SaintBobby

That's very well done indeed. And utterly convincing at a first glimpse!

Totally understand the "underwhelmed" feeling if it is Adkins. But I would be elated. He's not a "marquee signing", but he would stand a great chance of getting us promoted.

Probably true too. And the Sports Editor of the Sun (salary c. £250K) wouldn't spend much time making peace with NC. Otherwise, the story from Kaiser Shoze was very plausible...

Oh and the other implausible thing here is that the Sports Editor of The Sun would spend 3 hours with NC. It's not impossible - but 15 mins absolute max would be my guess. The Southampton p*ss-take is a very trivial part of their portfolio.

If true, the Sun will definitely run with the "Adkins appointed" story in Wednesday's edition - or, if the meeting was post-deadline (which would mean finishing after 11pm to fail to hit the last edition) - on their website. They might take the **** in the article too "non descript club appoints non descript manager" headline.... If that doesn't happen then NC did not confirm the Adkins appointment. Sun journalists do not keep this info under their hats. Additionally, they will almost certainly write up the 'fact' that "a grovelling Cortese prostrated himself at our editor's feet, pleading for forgiveness and mercy in a humliating climbdown that left the once-respected Swiss banker close to tears etc etc". If this sort of story doesn't appear in the Sun tomorrow, then your source is wrong. These guys don't take prisoners.

On the Nick Illingsworth thing, I have never met the man and have only heard him on radio once or twice. The only axe I have to grind with him is over Silverspoons. I don't much care if he's a media tart. Nothing wrong with that. If people on here don't think he expresses fan opinion well or accurately, I have a very genuine proposal. Could there be some sort of SWF spokesman? Conceivably even elected by a poll on the site. Or else just appointed by the admin team? What the media want is a "go to" person who is reasonably articulate, can lay some claim to being broadly representative of the fanbase and - crucially - is available for comment. (if someone starts to turn down interviews because they need to put the nipper to bed or are too busy at work etc., you would swiftly be dropped even if you're amazingly erudite). If there are good reasons to believe that NI is giving a poor account of Saints fans, I wonder if this might be something worth considering. Obviously if people start saying "let's have alpine, I'll pay for the satellite link to Austria" or "DBP would be a great laugh and should be manager too", then that's all very whimisical, but don't be surprised or complain when Nick Illingsworth is on the airwaves next time.

I'm happy if it is Adkins, but don't think it is.

If Adkins is taking training at Scunny, I would guess he's out of the race, no?

5pm and no press conference scheduled for today. It would be most unusual to hold one in the evenings, but I suppose an announcement might leak. I fear we could be hanging on a while longer...

Afraid I do want them to go into admin. It's harsh, but I'm interested in the narrow interests of SFC. Also, i think a ten point penalty is a fair penalty. It reflects the fact that you've put more/betetr players on the pitch than you had a right to.

The max bets bookies are accepting are £50. So the 45k stuff is rubbish.

No press conference called as of 11am. At some point, we should have this thread locked.

It's basically (a). Although if some other group/blogger issued a press release at a pertinent time it could be a variant of (b). The BBC has a massive database of spokespeople categorised by topic area. Once you're on that, you tend to get called back again and again on the same topic. I have some sympathy for NI, because of a previous job I had, I'm quite often wheeled out on TV and radio to comment on the fortunes/misfortunes of the political party I used to work for and have also received the "who do you think you represent?" jibes. The fact is that media spokesmanship isn't democratic. They aren't looking for an elected representative necessarily - they are looking for someone who is broadly representative of the fan base (though not the officially elected leader of it) and/or an expert and/or reasonably article and available. NI clearly ticks at least the last box. When they do vox pops outside SMS, they don't ask the fans there what authority they have, they just interview them.

Don't hold your breath. I think there's a fairish chance that we might still be managed by Dean Wilkins against Swindon. Has any caretaker manager ever lost twice to the same team ?

This is a fair criticism in many ways, but I don't buy your supplementary arguments about cornerstones of democracy etc. Its just NC acting like a d ick.

I'd advise against backing Shearer. In the event that he does re-enter management, you can be sure that the BBC would have a good heads up, just because of his contract with them.

As I say, wasn't suggesting you'd invented it! Just wonder whether it was qualified at all e.g "speculation is growing that Southampton may appoint their new manager as soon as tomorrow" rather than "Radio 5 understand Saints new manager will be unveiled tomorrow" In any event, with each passing moment, I'd say it's more and more likely that they had their wires crossed. Am not ruling it out yet though....

There does seem a lot of evidence suggesting it's Adkins, but I'm surprised it hasn't been announced yet. If by noon, it still hasn't become public that it's Adkins, I think I'll lean to thinking his chance has come and gone.

Can you go into more detail now about what you were told to expect?

Yep, I'd reached that conclusion too...

Btw, assuming there isn't much evidence of the appointment being on Tuesday? Not suggesting the OP acting in bad faith, but there doesn't seem much substance to this just yet. If there were to be an announcement later today, I'd expect us to be hearing "Southampton expected to confirm XXX as new manager later today..." by about now...

Did he take the opportunity to explain why he wasnt issued with a season ticket? And to apologise to the club/NC if there was any implication that the fault was with Saints, rather than entirely at his end? I didn't listen to the interview...maybe he did....

He didn't say MON and his agent were sharing a room/bed...just in the same hotel...

On the bookies odds, please understand it's a massively illiquid market. I put £20 on MON at 7/1 just to see what happened. Within 5 seconds, his odds were cut to 4/1. Ok, I have probably lost £20 just to prove a point, but there you go...

Can you bet on it being neither Adkins nor Brown? Mathematically, the odds on that should be about 2/1 against and quite attractive.