Saints turmoil highlights Sky Blue stability

The current stories and speculation regarding the future of Southampton Football Club could just as easily have been being written about Coventry City, had the Ray Ranson-led consortium not completed their takeover at the 11th hour late in December 2007.

A long-time top division club who have overstretched themselves to build a new 30,000+ capacity stadium and then seen the reality of relegation hit them hard, followed by the seemingly endless spiral of player sales, poorer results and falling crowds.

Indeed just two months before the deal was done at the Ricoh Arena, the Southampton plc board agreed in principle to Ranson and SISU buying 55% of the shares in parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings.

That deal never went through and looking at the steady progress made by Coventry City over the past year, Sky Blues fans can be thankful of that.