Club announce they may be about to go into Administration. - By Matthew Gaynor

So what does this mean ? / Whose fault is it ? / Where do we go from here ?

So what does this mean ?

The best hope is that the club are trying to scare the creditors into rescheduling the debt payments. They've been discussing it with them for some weeks and appear to have reached some kind of impasse. The creditors won't budge and the club may well be just trying to send them a message that it's either do a deal with us now or we'll go into administration and you risk getting nothing.

The other alternative is that we have simply run out of cash and even with some creditors agreement we are going into administration anyway. Lets be clear this is not an easy option. A lot of clubs have gone into Administration and emerged in apparently a better state, there are 2 clear differences in our case.

1. The size of our debt. It's massive and dwarfs what anyone else has faced. In terms of size of hole, Leicester were in Ridsdale's goldfish pond, we're in the Grand Canyon.

2. Who our debt is owned to. Most clubs in administration owe money to other clubs, taxman, local firms. This gives them an opportunity to try and negotiate out of it and a lot of the creditors will take a deal after factoring in the negative goodwill if they are seen to have let the club die. Most of our debt is owned to Merchant Banks, Finance Houses, faceless organisations that can't have their windows broken by irate fans. They'll weigh up the choices, a trickle of funds over a period of many years that will never get near the debt now or sell off the remaining assets now and get a sizeable chunk of the money back immediately. They'll think about it for less time than it takes Gerald to handbrake turn round the Car Park at Elland Road.

The other relevant factor about today's announcement is that if we feel we can't avoid Administration, it may be better to take the plunge now, rather than risk it happening in Division One next year. Then we'll immediately suffer a 10 point deduction that will leave us heading for Division 2. A sobering thought is that a ten point deduction now would leave us with Gav's usual scrabble score, or -2 as it's more commonly known.

Whose fault is it ?

Plenty of candidates here. Ridsdale, O'Leary, Bowyer and Woodgate, Venables, McKenzie, Painy.

Answer is probably all of them to some extent, but:

Ridsdale has to come top of the list. Funnily enough I've never really disliked him up until the last few weeks, I just saw him as a fan who'd got over-excited and though he'd made a huge pigs ear of it, he was just the kid in the sweet shop with eyes bigger than his belly. We all remember the jovial chap we chatted to in airports lounges around Europe, who sang to us in Milan, showed he cared in Istanbul and said "give him the car" at the Newcastle game, and for that I forgave him loads.

Then he appeared all over the tele the last few weeks saying he regretted nothing and it wasn't his fault and I felt like vomiting. Sure he was unlucky, although many suggested the transfer market was over-inflated, it's subsequent crash was a big shock. Gary McCallister's last minute wonder-goal for Liverpool vs. Everton effectively denied us another season in the CL. BUT he was also lucky. If Scum hadn't bid so much for Rio, just before the market crashed the debt would be even bigger, if Judas George hadn't left  we may never have seen "O'Leary's babies".

At some point he should have realised it was out of control and said stop.

• Possibly - When we failed to make the CL again

• Presumably - When he offered Johnson over twice as much wages as he wanted.

• Probably - When he wrote the cheque to buy Fowler

• Definitely - Before he gave the job to Venables

• Absolutely - When he noticed the cleaner turning up to work in a company Merc.

• Unconditionally - When he signed up to the ridiculous loan deal that will drag the club down for years to come.

Culpability score - 9 out of 10

David O'Leary

Yes he needs to take some blame as well. His horrible book could have been the beginning of the end, his inability to keep his mouth shut didn't help. The decision to downgrade Eddie Gray from coaching duties was pretty stupid, he had alienated a lot of players by the end and didn't need to buy as many players as he did. Despite this, I'm still surprised when Leeds fans chanted his name in Dublin pre-season and history has been kind to him. Players like Bowyer, Mills and Bakke were nowhere near as good without him as Manager and Venables had pretty much the same group of players and couldn't get anything out of them. Bottom line re the money is Ridsdale could have said no.

Culpability score - 6

Bowyer / Woodgate

The trial did drag the club down. Not just in terms of the effect on the pitch but it also gave the press a chance to have a go at us just as the football we were playing was winning us fans everywhere. The negative publicity associated with having a lying scumbag like Bowyer playing for us, probably cost us millions in merchandising. Bowyer was also culpable for blowing his move to Liverpool by being too greedy. That cost us £9 million - we could do with that now.

Culpability score - 5

Venables

OK he inherited a mess, but he made it a bigger mess. Bad decisions, alienating Dacourt, ignoring Batty, buying Barmby, playing Smith and Wilcox out of position, Paul Okon !!! And he still gets paid as an expert. Shame on you ITV.

Culpability score - 7

McKenzie

Well he's way out of his depth, the Kewell saga proved that, but not his fault and he's only a front man so Leighton and co don't have to face the flack. Probably can't jump a mini anymore either.

Culpability score - 2

Painy

Well I suppose he could have bought more shares and Kewell probably decided to leave the moment Painy asked him if he was still shagging Becky Higglesthwaite off Emmerdale in Moscow, but he's mostly harmless.

Culpability Score - 1 (For the long-johns)

Where Do we go from here ?

Well don't bank on Sheikh(in) Stevens from Bahrain. Bahrain does not have big oil reserves anymore and he is only a minor member of the Royal Family. He may gives us a temporary cash injection to buy us more time to sort ourselves out but he's certainly no Abramovich. In reality Alan Leighton is probably putting up just as much as Shaky.

Will a Foreign billionaire come to the rescue. It's possible but remember Chelsea were in the CL when they were taken over. Anyone who is looking to take us over will probably wait to see if we stay up and renegotiate our debt before getting involved. Plus signs are big club, big crowds. Negatives are everywhere though. A potential investor would have to decide, do they pay top dollar to keep Premiership status, or pick the club up in a fire sale following administration

Administration - So how do we feel about a bunch of Accountants taking over the club. Well it is tempting to say they couldn't do a worse job than the present and previous boards, and in theory their main aim is to attempt to restructure the business so that it can continue to operate as a going concern. But if they don't think there is a viable business to be rescued, they won't be afraid to knock it on the head and so we want to avoid this if at all possible.

The only remaining option is years of slow painful progress - it could make George Graham's teams of the 90s, look like Real Madrid in comparison. We'd have to sell any stars we develop for years to come and wouldn't be buying anyone for more than peanuts. Premier league survival and possibly mid-table obscurity for the next ten years would be our maximum objective whilst we seek to eat into the debt mountain. We'll need a lot of luck a good manager and a great youth system to achieve this. It won't be fun but it's probably all we've got.

We have to face facts, our squad is sh*t - there are about 5 decent players amongst them. Most of the squad either were quality or might be quality but only a couple are now quality. Our defensive hopes hang on Matteo's hamstring, our Midfield hopes hang on an alleged rapist and Batty's legs, our goal scoring chances hang on a hot headed Yorkshireman and Bridges achilles and our creative hopes rest with two Academy players who aren't old enough to drink yet. It's not good.

3 years ago, we'd just played Real Madrid and I was preparing for a CL trip to Lazio, (one of our great nights). In a years time I'd probably settle for a run of Sky inspired 5-30 kick-offs away to Burnley, Rotherham and Cardiff in the muppetland that is Div 1. Even though some of those grounds will make Mettalurg ZapiZagiZogZog look like the Nou Camp. We've fallen a long way but the priority now has got to be still having a club to support.

Don't think it'll happen !

Remember going to Italy last year, we were the first team to play at that ground for months when we played Tel Aviv, Fiorentina had ceased to exist, been kicked out of their ground and forced to reform in the lower divisions. They were a big club as well.