly to avoid a likely FURTHER deduction of -15. (I started a thread about that some time ago) Now, starting on -25 points means we MUST achieve the equivalent of this season's play-off place IN ORDER TO AVOID BEING RELEGATED AGAIN. From what I have been led to believe, Fry has set a specific figure which the creditors will accept that stops him having to admin SFC Ltd. This comment was loosely discussed after the forum match, (as in So why can't I buy the club for a quid then?) So, my interpretation is - There is a set figure they (creditors) will accept. That has to either be paid off now, or some of that debt will have to be "deferred" or rolled forwards to be paid in the future. In my understanding of the situation, the ONLY alternative is technically Admin SFC Ltd to allow a lower cash offer to be accepted OR for the lower cash bidders to start their new regime by adding new debt onto the club. In other words, no matter how much CASH is offered, those debts STILL have to be paid. Our opinions and comments are highly driven by emotion and feelings, however the processs of admin and the methodologies used in all the discussions must be very process driven and each action must have a thought for the consequences. Sure save some cash for the club, then use it to pay off the deferred debt IF you do not hit your attendance figures..... I am VERY worried that starting next season 25 points behind the rest of the league will have two massive dangers - one - we could go straight down again regardless of how much money they spend - two - we will lose MORE fans because of the situation, MORE fans will lose the habit of attending and guess what? The cash flow isn't enough to pay off the deferred debts and the lower bidders have to burn up the investment they had intended on the squad. Down here we call this an Insh'allah strategy, is it better to clear all the debts and have a fresh start and clear plan and budget or is it better to hope things go well? Now ask Who had one of those strategies before and where we ended up? Am I WRONG to be worried? Then finally many of the arguments on here about the MJ/SG bid are rightly about "track record" and "previous public statements". Well, although nowhere in the same league as MJ, we have heard "waiting" "in the best interests of the club" "Salz will get us out of this" etc for over 18 months. All you've heard from me is "I hope that somebody else comes along" "there is nobody else, anyone got any better ideas?" "we are in great danger" "I'm worried" and my favourite "Wait, we don't know all the facts yet" Now, what I would be happy see from the other camp are some comments about the difficulties, about the processes and about how incredibly difficult and dangerous this whole process is. I've stuck to this basic line from the beginning. But no, that isn't there, they talk about personalities and about being fans and how MJ is screwing everything up. THAT does a disservice to FRY and all of his team. Does anyone REALLY think Fry is that thick? HE will have done his own Due Dilligence on the consortium, for heavens sake he is an experienced professional. So yes I am worried about the bid "fronted" MJ & SG, I have said constantly that it can go wrong, but also that it is obvious to anyone that THEY don't have the cash themselves, they only bring some of the skills needed to make this happen. I am less worried now they have commited to the legal costs of DD, but I am worried at what they may find. I am worried that there is nobody else making a bid for the whole entity at the levels I think are necessary to stop that extra deduction. I am also worried about WHEN Salz & Co started to plan their strategy. About when they met with the council and about when they met with Fry I am worried that their planning was totally focused on the removal of Lowe and did not give them the flexibility to adapt to circumstances now we are in admin. And finally this is not some reality TV programme or popularity contest, it's about saving something that has helped me to feel I still had roots in England that has been a massive part of my life for 43 years.

lol could be the first wise poster for weeks OK, one thing I do know and have been trying to point out over the past few days, they may well be using some professionals with specific skill sets. But nobody ever listens And meanwhile as I keep saying there is a LONG way to go, the negotiations to get to this point and the paperwork and research has been immense, but there is STILL a lot of problems and dangers out there, whether buried in desk drawers at SMS or in the pockets of Agents. We wait and see. Like everyone else I really hope that one of those yachts parked down in Monaco today turns up in the Itchen on Tuesday morning, if it doesn't then we have to go with what we have which is Salz as a back up OR wait and see what happens with MJ if or when they go to preffered bidder and pay the deposit and the backers get announced. Like others have mentioned, Jacko won't have the money to pay for the costs of this second Due Dilligence, so again I suggest we ask where does THAT come from?

Watched the game with someone who has no knowledge of football. The immortal words "those in stripes don't seem to have any idea, the brown ones are so organised in comparison......" Which summed it up. Compare that game and Newcastle with the way that Scunny & Millwall played at Wembley, the passion. effot and commitment, the whole tactical changes made a much better game. Watching Newcastle on telly was like watching Saints in most of their televised games this year, just not up to the mark

Thanks Art for updating Artovision. I'm still in wait mode, but some fun on here this evening. The one thing I do lol about though is how even though I have mentioned it more than once, Morph's posts and the Salz supporters seem to have been making a tactical error worse than that of Lowe's Dutch Revolution by thinking they are up against a photo copier salesman. Jeez guys, that is page one of Sun Tzu FFS, so much for their supposed business acumen. Forget the cosy club you formed sort your cr*p out and save the club Anyway enjoy Bank Holiday, shame only a few hundred fans were interested in trying to raise money at SaintsAid yesterday, too busy finding new ways to slag off our only atcual bidders at the moment rather than finding ways to save the club. The Salz strategy all but guarantees us an extra -15 point penalty next season if SFC is not sold as a going concern. To do THAT there are certain billls that HAVE to be paid which reflect the price that Fry wants, one pound and help from the council won't do it

Taking the discussion one step further, in the current economy, and in the current structure of football, is the "City Team" concept also not at risk of becoming obsolete? Take out for a moment the obvious historical issue and the "tribal" nature of football fans, is it actually in the long term interests of football that apart from a few thousand down the road, there is a vast and highly populated swathe of England that are denied access to real live PL football? Sure us old un's would fight tooth and nail to keep our "city history" but as a market place, we fell in love with real football and then we pay our satellite subscriptions in order to keep watching it. I was thinking back to the days of getting the cheap kid train ticket down to the Dell and a kids ticket for the Chocco Box - probably about 4 pounds - two weeks pocket money (back in the 1900's!) Today how much would it cost? How many days in advance would the bookings need to be made? Get Dad's credit card on the internet... yeah right But what happens in that massive triangle that cuts off most of Southern and Western England? Where are the kids being taken by their dad's to see Giggs, Rooney, Lampard et al? How will the new generation get REAL football into their blood? Boro's crowds are just awful, Blackburn offer ultra cheap ST's for next season, the crowds don't go. Too many clubs in too close proximity as the hard core of fans get older or find family life getting in the way PL2 and salary caps and "the American model just becomes the start of a slippery slope to Franchise Football West Country Rovers in the big Derby against South Coast Shippers, East Anglian Angels vs Lancashire Larks (because the Mancs, Liverpool, Chelski etc won't be playing English football anymore) Football is wrong, the distribution of money is wrong, but a great deal of care needs to be taken to balance Greed with the long term future and our historic roots. And you know what? Greed will win out EVERY time, and as a result, Franchise Football will arrive

OK respect for checking and posting, well done, others don't bother. What it shows is that the situation is extremely fluid, things can change on a day to day basis and it is still a time of extreme danger for the existence of the club. The analogy I keep referring back to is incredibly apt, hitting a moving target while blindfolded on a skateboard rolling down a hill. We wait and we judge when we have the full facts and story, our one fact today is still there is only one bid which is "Indicative" with Fry and that they are proceeding. That is a long way from a deal is done, contracts drawn up and cheques in the post, and it scares the cr*p out of many of us that it is the only one

Afraid to say your man isn't very ITK then. Look, there is a serious point to my responses, which i have posted time and again, and actually which kpturner put very well. At THIS moment in time, there are simply no facts about the bid in the public eye. The simple reason for this is that the bidders chose to abide by the NDA's that they signed when they first asked for information and proved funds. How many public utterances regarding this bid has MJ made? Surely from the Bournemouth debacle we should have expected him to be printing his manifesto and whacko for jacko T-Shirts by now. I am in no way defending him or what happened at Bournemouth, and I have used words like emotional immaturity and far stronger to describe him. BUT Everyone ignores the other name, somebody who has a track record of trying to help the club and who got off his butt and tried to bring the warring shareholders together. The TIME to mount all these attacks will be WHEN (as the forum perceives) his bid fails. Only a few people have stepped back and listened when it has been suggested that there could be wise people involved in this bid. It won't be Paul Allen, but it won't be MJ on his own either. Right now, there is a very real probability that this club will not exist in the next week or so. Anyone who thinks SMS could be retained by a team in the Blue Square should take a look at the last set of published accounts where you can see that SMS costs around 2mil a year to run, that's without any rent or interest or wages or cost of renting coaches to away games etc. We are in REALLY deep sh*t, that's what Admin means. And if Paul Allen et al did come along I think you may find that Stuart Green et al will be as excited and ecstatic as anyone else. This group have already put money up by agreeing to pay for the costs of this secondary Due Dilligence. Demanding they pull out now or stating you'd have nothing to do with them when you don't know who is really involved or what the real alternatives are is crazy, save it for later when, if as you are so sure you can say told you so. kpturner was in tears at the thought that SMS may not be there next season, that is a very real risk. We don't have the OPTION to take any more risks, Rupert did that to us with his stupid gamble and the execs Wilde & Crouch also did it to us when they saddled us with a wage bill we could never afford if we didn't get promoted Find another option.

MJ is actually well over weight - in fact I told him he'd become a fat bastard But again. Let your guys think they are fighting an overweight photocopier salesman - that was their first mistake. How is the quality of loo roll in the council offices? They had any calls lately? Hope they didn't have to rush to the loo straight after. Like I said Morph, IF your guys have a plan that doesn't mean carve up and another points deduction I'm with you as well, but it doesn't from your own post the other day. Your man is an expert - FFS tell him to find someone that can help him buy the WHOLE club and fight the 10 points, not have too little and try and buy SFC Ltd for a pound, they're better than that

The dilligence is now simply about talking to David Jones and then going through every drawer and checking out every contract and every possible "undiscovered" liability. On top of that you have paperwork split between a number of different companies. Do you or others even KNOW what parts or the legal entities people are bidding to buy? You then add that in to your original cash flow plan for the business and ensure that you have not made any errors when you established your acquisition budget. Fry has deliberately allowed the group to start DD without the "impossible to accept" risk of a 500k non refundable deposit. How did that come about? By magic or by some people seeing that the best way to save the club in the limited time with the limited bidders was to make a compromise The consortium has committed to spend a large sum of money to carry out that DD without being exclusive and fully aware that IF another better offer is received that is better for the club then they will be out of pocket. People are spending HOURS a day on phones, conference calls, there are probably something like 30 people involved in this on both sides. Just ponder those points and ask if a hard nosed successful wealthy person would have agreed to give their money to Fry with that risk "non refundable no guarantee" in any other form of a deal with "dubious" ROI potential, without somebody holding their hands and guiding them or teams of lawyers working on solutions? Could it be that some people are doing one of the greatest sales jobs of all time? And maybe they are scared to death that there IS nobody else out there? WHAT HAPPENS IF IT GOES WRONG? Like I said, there are many risks at this time, this is still not a done deal, but what I and others found out at the Forum match is that this is NOT about MJ, it is about who he or Stuart or others FOUND and have brought to the table. You and others do Fry a disservice for assuming he is a complete idiot, he would not have been assigned to us if he was, and there are a LOT of people who work for him, and one bidder is NOT going to stop him and MANY others looking for more. Wind it in (along with the others) and WAIT. IF it all works out and no-one else is out there then we will have football next season with something like a competitive team and wise management structure UNLIKE LAST YEAR. Isn't THAT worth waiting another few days? After all, it's a Bank Holiday there so it isn't as if anyone else can actually transfer that magically deposit until Tuesday. What the sceptics SHOULD be begging for is that somebody else DOES come in next week, not attacking personalities when they don't actually know what is really behind this.

Morph You should read Sun Tzu sometime as well mate, although you are accurate. Mj couldn't raise enough to buy the last round let alone 14mil. But then that's not his job is it? I suppose Salz is still believing that his & Leon's grand plan will come together, take care my friend, they made a couple of bad mistakes that may come around one day to bite them in the bum

The alleged Trican group was the name given by the people who held the now infamous conference call with Saintlee and StD. They never existed, no name of that nature had ever been registered with the Dubai Municipality. Tricon is a well established and professional company owned by a female Royal Family member in Sharjah, the emirate next to Dubai. They knew nothing of any alleged bid and were last heard of attempting to pursue legal action against the people in the UK who tried to take their names. This is a touchy subject over here with supposed middle men making up scams and false claims, the Government were made aware, the gentlemen who spoke to Saintlee and StD ahave a welcome committee waiting for them if they ever pass through the airports The biggest claim against any of those involved is naivety and a lack of due dilligence, similar to what Mary Corbett admitted when she let Mike Wilde in HTH

So oh mighty and wise TopGun, please enlighten us mere mortals Kindly tell us exactly how much money the alleged Jackson group has bid? how much of that is in cash? What is their budget for next season? What is the cash flow forecast and the worst case attendance break even point? And where exactly do you think he managed to provide proof that those funds existed to one of the most professional Accounting & Insolvency companies in the country. And kindly tell us as you are so knowledgeable to make such wise statements who else is in this mysterious consortium? And when you have finally answered those questions to us, could you please let us all know how much work effort and cost you as an uberfan and wise person has put into attempting to save this club? There is still at least a week of incredibly expensive and highly stressful work still to be done, but of course you would know that so could you please let us know your best estimate of how much money this process will be costing the consortium over the next week? Failing that, kindly furnish us with the phone numbers or email addresses of anyone else out there who has the money to buy this club within the next few days. Many of us are still hoping they come along, but they've had quite a while now and I still don't see anyone else in the Echo. The next few days are critical in the existence of this football club, if nobody else comes along then the 199,999 other signed up members of this club will at least have something to watch and complain about in late July and August when we start our new campaign in League 1, but you can stay at your keyboard and complain, after all that's what we Brits do when we're in England isn't it, we whinge. But then you probably still believe we are just unlucky and that some uberfan revolution will automatically transport us back to the promised land where we belong in time for August. Mods - please merge this with the other other anti-thread, this is becoming tiresome

Shrews keeper looked a prospect, and that Holt bloke up front - slow cumbersome lump with a brain. Too good for us I expect Gills showed how to play fast passing football with kids. That hurt watching it done properly

Actually I think this match should be staged on a special All Saints Day as part of our pre-season run up. As a gesture to the loyal and always supportive members of TSW (lol) the new owners should allow the re-match to be staged as part of a family fun concert day in the run up to our first home pre-season friendly against the might of some touring team from the Latvian third division or whatever. With such pent-up demand and the wave of adoration that is bound to come when the DVD's are released and show what a fantastic, nay stunning level of skill, dedication, work rate and effort was on offer, I reckon we'd get a bigger crowd than the First Team. What's more, the new management team of DP & nickh would be ready to step in straight away should our (possible) new manager screw up his first game in charge (Oh & Whitey - Leading Scorer is easy - just hang around long enough at Reflex after the game)

Which begs the answer. Who has said he is behind it or even in front of it? Only the always accurate Echo who reported what one employee of SFC Ltd thought they saw on 7th May. Sloppy journalism leads to sloppy opinions unfortunately, all the possible information has been discussed on here, found on web sites or nearly accurately reported in the Echo. But of course as well all know everything all the time we never bother to read and analyse some of the hints in amongst the words The one lead I can give is that we all know that Didier Drogba is a complete c*ck as proven by the UEFA investigation. Didier Drogba would however be a benefit in most football teams. However a team with only one Drogba, or a team with 11 Drogbas would be a joke. One MJ on his own consortium would be a far bigger joke than a one man Drogba team. However, give Fry some intelligence, he may just have spotted that, as may the actual investors. Never going to be anyone's first choice but timing and options were taken out of our hands

Is it "HIS" consortium? It doesn't quite say that in the Echo article. You will note at all times it refers to another name at the same time. Maybe he doesn't NEED to be the one with any money, and nobody seems to have leaked any information about who actually provided the proof of funds and contractual agreements needed to get this far in the process So, there are at the moment no other options. Fry states clearly he can still talk to others. They are in no way preferable to being bought by Paul Allen or Steve Jobs, but while one of the only two names mentioned has made a public fool of himself, wait until we discover who else is in the group and what the actual money support is all about. Mind you, some on here will lok a bit silly if it turns out there is somebody with big bucks behind the bid (as unlikely as that may seem) Just possibly, being bloody minded is an important part of actually getting this far. There is still one hell of a lot to be done before they actually get to buy the club and while no-others are in the frame after 4 weeks of Fry trying, perhaps that tells US something about the world outside of football OR how big a mess the club actually is in. Opinions are good, assumptions make an ass out of u and me.

Anyone give us updates? Do we have any critics on site to review performances? Break a leg to all the band members and teams behind the scenes

Jeez Art I hope the July is the the typo not the June in your first part. ANOTHER 6 weeks of this.......