Matt

Makes no odds really. Assume all we owned was one player and had no debts- If you think that really the value of a player if £12m but he is only on the books at £8m then the value of the club would be £4m higher than the book value. Either way once they buy the club they'll either get £12m cash or £12m player. More important is whether the buyers are keen to retain certain players. I don't think a club can increase the value of a player above the purchase price (and associated costs). Generally the only thing you can revalue upwards is land and buildings.

I think appointing Keegan would be a decent move by Southampton. His time here is definitely done.

Happy Birthday Jill

Couple of oft-forgotten ones Rob Lee v Cov from 40 yards Bellamy vs Bolton where it there were three touches from the halfway line to the goal

There were some good battles (the Alonso/Hamilton one particularly), they were just miles down the field. The support races were pretty good. The main event was fairly dull.

Probably after seeing their pictures in the deckchair kit.

Congratulations feller. Looks like it was a fantastic day.

Actually it's a bit like a forum, where the admin post PDFs and notices and the users can download them.

I don't see why it should take more than a few days to put in a conditional bid. All the bidders will know roughly what to expect (a mess) and it's just a case of comparing the numbers against expectations and adjusting their intended bid value accordingly.

If Ashley has paid himself back the loan with bank debts, then bidders will spot that within the first 5 minutes of looking at the documents. Provided these bidders know what they are doing then it should be common sense. Don't read too much into any 'orginal deal'. Ashley is unlikely to walk away with £100m. If he has indeed paid himself some of that back, then his asking price simply becomes more unrealistic and any bid should be adjusted accordingly. The business will be bought on the basis of enterprise value, which is the value of the equity in the business plus the value of the debt. So whatever he shifts from the debt will simply reduce the amount he receives for his equity. HMRC are at the heart of most football club court orders- happens every couple of weeks in non-league. We're at our 'trough' in terms of cash so I suspect once the season ticket money comes in, that immediate pressure will ease and we'll probably scrape through, but only for a few months before we start running short again.

Whatever way you slice and dice it, the net sale price to Ashley should be the same. If he repaid part of his loan ahead of others, then the sale price will go down to reflect that. I still find it hard to believe anyone is seriously considering offering £100m for the club when they just have to sit back, watch the shit hit the fan and stand ready by the phone with their cash still in their pocket. From the sounds of it we're struggling to settle even routine payments. Administration does little solve the problem with players- as football creditors the league insists payments are honoured in full. Everything depends on the realism of Ashley's asking price.

Well done, rentamob. They've ensured that this week has been about a minority party as much as anyone else. Unless the UAF plan to stand outside ballot boxes with eggs when the general election comes then they need to sharpen up and think of something a little more cerebral next time. The BNP are a shambles of an organisation who are struggling to keep their deeply unpleasant underlying philosophies under wraps. Our best response? Throw eggs at them and get someone to try to hit him over the head with a placard. Woeful. Get him on Question Time and get him grilled. For every hardline fascist he draws in, he'll scare off 10 misguided floating voters. The lack of visibility on what the BNP really is has allowed them to develop a spectre of credibility. Petty student violence isn't going to help. Don't let them appear hard done to, they'll hang themselves given the rope. And for all the anti-fascist desire out there today, how many people were democratically elected to positions of power? This might not be a pleasant thought, but how do you represent the people of this country who actually are unashamed racists?

Yeah, seems very strange. Only possible outcome I could see would be if all they did was restructure the club and use a trust setup to repay the investment with a decent return. But there's gotta be better ways of making money out there.

What a bizarre announcement to put to the press. They've not even made a formal bid and they're talking about ground development. Smells like bullshit.

Surely this charade will only ensure no-one puts in a serious bid? If I was interested in bidding, I'd realise now that the situation is absolutely dire and start thinking about getting the club for a nominal fee further down the line.

They've effectively been seized by their bank. Not sure that's worthy of any great envy.

You've not got the hint. No-one in their right mind was ever expecting that. Being on their coat-tails in 2002-03 was nosebleed stuff at times. Who mentioned titles? Ok I give up.

There was very little murmur against Roeder- everyone knew he was out of his depth. The frustration was very much directed at the man who had appointed him, especially having rolled out Souness previously. Samba- hindsight is 20/20 and you have to take the departure of Allardyce in perspective. I'd say the mood around the ground was one of frustration and confusion that tactics were costing us points unecessarily (see your 2-2 draw against Man City at home for example). Call for Allardyce to go? I don't think there were, personally, but there was certainly a huge amount of frustration and discontent. Our board, rather naively, took this to be the cue to change manager without having considered who could be brought in as a replacement. This feller had just spent £200m on a football club and it wasn't proving much fun to watch- I have no doubt that without the regime change upstairs, our financial state then, paradoxically, would have much suited Allardyce's abilities to get the best out of a modestly-assembled squad. Regardless of all this, he still thought Alan Smith was worth £6m. I don't need to remove any delusional champagne-football blinkers to tell you he isn't worth a tenner.

Yep, Barclays will expect every penny back before Ashley gets anything. If he siphoned off the cash, then the value he could expect for the club would fall by at least that amount. I'm starting to wonder if bidders are looking at the longer game and will wait for administration and buy us straight away- of course that results in the coming season being a complete and utter write off. Provided the bidders move in before the administrators get their feet under the desk it would mean no players would be sold and Ashley would be looking very sick at what he gets back on his investment.

In terms of valuing the business, the cash (asset) and future liability (unearned revenue) should net off. Whatever the proceeds are used for, it's either going to increase an asset (buying a player) or reducing a liability (paying down debt) so it won't affect what Ashley loses on the sale. What would affect the sale price from the buyer's perspective is the state of the playing squad, so I would be surprised if we simply ran down the squad and kicked the season off with a yes-man installed as manager. It would destroy any remaining value in the club.

No, the cash from any sale will be going straight to plugging the financial black hole that is the wage bill.

Not keen on this concept of paying players wages to move them on, just move the fee accordingly and get it consigned to the past. It will be very hard to clear out the club if the payments linger over us, even though it might be slightly cheaper in terms of hard cash.

Martins is one of the handful of players in our squad who are percieved by other as being better than they really are. These are the guys we need to shift first and foremost before we get to work with the ones that all and sundry know are shite.

Probably Fulham too. Also read today that Whelan increaes his 'interest-free loan' to Wigan every season and without it they would be unsustainable.

I'm bemused by how this is all being run past Barclays. Mighty brave if they're prepared to extend credit- there's definitely more to this than meets the eye.