John D

Thats right. For Gao it was the fact that he avoided a conviction by doing a deal and the lack of a conviction prevented the deal being blocked. Premier League's rules will also allow it to block a new owner where they have "engaged in conduct outside the UK that would constitute an offence… if such conduct had taken place in the UK, whether or not such conduct resulted in a conviction". Sources told Sky News last month that that amendment to the rule book had been partly inspired by a move by Chinese businessman Gao Jisheng to take control of Southampton FC in a deal reported to be worth £200m Gao had admitted to bribery offences, but gave evidence for the prosecution in two separate cases, meaning that he escaped charges himself. Because he has not been convicted of an offence, the Premier League is understood to have had no existing grounds to block his bid.

There were lots released when I changed our group of seats on Tuesday so looks like a fair number havent renewed Shame for those who are unable to renew but if you can afford to buy one this season and accept that you will probably not use your actual seat at all then a good opportunity to get a better seat

I can't get mine to work - been inputting at the insert voucher code point but told it is not valid. Emailed club who sent me a second voucher but that doesn't work either.

Interesting comments attributed to Sharp on Hampshire live site where he says that Cortese told Adkins not to pick Sharp for the Man City game. Presume they have lifted this from the podcast (I've not had time to listen to it)

To counter that you've got people like me who have renewed and will look to see if we can move to get better seats after the renewal period ends and more become available.

Other influences is an interesting phrase to use. Does he mean something outside of the usual agent / player / post relegation cost cutting influences that impact every relegated club's transfers? Or am I seeing a conspiracy theory where one doesn't exist

That's a pretty fair assessment - other than at centre back (does the new guy start in the first 11 or not) the team pretty much picks itself. Does highlight that we are lacking depth in CM. Would be my first choice 11 too. Be interested if anyone else thinks differently. Could do with shifting those in the bye bye column to get a new CM but we been trying to sell half of them for last 2 windows with little luck

EFL have confirmed dates for Carabao cup and that EFL fixtures will be released on 21 August. Presume PL will be day before

The club have stated you get a pro rata refund for each game supporters are not allowed entry to St Mary's. So I'm assuming that applies in a ballot situation for those not given a ticket. They've promised to refund within 14 days of the game

All the best to him. Did ok but not one I am too disappointed to see go. Definitely won't miss his shooting.

Probably fair to guess that Spurs and Hojbjerg are in contact indirectly and therefore Spurs will know if there is a risk he will go elsewhere. If he is adamant he will only join them then they can wait it out to see if Saints cave in on price. In that scenario their only downside is that they lose out on pre season time with him or an alternative better offer comes along. How desperate are Spurs to sell KWP - does this give us any leverage? Are we prepared to lose out and let him sit in the reserves? Feels to me that of the 3 parties we have the weakest hand. Ideally we need an alternative to Spurs that may tempt Hojbjerg. That then forces Spurs to act otherwise they will wait to see if we blink first.

Some interesting data and there and firms up / questions some opinions on players! Question for me: How do they calculated all the expected values? xG = Expected goals scoredxA = Expected AssistsxGC = Expected Goals Conceded Thanks

That's how I read it. The new lenders have a broader charge than Macquarie had so I guess that is why the Aof A needed changing. The loan agreement will specify what the default triggers are that would allow them to take action. Can't be sure as the actual loan documents are not available so it is a case of guesswork based on the charge and the change to the A of A. I could be completely wrong on all this and putting 2 and 2 together and getting 6!

Looks like a special resolution has been passed to enable the company's articles of association to be updated. Update relates to a requirement that allows immedate share transfer to lender in the event of us defaulting on a loan if specified in that loan agreement. Of mild interest is the fact that the amendment includes retrospective approval for historic director decisions So my intepretation is that we took out the big loan a while ago, as previously noted in earlier posts, and one of the loan terms/conditions was in contradiction or not permitted by the old articles of assocation. So we have had to update the A of A to allow it. In summary nothing to do with any takeover

I presume this charge relates to the £80m working capital facility mentioned in the Lander Group accounts

Looks like we have taken out an £80m loan to manage working capital in the short term!! Note 32 to the accounts

My instructor on my FA coaching course used to coach Ferry at Bury. Reckons he is a great player who has the right attributes to play in Premier League. Of course, he has been at Saints a while now so hopefully can kick on

I disagree. Whilst home form has been abysmal the performances away from home clearly showed that the players had the ability and the desire. The challenge was how to translate that into home performances rather than a question mark over their attitude

I'd recommend it too. Got a 1/2 price deal so only cost me £19.99 for a year. Given I read at least an article a day it is good value and the quality is usually there as well

I had a credit showing against my account for my season ticket a couple of days ago but it has now disappeared

cheers - l read it the same way as you. Sad but inevitable in current climate

any links - had a quick search on Twitter and couldn't see any

Slightly off topic but I was an auditor back in 1999 so worked with a load of firms assessing their Y2K readiness. The only incident that arose across all those firms was at a pension administrator. They built in a new control check on 1 Jan to confirm that all the valuations that had worked perfectly before were not impacted by the new date. Unfortunately the new control check was wrong and deleted all the valuations that had worked perfectly anyway!

Worth a read before trying to compare data from different countries: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52311014

Meanwhile it looks like ligue 1 is about to be abandoned as French Govt is set to ban all sport til the end of July