Relegation

The Saints will be relegated next Saturday - (we have two games left - I expect a 5v1 defeat at West brom and a 2v1 defeat against Sheffield Utd after leading one nil). We have to get 2 points just to have a chance of staying up. Aint gonna happen.

There is no getting away with it we deserve it. We are crap. We started our charge for relegation under Burley. In Baseball parlance, Pearson has been an excellent closer.

Throughout our charge for relegation all we heard was that we were only 5....6.....7.......8.......9.......10 points etc from the playoffs and a couple...three...four...five.... wins in a row bla bla bla.

We are shipping money faster than Jamie Gold on high stakes poker - we lose about £7 million every six months. Of course the Chairman disputes this - the interim accounts show that we actually made a small profit. But we managed that by selling off all our players.

The problem we have is that we are still losing £7 million pounds every six months and there are hardly any players left to sell.

Had we stayed up, we could probably raise £7 million in the summer by selling Raziak, Skacel, Viafara, Dyer, Surman and Bradley 'fingers' Wright-Phillips. But by Christmas there would be no one left to sell.

The clever fellas at Barclays realise this and are getting twitchy. Fortunately for Barclays the overdraft facility runs out in June/July - so its time to renegotiate.

To top it all off - faced with the prospect that Barclays will pull the plug on the overdraft facility - or thinking that Barclays are more likely to let things carry on with Lowe at the helm, the muppets Lowe and Wild are set to return.

They are basically the two biggest shareholders - and therefore the 2 people that administration (which is a certainty if we are relegated, likely if we stay up, and certain if we stay up and Barclays pulls the plug) will affect.

Lowe and Wilde probably didn't count on us getting relegated when they started the ball rolling to get let back in. And I suspect they are likely to find there is nothing they can do. Gutted for you gentleman.

There are 100 reasons why Saints are in the position they are in now - but Lowe and Wilde's contributions are a match for anyone

Letting our two best players - Raziak (who scores the goals) and Skacel (who creates the goals) go on loan (because we can't afford their wages) at Christmas was suicide - we can thank present Chairman Leon Crouch for that.

So there we have it - the destruction of a premier league football club - if we go down I think we can safely count on not getting back in the Premier league within the next 5-7 years. Grrrreeat.

Stupidly - I renewed my season tickets. But I paid using Barclaycard (so I can make a section 75 (of the Consumer Credit Act) connected lender liability breach of contract claim against Barclays if the club goes under.

Poker: still doing quite well at heads up no limit 50. But not playing very much - part of my new plan to only play when I feel A1.