A rather gloomy prognosis.

The BBC report is pretty confusing. This one is better. Either, there has been a back door agreement between the two cosortia to avoid them getting into a bidding war or things are very sick at Leeds United. My guess is the latter. Sorry to be repetitive, but the Americans holding first call on gate revenues and season ticket sales for the next 25 years means they are not going to be interested in receiving 20 cents in the dollar from a deal now if they are pretty confident their lawyers can make their agreement stick going through an administration. The Americans would only budge if they thought a receivership and liquidation (i.e. Leeds would disappear altogether) is going to happen and there is too much of an assured future revenue stream from the Leeds fans for that to happen. As it is, both consortiums were talking about paying £20m for settling creditors AND providing new working capital. Taking into account the time value of money and risk and hassle factors, I believe the Americans will only talk when 40 cents in the dollar is offered to them. If the debts are £100m, that means £40m WITHOUT any new working capital or some £55m for creditors if the highest Leeds debt number of £135m is to be believed. Nobody would want to take Leeds on without refinancing them to get them into a position to have a decent chance of avoiding relegation at the end of next season even if they don't go down this season plus a contingency is needed for relegation this summer. All that adds up to around £60m to £75m as the bare minimum figure required. Neither consotium seems to be even remotely close to these numbers and the second lot have recognised reality and walked away. Whether the Leeds draw against a mis-firing ManU last Saturday will be enough to stop the administrators from being called remains to be seen. If the first consortium does not bid now after having six weeks plus to look at it, the future is again very bleak for Leeds. I suspect that Trevor Birch now faces the most difficult creditors' meeting yet. If he gets another week's extension, I suspect he will have been told to inform the consortium that if they do not bid by then, they will be talking to the Administrator after a week tomorrow. What a time for Leeds to be facing their traditional bogey team, Liverpool, this Saturday!

There is conflicting news about Batty- others are reporting he is now willing to go out on loan and thereby help Leeds to defray some of his costs. I don't know why Exeter did not opt for creating a new company and avoid the mess they are now facing as the Revenue look to make them their test case.

Let me quote the Independent on Leeds' mysterious Ugandan: "None of them throws any light into how the self-styled "property tycoon" made his "fortune", the size of which is unknown. He is not listed as the owner of any major assets in Uganda, nor has the £600,000 Lamborghini he reportedly imported ever been seen in public. Harvard University, where he says he studied, has no record of any graduation. Two facts have been confirmed. As a teenager in 1987, he was indeed a winner at the "All Africa Disco Dance Championships", held in Kampala. And he has represented Uganda at athletics. As Mike Ezra, he entered the 400 metres at the 1997 World Indoor Athletics Championships, clocking a time of 53.74sec in the heats. He was eight seconds slower than the eventual gold medallist and more than two seconds slower than any of the other 33 entrants." As if being tormented by dream merchants isn't bad enough, Jermaine Pennant was arrested for drunk-driving in London last night. Following a fine Leeds tradition. Now let me tell you about that hattrick I scored... PS If the next match is Man U away, Leeds will score at least twice.

It is now pretty clear what is going on at Leeds. The Ugandan is as real as the Sheikh and the hattrick I scored at Elland Road in front of a 43,000 crowd. The four local investors will only move in a nanosecond before the Administrator is appointed because £85m into £20m, £100M into £20m or £135m into £20m are all maths that don't go- the only difference is the amount of disappointment and the extent of creative accounting. So Leeds get two more weeks instead of one. Wow, progress. Well not really, because of the cup, Leeds don't play next week so the creditors have to wait two weeks to make their next informed judgment of the likelihood of relegation. As soon as they think no more Prem football at Elland Road, the administrator rather than the Leeds four will move in. It's simply about results on the field and if Citeh, Pompey and Everton start winning it will be bye bye Leeds United plc irrespective of Eddie Gray's best efforts.

Scotty, this is nothing to do with incompetence on the part of the board of Leeds United and everything to do with worthless players hanging onto fat pay packets. Leeds owe £100m+. That is £100m+ of somebody else's money which they are not able to pay. So Leeds have talked to those people whom they cannot pay and asked for patience which is what they got in the creditors' standstill. Leeds could then spend December and January finding a way at least of paying instalments and keeping the club in business long enough this season to see if they can stay up. However, even to do that needed to find £5m from somewhere. The biggest item of expenditure is the players' wages. With about four exceptions, none of the players is of the calibre they would earn even 50% of the money they are taking from Leeds anywhere else. Anyone with one ounce of grey matter would see that the players' only hope of seeing their contracts being paid would be to participate in the full 35% deferment. But no, they refused unless other avenues were considered and that involved a 65% discount to Man U on the outstanding transfer of Ferdinand. As a result, Leeds went past the third of their agreed deadlines with the creditors without a deal on the table. For a creditor that means not only is their patience being stretched but the deal with Man U means there is £2m less available in assets to pay towards their £100m eventually. In other words, Trevor Birch spent £2m of their money to buy himself more time. When creditors see the principle beneficiaries of their patience (the players) behave in such a selfish way, they turn round and get selfish themselves. So an offer to Trevor Birch to extend the standstill to the end of the season if he got the £5m on the basis of a 35% deferral became a further standstill for a week because they did not like what had happened. Trevor Birch was left at the mercy of a Ugandan Sports Philanthropist who isn't for real (nobody takes on a business as complex as Leeds United without having local nationals on the board) and a group of bottom fishing local tykes. Friday 13th will be Friday 13th for Leeds if against all odds, Man City, Pompey and Everton all win tonight. The creditors are gambling on Leeds having a chance of Prem survival and would surely pull the plug if they are still six points plus goal difference away from safety after tonight's games.

No it is quite possible that Leeds could go into administration on Friday although not the most likely of scenarios. However, assuming Leeds are looking at debts of £100m+, the creditors are only delaying calling in the administrators because Trevor Birch is convincing enough of them they will get more money basck with him in charge. If the Consortium or Ugandan are not for real, then Trevor Birch has very little going for him compared with an administrator directly answerable to the creditors. If Leeds lose tonight and City and Pompey win tomorrow, they will be nine points and goal difference away from safety. Would you gamble £100m on them not going down in those circumstances? As I said last Friday, I was genuinely surprised Trevor Birch was not given until the end of the season then. The fact he wasn't means that a majority of the creditor votes can clearly see a set of circumstances in which it would be in their best interest to call the administrator in before the season end. This is why I think there has been some bitter score settling and emasculation of Batty. Trevor Birch might well ask for more salary deferrments to save the club.

FLB, having been in the position of fighting to keep a struggling company afloat, I do know what I am talking about. Each creditor has their own interest and legally any one of them can kill you. It is like spinning plates on top of bamboo canes- you've got to run round keeping them all spinning all the time because any one falling off kills the show! I am pretty clear in my own reading that on 29 January, Trevor Birch had a solution if the players had taken the 35% deferrment then. They didn't and Leeds could still collapse on Friday 13th. The creditors will have looked at the players and said: "Why should I write off a sizeable chunk of my debt when a bunch of grossly overpaid footballers who are not good enough to sustain a place in the Premier League and are lead by a mouthy 35 year old who is not good enough to get into the first team of the bottom club are not willing to only earn £700K a year after taking a pay deferrment?" As a consequence many of the deals Birch would have done dependent on getting the players' agreementr would have been instantly withdrawn the momernt shop steward Batty came on with the strop. Ron Atkinson got it right when he lambasted the players. The choice wasn't between 65% and 100% of their contract being paid- it was between 65% and 0%. There is no doubt Gray has acted to sort out Batty now to show to everyone at Elland Road "you are either with us or you are against us". How many times have I got to explain, the fans will only matter if all season ticket holders are capable of paying more than £5,000 a head to pay off the debts? Otherwise they are hostages to what ever is coiming their way.

Middlesbrough are in the old county of Yorkshire. On current performances, there is more likelihood of Wigan being in the Prem than Sheff U.

An interesting report on how the people of Leeds see the club's plight. On a seperate decision, I have to say I was pleased to see that Leeds have told Batty he has played his last game for them. If Leeds go out of business, Batty probably played the decisive role in killing them when as PFA rep he scuppered what was probably a done deal to rescue the club ten days ago if the players had taken the 35% cut then. A pithy commentary on Leeds players in general.

Having watched Mute Swan evict Canada Geese from their chosen nesting site when I lived by the Thames, no doubt about it- the swans win. Just the same in the small talk lions or tigers question. A full grown Bengal Tiger weighs twice as much as a Ger Lion. The big 'un always wins.

Things are not good if they have only got another week. Birch had been optimistic he would get to the end of the season at today's meeting. The behind the scenes negotiations must be fun!

I hadn't seen this reported before. According to the Independent, the Premiership voted to make the nine points deduction retroactive so if Leeds avoid relegation then go into administration in the summer, they will lose the nine points and probably be relegated. The way the clubs voted is interesting. Votes against the motion were Leeds (quel surprise!) Leicester (guilty conscience) Man City (we're next) Spuds (we're not that far off) Arsenal (to boldly go to Ashburton Grove...) Self-interest dictating?

I don't know if this is simply stirring trouble or a sign that the Leeds management team are totally exhausted from looking down the barrel of a gun for the past two months or so. Yet more signs that the wheels are falling off the cash-starved Elland Road "outfit". Administration is a form of protection from creditors- looks like they need it!

Birch has done a brilliant job in avoiding administration so far AND keeping the squad together. However, I don't know whether he has enough in the bag to stop the creditors pulling the plug this Friday. Even worse, the current squad and management only have the slimmest of chances of avoiding relegation. Almost certainly, the heroic efforts to avoid administration now will make the collapse when it does come even more traumatic: - the players will have had another half a season to show to potential bidders they are not good enough, - more chance for one or more players to pick up an injury which makes them non-sellable during the summer, - at the beginning of December, I thought it inconceivable that Leeds would disappear altogether, now I am not so sure... - going into administration in the summer means that there won;t be 20,000 season ticket holders sitting there as unsecured creditors. The prospect of having the fans as creditors was perversely one of Leeds best hopes of survival. If the fans are not part of the equation because they have had their money's worth of 19 home matches, the moneymen behind the scenes will have more freedom to swing the axe.

This is as intelligent and reasoned an interview you are likely to get from a football manager and it happens to have been given by Souness. I would be fascinated to know just what particular incident or observation prompted each of Jan, jim and 6 to become so rabidly anti-Souness.

This is the most pessimistic article about Leeds (and football in general). My guess is that Trevor Birch has done enough to get his reprieve from the creditors for the club to the end of the season. If the Administrators are called into Leeds today, I have to say that things are so bad that Leeds' disappearance as a football club begins to look a real possibility- and that has been something I have previously dismissed. However, if the real debts are £135m or bigger, there is £75m of creditor pressure which only has an interest in being paid as opposed to £60m of American creditor pressure to keep the club going in a shape which would repay debts from gate money over the next 25 years.

The BBC's latest take on the Leeds situation. There is no doubt that the players have the club's fate in their pockets and at the moment are doing the club no favours. Man City are tabling Leeds' failure to honour £10K per week payments to Robbie Fowler at today's Premiership meeting.

This really has the feel of the end- debts figures spiralling upwards, doing a deal with ManU to trade the £3.25m outstanding on the Ferdinand transfer fee for £1.5m on Thursday etc. The players are so thick, they screwed themselves. Had they taken the 30% pay cut when it was "offered", Birch would have got his standstill to the end of the season last Friday and the club would have limped on- maybe even saved themselves from relegation and the players made themselves marketable again. As it is they have been brough kicking and screaming to accept a 35% pay cut which now won't be enough to save the club. Of course, the administrator will say thank you very much for the pay cut boys and will immediately look to terminate everyone outside the 16 he needs for the next game.

What a surprise! The £20m from the Leeds consortium is not so real after all. Looks like the players are going to forego their 35% which could keep the club out of administration but still watch out for Leeds desperately selling anyone they can on Friday.

Looks like Leeds havegot a four day extension which almost sees them through to the end of the trasfer deadline. The £20m bid seems to be sufficiently real to have bought the extra time.

I have just seen the most convincing argument yet for keeping Souness,

BBC's latest summation on Leeds. It does not look good for them.

I puzzled over that one and concluded the Grauniad had erred. There is a provision for giving employees preference over the Crown where a company is so bankrupt there is almost literally nothing in the kitty. In that case, the employees receive a figure based on job seeker allowance before any taxes get paid. I don't think this features too highly in anyone's thinking about Leeds. My guess is that the Revenue have recognised that the surest way of getting their £8m is by letting a football entertainment continue at Leeds- that is probably where this comment has come from. However, they are most certain to get their money from a football-operating administrator than from Trevor Birch and the only reason they haven't pulled the plug is because there would be a political backlash to them doing so. A Guardian articleon how pathetic the Leeds players are.

The end is nigh. Whether the last ditch consortium with £20m can find a credible way to cover a NOW £100M+ hole or it is administration, to ask for a 48 hour extension when all previous talk was about a two week extension after today's deadline passed, this now looks like the end of this particular chapter. Stand by for frenetic transfer activity on Wednesday and Thursday.