Blandford saint

Harris should get back to trying to sell Newcastle, which he also doesn't seem to be doing a very good job selling. Fry knew that the Swiss bid was by far the best for the club, and they had already done a huge amount of preparity work. The reason Fry was brought in from the Southend office was because the local offices have been involved in sorting out Bournemouth's plight for some time, and they are not allowed to be involved with 2 clubs at once. (This was after some dodgy goings-on between Tranmere and Everton some years back.)

Too right, it is absolutely imperative. Under WGS we looked as fit as any team in the country and it made a huge difference to the players' confidence and our results. I know Matt Oakley said that he could hear the guy he was marking breathing heavily in the last 20 mins and knew that we were going to hold on for a win, because we were still going strong. It seems a long time ago.

I heard that they were only pipped at the post by Pinnacle - they would have been ready to sign an exclusivity agreement hours after Pinnacle finally did, so they must have been well aware of the facts at the time. Unfortunately this appears to be before Mawhinney decided to move the goalposts.

I feel sorry for Matt, because he could end up totally stuffed by this as well. He hasn't renewed his contract with SKY and he's probably turned down a stack of other lucrative work as well. He must be in turmoil like the rest us - it's not him or TL who makes the final decision.

The Football League ought to actually tell us what they are asking Pinnacle to sign. If it's so reasonable, and standard practice, it shouldn't be a problem. We can then make our mind up whether Pinnacle are being pedantic and too influenced by lawyers or the FL are being the total, vindictive ******s that we suspect. When we bought our business from the previous owner who was doing some dodgy cash deals and using other means of avoiding VAT, we had to put in some legal safeguards to make sure that we were not liable for his actions. However, because the lawyers wanted to waste weeks of our time and money making this 100% watertight, in the end we had to accept what we thought was reasonable and tell the lawyers that they were acting for us, and that we wanted the deal to go through. The worst thing is, if the FL are being ridiculously unreasonable, nobody is going to buy us and Mawhinney would be guilty of killing our club. He needs to tell us the facts.

Radio Solent actually said that the Sheff Utd bid had been rejected, but that there had been a fresh bid in from Wolves. I'm sure Drew wouldn't want to turn that down, even if it meant losing as many games next season as he did with us!

Ian Dowie is also playing golf with MLT today - I would say a much more likely candidate than Jamie Redknapp. As for Matt's position on the new board; it's tempting fate going around telling people that you are definitely going to be chairman. Most of us would have the common sense to put a little doubt into an interview on the BBC, even though we are 99% certain that it will all go through. Also, it can look like bragging when it hasn't actually happened yet.

Back to the original point of "Who is he?" I have been told that we will find out early next week, as long as everything continues the way that it is going at the moment.

I'm sure that an offer price will already have been agreed. When they start to look at every nuance of the books, they will then try and find good reasons why they shouldn't have to pay quite as much as they initially offered. If they are really serious, though, and they've got this far, it would have to be something pretty major to put them off. Hopefully, one of the advantages of being a PLC is that the finances will have been well documented, so they will not have too many nasty suprises that haven't already emerged - fingers crossed.

My husband's playing golf with MLT on Thursday - should be an interesting round. Hopefully, he will pick up a few snippets of info.

Yes, you do have to wonder why Barclays pulled the plug at that exact moment - it just doesn't sound logical from a business point of view. How come we were allowed to take Saeijs on loan? And Liptak? Why didn't they force us to accept the bid for Dyer, and why was McGoldrick allowed to carry on playing when it would trigger a payment clause? If we were allowed to do all these things, why didn't they wait until the transfer window re-opened and insist we sell players to a certain value? Also, by staying in the Championship the television revenue goes up considerably next season, so we would have had a much better chance of being solvent, with so many players being out of contract. I just can't understand the business logic.

How many property deals really go through that quickly? Arranging finance deals with banks cannot just be done in a jiffy, especially in current market conditions.

They may be assets but they are not in cash. Cash flow is what usually finishes most businesses. You can't pay the bills without it, and you can't complete the sale of large, expensive properties in a couple of days.

They may not be swayed by the Burnley gate, but surely we are trying to send out the right signals, post-Lowe, AND making sure that there is enough money coming in by buying tickets, programmes, etc. to keep us going until a buyer can be found. All the time everyone leaves it to everyone else we are in danger of losing our club through apathy.

Yes, Junior Mullet, we did, and offered him over a year's commission, which every other retiring agent was perfectly happy with. We even went up to 15 months but he decided to employ an expensive London lawyer to try and get more. In the end he settled for virtually the same amount but we ended up with his and our legal costs. It gets to a point where it is not worth the risk, even though you know you are in the right. Agents don't retire, they just stop working.

Sharks in suits. Anything involving the legal professional is best avoided, if at all possible. We've just been shafted for an absolute packet trying to get rid of an incompetent agent that used to work for us. The longer it drags on, the higher the costs - who's benefiting? Only the lawyers.

Wouldn't expect to hear anything for a while yet. When you are making this much of a financial commitment, and the amount of detail that is involved in a business of this size, it usually takes months - look how long Bournemouth's situation has dragged on for, and it's still not fully resolved. Investors will have to deal with their own banks - even more of a nightmare than usual at present. I heard on Friday that a consortium has been preparing a bid for 2 years, because it would include redeveloping the area around the stadium. This is bound to drag on until we are all worried it is too late, I fear.

50 mile round trip from Salisbury - ST holder. I've noticed that nobody who sits around me lives in Southampton, the nearest being Winchester. Some from Oxfordshire, Chippenham, Bournemouth, Winchester, north Dorset, Poole, Swanage,Ferndown, but nobody from Southampton.

Euell did the dirty work that enabled other players space to play around him - it worked. We always get lots of problems with a big strong bloke up front. We usually spend so much energy marking him that a midfielder nips in and scores. Perhaps this system will work for us as well as against us.

The point is that Sean O'Driscoll is a really excellent manager - he had to be to keep Bournemouth in Div 1 so long with minus money. Football is not just a case of long ball or passing football, it's obviously more complicated than that, but Sean has managed to keep their confidence up whilst waiting for results to turn. The fact that they were used to winning regularly last season probably helped.

Tony Husband said on Radio Solent the other day that he had heard that there have been no offers for any Saints players. Outside the frenzied Premiership, there has been very little transfer activity, because hardly anybody has any money to spend. Most teams in January are looking for that instant fix, in our league usually loan signings. I don't think that any Premiership team considers Lallana or Surman will give them this instant boost. Besides, if the worst happens and we do go into administration other Championship clubs will be able to pick them up for peanuts. We might get some very late bids at the end of the window hoping we are desperate enough.

Great letter. I will be writing my own letter to Wilde in my own words but with similar sentiments. The more of us that make the effort the better.

Always thought that Cranie looked a better prospect than Mills. Saw Mills make some real howlers out on loan at Coventry. Could never understand why Cranie was not given more of a chance by Redknapp, then he goes and takes him to the Skates - doesn't seem the high of logic.

I would be very sorry to see him go. He is one of the few in the team to take responsibility. He does make runs into the box and his movement is good. He would also look a lot better with the right kind of player alongside him. There are lots of average players in the Premiership. I think he could make it for one very good reason - he is left-footed, and there is always a shortage of left-sided players. Still, I'd rather he stayed, at least until the summer.

Alternatively, we could get rid of a whole host of players who are on loan and not good enough, or ours and not making the first team, (Ryan Smith, Pekhart, Robertson, Gasmi, etc., etc. and if we get rid of about 6 we might actually be able to pay Stern John's wages.