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many of the deals Birch would have done dependent on getting the players' agreementr would have been instantly withdrawn the momernt shop steward Batty came on with the strop.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.

Knock 30% off then another 20% for the certainty of being paid and he might take £10K a week as being worth the same as what he might be getting at Leeds this week but quite possibly not next week....

One week lifeline with only a two week extension provided certain financial conditions are met- Leeds are, as Trevor Birch put it, on a precipice. They have failed every challenge put to them four weeks ago: -no buyer -no reduction in costs -no capital injection through an asset sale -no new mamagerial impetus. Birch has done very well to avoid the plug being pulled today. Doubt is being cast on the players' willingness to forego 30% of their wages- only three have publicly come out and said they would do it despite the bullish noises coming out of the PFA. Roll up, roll up, Leeds have got to find £5m by next Monday- which players do we want?

Gordon- oops!

Still no news from Leeds about what is happening whilst their share price slides downwards. However, Skysports report Graham Taylor as saying a pay cut has been agreed with the Leeds players. Both Fenerbahce and Besiktas have expressed interest in taking Viduka although Leeds are resisting....at the moment.

When there is this amount of brinkmanship there is a real possibility that Leeds will go into administration today. Note the BBC report that Leeds' debts are now up at £83m- they have lost another £3m in the last month. Anything other than a football club would have been decently buried by now. As currently structured, there simply isn't anything at Elland Road that makes any sort of business sense whatsoever.

Stu, the only way Leeds are going to find the £80m they owe with some degree of certainty is from cutting their costs. If they bring their salaries down from over £40m a year to under £10m a year they can do it and it will not matter that they have lost £20m income through no longer being in the Prem. This is way beyond the point of sentimentality- either the club does it or the creditors do it for them by appointing an administrator. It looks like Leeds have grown tired of the non-appearing sheikh and are taking matters into their own hands. The Evening Standard are reporting that Leeds have told their players that the £5m they need to get to the end of the season will be raised either through a 30% pay cut (deferrment) or enough of them will be sold off to find the money that way. Interesting to read the PFA web site saying Leeds have been saved to the end of the season.