1864, we also sold Henchoz which was a massive loss when we went down. Other than that, just glad its Leeds biting the dust and not us.

Depends whose up front flying the Gulfstream old boy.

As I posted elsewhere, these bids are inevitable. OK imagine you are Abramovich. You are just about to receive £2 billion in readies from the sale of a minority stake in Sibneft to Total having trousered £600m earlier in the year from selling the odd interest in Aeroflot and aluminium production. The biggest risk to yourself comes from Putin cracking down on the oligarchs so apart from putting your cash beyond the Russian taxman what's the best bet? Make yourself too public for Putin to be able to touch you- hence the smart move to buy Chelsea. £250m later, Chelsea is probably still worth more than the cash you have splashed on it. So what now? For the relatively modest outlay of £150m you can buy all of Beckham Ronaldo Ronaldinho And have the biggest marketing power in the world of soccer by far. It will be nice having seen Abramovich stuff the chances of the middle ranking English clubs by buying their best players now to fillet La Liga of its three most marketable assets. So what are you waiting for Roman?

That's a great post blue blood. I would add the consistent failure to get results against battling (read bad) sides. I hate saying this but I do feel that Souey is near the end of his effectiveness for the Rovers. It could be the best for all concerned if the board were to take a very brave decision this summer and move on to someone with better man management skills, sharper tactical awareness and an insistence on top fitness levels.

Cannot find the thread which reported that Rodney Marsh had said at least four times that this is Souness' squad which has put us in the mess we are in. Suddenly struck me that Souness has got through £41m in outgoing transfer fees since we were promoted. That's about the same as Arsene Wenger has spent in the same period and only exceeded by Peter Ridsdale, Newcastle, Chelsea, Man U and everybody's favourite Frenchman at Anfield. One of that list effectively went bust, the others are lying in positions 1 to 5 in the Prem. That is one measure of the enormity of this season's failure. Another is to look at the sell on values. West Ham went down with a new stand round their financial necks but were able to sell the best part of £20m worth of players to survive and have enough cash in hand to buy a job lot of Britain's more promising young midfield talent from Wimbleton Keynes. What is the sell on value of our players at the moment? £2m Ferguson £1.5m each Emerton and Neill (if anyone buys Opta stats) £1m each Cole, Stead and Gally £1m? Friedel £1m??? Thompson £500K each Gresko, Flitcroft, Reid, Yorke, Todd, Jansen, Douglas or McEveley £500K the lot for the rest of the squad That's £14.5m for the lot if we are lucky. Talk about value destruction!

I know this link has already been used. The Board have the most unenviable of tasks. They have a manager who has delivered three exceptional seasons at the club. They must feel deep down a loyalty to Souness and an enormous reluctance to do the dirty, especially as so many clubs have failed when making short term reaction decisions about Managers. They probably have given their word under a certain amount of duress that Souness will stay to the end of the season irrespective of what happens. I posted that link because: - when Souness could have been with his players trying to change things for the better during the most important half time team talk of the season so far, he was with the referee trying to change something that was impossible to change. - Souness complains of lack of respect from officials (like when did Souness give respect to officials?). That comment smacks of someone desperate to be shown respect (as if that matters relative to results) and who is getting none from the people who should be giving him respect- the players. If anybody from the Board is reading this, I just hope this post has just made it easier to take the decision which has to be made and acted upon. PS Anyone else noticed that the dingles are saving their skins from relegation by beating the other clubs threatened by relegation from Div 1. For the third season running, we are losing games against relegation-threatened clubs.

A very odd post. Hiring and firing the Maanager is the Board's decision, not JW's. In case you haven't noticed, JW runs a very good operation off the pitch and its Souness' job to run a good one on it.

I have calmed down but I am now firmly in the Souness out NOW camp. To those who disagree, let me ask what confidence you have that Souness will have the selection, tactics and motivation to beat Leeds next Saturday? Right now, I am absolutely certain we will lose that game with Souness in charge. In those circumstances, the arithmetic is not the cost of buying out his remaining contract but a gamble to avoid losing £20m in income from a relegation which we should NEVER have been in any danger of suffering this season. How can Souness motivate his players now? His selection and tactical ineptitude has reduced the defence to a shambles. Craig Short implicitly criticised Souness for saying the wrong things last week. The decision to drop Neill because the Anfield crowd would have a go at him was mindbogglingly stupid. Drop Neill for bad performances but not in a way that was tantamount to Souness saying the lad deliberately broke Carragher's leg. Johansson had an excellent game to re-establish his career and was promptly dropped. Gresko is probably suffering a massive crisis of confidence because of Souness' failure to play anyone who can operate effectively at left midfield. Cole and Yorke- two senior pros you would ordinarilly look to provide backbone at this stage are so @#/? off that Souness chose to play too extreme youngsters at Anfield just at the moment their form was beginning to falter- MADNESS I could go on... Half the squad would spit in Souness' face gven half the chance. I know its not professional but players are young egocentric individuals with enough "f" you money not to need to give a damn about the shirt and the club and to be supremely indifferent to Souness. In case anyone hasn't noticed, Liverpool are rubbish. There was nothing magical about their performance today. We just rolled over and died AGAIN. So to Charlton, Fulham, Villa home, Brum in the Cup, Bolton home, Pompey home we add LIverpool away as performances which fall off the scale of being dire.

Well everything I predicted in the previous posting has happened. Leeds DID go into administration and will be liquidated but nobody in officialdom minds because the Krassner consortium picked up the pieces. The exception will be the directors of the old Leeds during the past three years who WILL be investigated. Leeds financil position is still extremely tricky but it seems that Krassner and his backers have pulled off a major coup and paid absolutely bottom dollar. Getting the major creditors to walk away at 20 pence in the pound is an amazing achievement especially as there are no lingering claims over future revenue streams. Trevor Birch's achievement in not selling in the January window and keeping the players who theoreticall are good enough to avoid relegation whilst keeping the club going to the point at which the Krassner deat could be done is equally immense. Yes the Krassner consortium are going to have to purge Leeds of the extravagently high earners but this is surgery every Premiership club outside the top three are going to have to do. Expect to start hearing high levels of distress to start coming from Man City pretty soon. If they get relegated, they have very few assets to fall back on- if liquidation was a likely outcome for Leeds following administration, it is doubly likely at Man City. The Berlusconi financial rescue package for Italian football has collapsed so I expect that Prem players in general are going to find their wages bubble has burst this summer. The only upwards pressure will be in the G14/ perenial Champs League clubs and they will be paying more than they can afford in another bubble which will surely burst one day.

Geoffrey Richmond speaks out. The structure of the deal as I understand it is that Leeds will go into administration. Elland Road's long term lease will be sold to one of the creditors or a third party for £20m and the Krasner consortium will immediately offer £25m+ for the rest. In the absence of other interested parties, the administrator is expected to accept those offers very quickly. The reason for going through administration is for the new owners to pick up the business without the hassle of dealing with creditors directly and to avoid thge risk of falling back into insolvency themselves burdened directly by all the debt. If this is true, the issues now: =Leeds will have gone through administration. Creditors will receive less than they theoretically would have done if the club had continued as the existing plc. Therefore Leeds will have gained an unfair financial advantage over more prudent clubs which is why points deduction penalties are supposed to be introduced. =if they do go through a brief administration, it is quite likely there will be a DTI investigation into what went wrong at Leeds. =without doubt the sale of Elland Road is to entrench the ability of the major creditors to cream off the season ticket and gate revenues for many years to come. What should be a major force in English football, the club in Leeds, is going to be permanently dimminished.

Ken Bates to the rescue, or not? Whether the egos of Ken Bates and Geaffrey Richmond would fit together in one desperately under-funded board room is probably a totally academic question. The real give-aways in this article are: - an admission that the Richmond consortium has not got the funds to buy Leeds. Ken Bates might be rich (at least £12m left after tax from the Chelsea sale) but he's not stupid and his money is a drop in the ocean compared with Leeds' debts. Expect the Krasner/Richmond consortium to disappear quite soon if this story is not denied by them. - Alan Leighton back on the scene. I bet he is! He uniquely stands to suffer irreparable reputation damage if the DTI inspectorate get involved. The DTI have to report on every administration or liquidation. Meanwhilst the Express and Mail have both reported that Leeds will be bought by the Krasner/Richmond consortium next week for £20m but they seem to disagree as to whether Richmond is part of the Krasner consortium or bidding against the Krasner consortium! Probably both are true with Richmond having a bet on the side as they say! Given those are the papers that are running that story and nobody else, I am sceptical.

Everything is predictably quiet at Leeds as the backroom negotiations drag on. Geoffrey Richmond who is advising or funding the Krasner consortium depending on which version you read has an interesting history. According to this Sunday's Observer: Geoffrey Richmond, January: 'I've had my 15 years in the game and I've got my bruises. I've got absolutely no interest in Leeds whatsoever, though I wish good luck to whoever has.' And now? 'I have been advising the consortium, who requested my input from a football perspective, having more than 15 years' experience in the game. I was delighted to offer my advice, free of charge.' It's too generous: Richmond's eight years at Bradford defined prudence: raising the wage bill from £6.8m to £14.4m in six months; handing Benito Carbone - who loved that club - £40,000-a-week; borrowing against future earnings, the stadium and the £750,000 house where Carbone lived to pay Ashley Ward £880,000-a-year; withdrawing £10m in dividends for himself and his directors between April 1999 and August 2000; and paying himself a £250,000 consultancy fee in 2001. The result: £36m debt and administration. 'I'm insane according to Fleet Street,' said Richmond in October 2000 as he handed Stan Collymore £13,000-a-week. 'But we need a catalyst. Stan can be that.' Peter Lorimer whom the consortium have induced to opine on the impressive naturre of its bid has a history of business failure and does not seem to have had the desired effect of calming the Leeds' fans' worries about the nature of the Krasner consortium. Just makes us all realise how incredibly fortunate we were and still are with Jack Walker and his bequest.

The latest news percolating out of the talks is that "legal red tape" is slowing everything down and that a deal is unlikely for at least a week. Read that as meaning that even if (a big IF) a top level structure for the creditors has been mapped out and agreed, nobody likes or will agree to the detail and mechanics. Meanwhilst, Publicity Pete's much lauded long term player contracts which expire in 2007 are under the spotlight. All players earning £30K+ a week are being talked to about relegation clauses and permanent salry reductions. No wonder Batty is training on his own in a remote corner of Thorp Arch! This has the feel of a deal which will not happen in which case the time it has taken will have undermined Trevor Birch so much that the administrators or perhaps even a receiver and liquidator will be the only viable option if (when?) the talks collapse.

An excellent account of how Leeds got into their mess It answers all the questions I had been pondering.

The Daily Telegraph speculating that administration is imminent. Prof John Mackenzie severed all remaining links with the club today which suggests something is about to happen.

Here is the rub. At the foot of the article, Krasner (the insolvency expert behind the consortium) says it will take a decade for Leeds to recover. My guess is the consortium is playing a probabilities game. As an insolvency expert himself, Krasner will know the way an administrator would handle Leeds and the risks involved to the creditors in terms of Leeds falling into administration. He will therefore try to create a copy of the likely results from administration adjusted for the amount his consortium are willing to invest and reduced to reflect the cost of a risk premium (i.e. the amount the creditors are willing to "pay" for certainty of eventually being paid). There are three major stumbling blocks: 1) What certainty premium can a consortium ask for when it includes Geoffrey Richmond with his Bradford track record? In other words can the creditors believe the consortum wll deliver. 2) The major creditors have differing agendas. The small credtors just want cash as soon and as much as possible- they are in the weakest position but probably stand to lose enough millions to be willing to fight any agreement which unduly hurts them in the Courts. The major money is owed to major institutions which is another name for penson funds. They will "quite" happily sit back and let their money come back over a long period because they pay out pensions over a long period. However, the institutions are divided between those whose debts are secured against a long term deal for payment from season ticket sales and gate receipts and those whose security is the contract on footballers whose purchase they helped to finance- a much shorter term and riskier asset. 3) Add in the uncertainty of being bottom of the league with twelve games to go. The negotiations will now be entirely between the consortium and the various groups of creditors. All Trevor Birch can do is mind the shop and try to be nice to people.

Leeds latest from the horse's mouth. (or the Yorkshire Post)

It is required standard practise for a report on the activities of the board and management to be filed with the DTI if a company goes into liquidation. If the directors and managers have acted responsibly and in the best interests of the business, that will be recorded. If, however, the directors were in any way reckless or failed to exercise their responsibilities properly they can face being disbarred and criminal procedings if appropriate. As regards the rumours about an announcement tomorrow, at this stage they are just that. No newswire has picked up the story and it would have been grossly irresponsible of Trevor Birch to have said such a thing given that so many jobs and over £100m are in the balance. I therefore doubt that the rumour has any foundation in fact. Back to Batty, I am not saying the players got Leeds into the mess- they simply opened their wallets and let Ridsdale get on with it- but they did effectively kill the only deal which would have kept Leeds going to the end of the season without either a forced sale, administration or worse.

Trevor Cherry says Leeds should go into administration. Perhaps unhappy that his side had to back out and convinced they might get a better deal from an administrator?

Just brilliant!

The first rule in business, you look at the situation as it is. Sure Ridsdale is the prime culprit and public enemy number one but there was no shortage of financiers, players, agents, board members, management and supporters who cheered publicity Pete onto his madness. I know of two directors (including the Leeds finance director) who resigned in disagreement with what was going on but there were two many living the dream for the realists to be heard. (At least at Man City, the realists stepped in eventually). And why did the money men put all the money in? Because they knew that if the worst happened, there was probably enough value in Leeds for them to take what they needed to cover the debt. They got some of their sums and projections wrong but they now want "their" pieces of Leeds back to cut their losses. The reason why Batty is the Leeds killer is that there was a one off opportunity which Birch had negotiated in which the money boys would have agreed a standstill to the end of the season had the players agreed to the 35% deferment immediately. The fact that players wages are the biggest obstacle to the creditors getting repaid and Leeds continuation in business clearly didn't occur to the PFA of whom Batty is the spokesman. Four weeks ago Leeds had a once only chance of surviving. Batty caused the opportunity to be missed. I think the way he has been bannished shows just how the peole fighting to save Leeds from the consequences of others' folly feel about what he did. At least one of the creditors will have run the numbers for Leeds starting out again in the Unibond and found that they don't look an awful lot worse from their perspective than some of the numbers for keeping Leeds as they are.

The BBC take on the situation is the gloomiest of the lot. They are seriously talking about receivership and liquidation. I would imagine the player hp people are being the most difficult. They have little they can do other than the suicide pill of receivership and pulling their players out of the Leeds set-up. I think the remarkable work by Trevor Birch is quite probably going to rebound against him in that all the repeated creditor standstills have done is show increasingly how impossible the cocktail of debt Risdale conjured up has become. I come back to the point I made before. There was a moment of gooey soft headedness on the part of the creditors when they agreed to a standstill to the end of the season if the players had taken a 35% deferment of wages. The PFA instead of telling the Leeds players they were incredibly lucky only to lose 35% mishandled its position and quite possibly faces near bankruptcy as the Leeds players will turn to it to pay their contracts when Leeds collapse. The reason why I now think Leeds could well be liquidated is this stupid rule which has come in giving players first call on administration proceeds. If Leeds get liquidated, the HP company will step in and take the contracts of many of the highest earning players and sell the players off in the open market. It is quite probable that the other senior creditors have a lien over Elland Road so they will take that asset. This will mean the players not subject to the HP contracts will then have priority over next to nothing. From the standpoint of the other creditors, destroying Leeds United will get rid of £30m+ of players' contracts' claims which would otherwise come in front of them. Leeds United RIP 2004, killed by David Batty.

Colin that's very accurate. The Independent analyses the three possible scenarios for Leeds here. The Guardian outline how bleak the future looks for Leeds here.

This is a very good analysis of how things stand at Leeds tonight. Precarious.

I think that is business speak for the major creditors not pulling the plug...yet.