Pip

The consortium say that they have a five year plan to get us up to the Prem. They also want stability so this makes sense to me. There's no point in getting a tried and tested L1 manager and then dropping him after a couple of seasons and having to recruit again if we get near the Prem. Keegan is tried and tested in the top few leagues, has contacts and enthusiasm. If he's keen on the job he'll be going in with his eyes open. If they can get him I think it will say a lot about their plans for the club.

Has anyone thought that we may never find out who it is? As long as he is happy for Tony Lynham to act on his behalf there is no real need for him to reveal anything.

We're going to be in the third division on -10 points but I know exactly what you mean!

Tim Flowers, Simon Charlton and Richard Hall. Not really rich pickings there!

I was away when all the points deduction debacle was discussed but I'm wondering whether Mr Fry has mentioned £9m as it's a figure at which the League have said we will not have benefitted from administration and therefore no points will be deducted? Too hopeful, maybe?

But can he? I think this is the point people are trying to make - the more bidders there are, the higher the price will go. The more that a consortium has to spend buying the club, the less they will have to spend on players.

May well be that they regard them as capital/assets. All councils need to have a certain percentage of capital, but if they could buy the stadium outright you have to assume that would be counted as an asset.

I believe this has also been mentioned in the Echo but the council will have to be very careful as they have legal obligations to spend money on things which are for the benefit of their ratepayers and also they have certain budgetary obligations. They could argue that, arranged properly, the stadium could become a facility which would benefit Southampton ratepayers. However, it may depend on whether the art collection is part of an arts budget or capital. Also, the wheels of government work very slowly and it may take many weeks to get funds agreed etc.

Players come and go in football. When you look to buy a club the fans are the important part of the equation. We showed that we care today and if a buyer was to take over the club he would have support.

The only thing I'd say about the Perry handball is that he was not looking in the direction the ball came from so therefore it couldn't have been "deliberate" handball. However if he'd been in a Cardiff shirt I would have thought differently! Maybe luck does even itself out - if so, we've got a good few shouts coming our way just when we need them.

As a matter of interest, I listened to the match on Radio Hants. They reported that Jason Euell came to the bench and asked them to watch David McG as he wasn't moving freely. They got Morgan ready to come on and then Lallana took a knock and was replaced by Morgan. Could be that McG didn't "run out of steam" or "have a lazy day" but picked up a knock himself.

I would ask why the club has chosen Wotte to "maintain continuity" when it must be very obvious that a club languishing in the relegation zone needs change.

I'm clinging to the thought that Wigley was also meant to be a permanent appointment and that didn't last long.

Don't you think it's more likely that we're talking about Hoddle's No. 2 John Gorman? Now that would appeal to Lowe's sense of humour!

If Crouch and Wilde were plotting against Lowe I don't think they'd be doing it at St Mary's. I don't think Crouch will let the club go to the wall if it's in his power to save it but he'd be a fool to throw good money after bad. Let's hope he is willing to pay for a loan player/manager (again) if he has some small say in the way the club/team is run.

Although it didn't seem like it we also won the play off game at Derby as well, didn't we?

Rueben Agboola was as Nigerian as Andy Townsend was Irish! I actually thought David McGoldrick was from Northern Ireland - but doesn't that make him a Brit technically?

May have been one of the ones that JP was talking about that was dependent on other players leaving. There's no point in paying Skacel and then bringing in loan players to do his job.

From the way it's worded, Saints have agreed the fee but nobody's spoken to Davies about it yet. Sounds about right.