Namely, where has the money come from? Here are some of the possibilities:

As one of those season-ticket holders affected I’ve been offered the choice of a refund or a seat move - anyone know where the best view is at St. Marys? The biggest worry for those not directly affected by the closures is the impact the changes will have on the atmosphere at matches with next season, especially as blocks 1-3 were the second noisiest area after the Northam stand.

The ongoing dispute regarding Jan Poortvliet’s compensation doesn’t help to inspire confidence that planning for the new season is going smoothly. Nor does the wait to see if any of the following out-of-contract players are going to be retained: Mario Licka, Darren Powell, Nathan Dyer, Alexander Ostlund, Simon Gillett, Inigo Idiakez and Jermaine Wright.

All of which doesn’t exactly ramp up excitement for the new season, despite the fixtures being announced today. It’s Cardiff away first up with Notts Forest away as the last game of the season. At least Saints have signed 2 players before the start of the season, Lee Holmes joins from Derby and Chris Perry joins after his successful loan spell at the end of last season. Only Saints could announce they are intending to give youth a chance then sign a 35-year old within a fortnight!

Obviously his time away from Saints hasn’t persuaded him to deviate from the masterplan and it didn’t even take a couple of weeks for Lowe to go even further. Today Saints replaced Nigel Pearson and appointed two dutch coaches, Jan Poortvliet and Mark Wotte, alongside Stewart Henderson and Dave Hockaday as the new coaching team. Poortvliet will take the role of Head Coach but Saints are saying that the four will work together interchangeably.

Saints fans will undoubtely be split (aren’t we always!) over the departure of Pearson and will be mostly sceptical about the new coaching setup unless/until results vindicate the decision. The most worrying part of today’s announcement was the multiple references to money or lack thereof. Indeed Saints are actively boasting about taking the cheap option and it looks like we’ll have a very young side next season with academy players training with (if not making up) the first team.

The silver lining of seeing kids given a fair chance in the team and the outside chance that Poortvliet will be a poor man’s Wenger will probably persuade the fans to back the side at the start of next season. But if we don’t start the season well then there will be so much fan unrest that more boardroom turmoil would be inevitable.

Award for Best Player
Start with an easy one. I know Andrew Davies won the official gong but for me the one player most responsible for us staying up, and thus the only possible receipient of this award, is Stern John. 19 goals, with no other player getting into double figures, tells its own story but the lack of good crossing or final passes throughout the season meant he made many of those goals himself through his power and good touch on the ball.

Franny Benali award for being a nutter
From the likes of Mark Dennis, Benali himself even up to more recent examples like Patrick Colleter, Saints have a rich history of players just as liable to kick one of the opposition into the stands as the ball. In recent seasons our demise has coincided with a lack of grade A, top class nutterdom. I’m going to say Kudos then to Youssef Safri who, while not in the same league (literally or figuratively), as previous alumni has shown a streak of temper to collect 2 reds and 6 yellows this season. The fact that many of our best performances have come when he’s been pulling the strings in midfield and some of our worse when he’s been suspended show the rest of the squad need an upgrade in mentalness.

Légion d’honneur for finest capitulation
That would be the Saints team who travelled to Hillsborough and thanked the visiting supporters by conceding 5 goals in 24 minutes, 4 of them in a 14 minute second half spell. Remember that Wednesday themselves only finished 16th! They fought off strong competition for this award from the sides at Preston away (5-1, 3 in the last 15 minutes) and Hull away (5-0, 4 in the second half).

Thus far names like Dave Merrington and Graeme Souness are being thrown into the hat as members of various consortiums by the papers. It’s presumably only a matter of time before the Branfoot, Hoddle and Redknapp consortium make an offer… Well, at least there’s a worse possibility than the current situation!

The real area of interest for Saints fans at the moment is a possible takeover by either the Jonathan Fulthorpe-led consortium who have been in discussion with Saints for some time or a new (possibly non-existent) group. The main barrier to a deal is whether or not Lowe and Wilde will be willing to sell up at a price any interested party can afford to offer, especially as they are about to assume control themselves.

Hopefully someone will have the funding in place to persuade all of the major shareholders to sell up and funding to make the club, at least, more secure financially. At the moment very few details on the takeover bid have been revealed but could it be linked to this?

A construction company, NAMG, have announced a deal with a UK company regarding the takeover of an unnamed football club and redevelopment of the surrounding area. I think very few Saints fans would begrudge an incoming takeover if it meant respite from the constant boardroom squabbling and the loss of a few nearby gas holders!

Whether the unnamed football club is Saints or not, I think all fans will be hoping that there will be an end to uncertainty in the boardroom early this summer so we can actually prepare for the new season properly.

The game started evenly with both sides showing nerves as passes went astray. Saints were just starting to apply some pressure with Andrew Surman prominent when they got caught by a sucker punch. Hulse won the ball on the right and looped a cross over Jermaine Wright for Quinn to head home. United then had their best spell of the game with Richard Wright making a point-blank save to deny Sharp.

With half time approaching Saints knew they needed a goal to only leave themselves a one goal swing away from Leicester who were drawing at Stoke. The goal arrived after good work from Euell down the left and a deflection saw the ball loop over Kenny in the United goal and Saganowski dived in to score. At half-time Saints were down but playing well enough to raise the level of hope among the fans.

Saints started the second half well and were rewarded when Stern John chested a ball down to Saganowski who chipped the ball over the defence back to John who calmly steered the ball home. At 2-1 with Coventry losing and Leicester drawing Saints were safe and Saganowski should have secured the win when put through but he took too long at was tackled before pulling the trigger.

Sheffield substitute John Stead equalised when Jermaine Wright made a meal of a clearance and allowed Quinn to cross for Stead to steer home. The St. Mary’s crowd instantly tried to rally the team and it worked when John made a chance out of nothing on the edge of the area, turning his man and firing home.

Substitutes Lallana and Licka were doing well when John got him self stupidly sent off for a rash tackle following on from an earlier booking when he removed his shirt celebrating his first goal. With 10 minutes remaining it was a case of desperate defending but Richard Wright inspired confidence with some assured handling from the crosses being slung in and Lallana proved a willing runner to give the defence some breathing space.

Eventually (following some confusion) the whistle went and confirmation that Stoke and Charlton had done their parts ensured that Saints would remain in the championship. Today showed that with 32,000 in the stadium and a positive atmosphere every match we really could be pushing for promotion. However their is an EGM looming which will probably see yet more boardroom turmoil and quite possibly another managerial change to go with more turnover of players.

Saints started quite brightly with Surman joining attacks well from left-back and Licka looking lively cutting in from the flanks. But we failed to create any clear-cut chances with Wright-Phillips looking desperately low on confidence and John starting to look tired after carrying the goal scoring burden for so long. After Surman had a long range effort well saved Burnley broke and Lucketti gave away a soft free-kick. Saint’s marking was poor and only a superb Richard Wright save denied Burnley. However from the resulting corner Saints let Caldwell wander from back post to front completely unmarked allowing him to head the only goal of the game.

Second half Saints continued to dominate without creating; a number of crosses and pull-backs narrowly missed onrushing or backpedalling players betraying a lack of composure in the final third. Saints best chance came when Wright-Phillips steered the ball onto the post from close-range and Euell couldn’t force the rebound home. Jensen in the Burnley goal made two good saves from Idiakez and Safri but the fact that Saints had to resort to shots from outside the area told its own story.

It’s all eyes on the other teams next weekend as Saints don’t play till Monday away at leaders West Brom. Leicester and Wednesday play each other in the biggest game from our point of view, anything but a Leicester win will see us back in the relegation zone but a draw is probably the best result as long as we pick up some points in our last two games. Unlike most sides in this division West Brom actually try to play attacking football so I’d expect Saints to have some joy going forward, however our brittle defence will mean a 3-3 draw is probably the best we can hope for!

Like last week against Bristol City, both sides had a number of penalty appeals rejected, this time Saints were probably happier for the referee to turn down all of them. Richard Wright made a superb save from Ambrose shortly after the Charlton goal to earn Saints the point. Leicester’s last minute equaliser against relegated Colchester was a shame but it was still a bad result for them which keeps the foxes 2 points back. Hopefully Plymouth can do us a favour by beating Wednesday and we’ll start against Burnley knowing that 2 wins from 3 games would definitely keep us up.

The first goal came about shortly before half-time as Jermaine Wright crossed for Euell who twice headed the ball across goal before John volleyed in from a tight angle. Basso made several superb saves, especially from Mario Licka and Wright-Phillips, and Saints were denied a clear penalty when a City defender punched the ball clear from a cross. Eventually Saints clinched the points when Euell stabbed home from yet another save from Wright-Phillips after a superb cross by Licka.

Euell’s strong running and role in both goals probably earnt him the man of the match award but the whole team played well for once. Licka, Idiakez and Safri provide a bit of composure and creativity with Vignal (until going off injured) and Wright getting forward well from the full-back positions to support attacks. Perry and Lucketti did very well to form a new defensive partnership at short notice and contained City with relatively few alarms.

City were poor but credit to Nigel Pearson and the players who showed suprisingly good levels of belief and confidence after recent results. Thanks to some other results going our way we moved up to 19th, although Barnsley and Wednesday still have games in hand. Aside from the earlier result at Wembley the only blot on the day was some trouble after the game where City fans set about some local hoodies at the nearby car dealerships.