Verbal

But however hard the League try and imagine the loophole wasn't there, they can't deny the reality that the club did not go into admin - only SLH did. SLH no longer exists, so how can you produce a CVA? It's not actually possible - ever. And the club can't produce a CVA either, because it was never in admin. This little mess is probably a lot to do with the League's insistence that we don't appeal the -10. They don't want to dwell on it. The -10 is as bad as it will ever get. You, on the other hand....

You speak Scottish? Explains a lot.

Already paying dividends? We're scouting four players in Scotland.

Only because I named three Scottish players we're looking at, and you - sitting right next to them - knew diddley squat. The joys of ITK... They're all pretty good, by the way - handicapped only by their impenetrable accents.

What's a tw4tty? A Channel Four reality contestant? Do they have such creatures in the (publicly or privately owned) burbs of Southampton?

Nah. I'll just settle for shutting up OBS.

We're also supposed to be scouting: Jamie Murphy, 19, forward, Motherwell Dougie imrie, 25, left winger, Inverness Caledonian Thistle Scott Arfield, 20, midfielder, Falkirk Damn - suddenly I'm ITK and Scottish. Doubly cursed.

All fine-sounding in theory, Phil. But it's all too often about power - the 'skill sets, functions and knowledge' are the buzz words used, in the end, to defend the indefensible. Too many times recently, the DoF has failed in British football precisely because no one could give a workable definition of what it meant, and who was answerable to whom. Hence, the numerous fallings out at Chelsea, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Newcastle, etc. The best counter-examples, obviously, are Fergie and Wenger. Can you imagine either being answerable to a DoF - or even having one in the boardroom 'mix' - and continuing in their posts another five minutes? Too many times, DoF in football here give the impression of not having nearly enough to do, and so often end up making mischief (again, Chelsea are textbook). Let AP stand or fall on rebuilding the team his way - not some compromise between him and WGS that leaves either open to blaming the other if it all goes pear-shaped.

Quite right.

The problem is that the minute there's a bit of a wobble from the team, there'll be the inevitable fan pressure for WGS to step in. AP could find himself undermined pretty quickly.

You got this information at a séance? Let me recommend ouija boards - much more reliable.

I am also alive, due mainly to the game clashing with having my boiler fixed.

For six long years I've been in trouble No pleasures here on earth I found For in this world I'm bound to ramble I have no friends to help me now. (A Man of Constant Sorrow)

That's the idea. They're going to pay players' salaries from the proceeds of the insurance claims.

It was in an email sent to all Saints fans. Didn't you get it? Actually, Cortesse said all fans would be excited except OBS. Why he'd single you out escapes me - but there you go, a fact's a fact.

He and um pahars have consummated their friendship and disappeared off into the sunset together, never to be heard from again.

You are a mystery wrapped in a conundrum. What does that mean? (I'm also smiley-face blind - never did understand them).

So some of those 'lots of positions' wouldn't need players?

...gloating?

Maybe no one's touched on it because, no matter how much we might take some glee from their misfortune, there's bound to come a time - especially these days - when a Prem club faces the unthinkable and is taken out altogether. And the way things are going, P*mpey look like being that team. I really hope not - I'd miss the rivalry, such as it is at the moment. But...

Only if you read the OP.

"Yes."

Yep, we can give you him, tommac, Helpmerhonda, the 'other' wacko jacko, Wilde, Lowe, Askham... Any one of them could do a job for you.

Well, we're not first scorers in the League. Gillingham are one up.

I don't know, Daren. The way you pose the original question, surely only a dufus would answer: P*mpey. Perhaps it would be fairer to compare our actual position in League 1, -10, new minted, honest owner, etc, with a Southampton in a parallel universe: with an 'owner' in property development from the land of the mother of all property collapses, millions in debt, including a £35 million payment due any day, a squad being decimated by the football equivalent of a Woolworths closing down sale, a stadium that could actually be improved with a few judicious swings of a wrecking ball...and Premiership status at a time when, the big four or five aside, it seems the top division has an unusually high number of relegation candidates?