Its Limbo Time for the next week.
Its the will they wont they show at St Mary's as the EGM looms closer with one side claiming that its in the best interests for the current board to resign en masse and step aside, whislt Leon Crouch counters stating that he feels a major investor will step into the breach at the last minute.
Whatever the truth, the people sufferning are the fans, players and manager of the club as they find themselves in a state of limbo and not knowing what the future may hold.
The supporters want to know whats next for the club, many of the players are out of contract and they are waiting to see who the manager is and if he will offer them a new one, and of course Nigel Pearson is sweating on finding out if he will even have a job come the end of next week.
The truth is that if the takeover happens, it will happen whoever is in the boardroom, or not happen as the case may be, some would say that if an investor comes in they would be better off speaking to a board that has the majority shareholding and that being the case then Crouch would be better standing down now, the only thing that most fans agree on being the fact that they are heartily sick of the whole sorry situation and they would all prefer all those currently in the boardroom or indeed about to go back into the boardroom, to sling their hook and let someone new takeover.
Its a complicated situation and one that many supporters struggle to grasp, many still believe that if Lowe/Wilde only have 46% of the shareholding then Crouch must hold the remaining 54% and will therefore cling to power, nothing could be further from the truth however.
The next week will be crucial in the history of Saints, it will decide the very short term future of the club and by association the long term, perhaps the biggest mistake that has been made in recent years has been the fact that two years ago so determined where they to see lowe ousted, supporters and shareholders took the first offer available, are we heading to the mirror image of that situation now, where we have to take the last deal on the table as their is nothing else.
Sad to say football clus who are sold usually fall into one of two categories, they are either extremely profitable as they are usually in the Premier League, or they are on the verge of going broke, as per Coventry, truth is Saints are a lot near the later than the former, its just a question of how low the club drops before the circling vultures descend.
SISU's bid of 40p per share was waved away as being derisory six months ago, but since then its dipped at a steady rate even the rumours of an investor bid being imminent cant drive it up again, today it sits at 33p under the Sisu price and nearly half of what it was a year ago, back then Saints were still seen as a buoyant club, now we are trying to sell to the first bidder so deep rooted are our problems, certainly prospective investors will maybe figure that the share price hasnt yet bottomed out and it could yet halve again before a bid comes in.
Most Saints supporters i speak to just hope that all the major shareholders stop their infighting, accept any offer and dont put of potential investors by trying to convince them that they should continue at the Club in some sort of role, too much water has gone under the bridge and i fear that some shareholders will not sell unconditionally, but will delay and try and impose conditions.
It was this sort of shennanigans that made certain investors back off a year ago, not anyones refusal to sell shares, but the fact that too many people at this club are taking more out of it than they are putting in and wont leave the table without a fight.