Within the next few days the Ronald Koeman fiasco will reach the end of the road, but it will not be clear cut.
After several days of media frenzy mainly fuelled by Ronald Koeman's agent and Everton's PR dept determined to persuade the nation that Everton are now ready to go head to head with neighbours Liverpool in bringing in a top manager and handing him millions to spend, the Koeman saga went deathly silent.
No stories from Dutch journalists briefed by the agent, no stories from the English press telling the country that Saints and Everton had finally agreed compensation with the only real news being that Everton wanted to sign Pelle, a player who if they had done their research would have found had been out of favour with Koeman and turning 32 next month is not exactly one for the future.
So why has it gone so silent ? has the media just lost interest ? do they feel that its so nailed on its not worth reporting ? or are they waiting patiently for the proverbial to hit the fan.
Whatever the reasons with Ronald Koeman returning from holiday on Sunday evening this sorry saga will come to its conclusion probably on Monday.
On that day Koeman will either go to Merseyside and sign a contract or he won't, its as simple as that.
But the day before he is due to return there is still no news as to whether Saints and Everton have agreed compensation terms, the last concrete news was at the beginning of the week when after a plethora of news stories saying that they had, Everton took the unprecedented step of saying that nothing had been agreed.
Since then just various reports of a differing nature and few of them since Tuesday.
The general consensus is that Koeman signing is a formality and whilst I would agree that this is by far the most likely ending to the story, I don't think it is as nailed on as most would think.
Why am I saying that ? you may ask.
Mainly gut feeling is the answer, but aside from that there are a few things that are just nagging in my brain.
The first is why Koeman went away on holiday right in the middle of a crucial deal, this does not happen either in football or indeed in business in general, the golden rule is get the signature on paper nothing is concrete till then, indeed Everton's new sugar daddy Moshiri will not be happy with this turn of events and maybe questioning Koeman's commitment to the cause, he will be asking why the Dutchman wasn't banging on Saints door persuading them to release him and why the moment that Saints agreed to release Koeman why he wasn't sat on Merseyside pen in hand.
But it is more than that, why have Saints been strangely quiet about things ?
There is no doubt Saints have been playing hardball, they have told Everton their position, told them their demands to release Koeman and they are not budging, the reality is that for Southampton Football Club it would be better to pay Koeman his current £2.5 million salary to sit at home for the final year of his contract than let him go to Everton and unsettle our players.
This being the case it would not surprise me if a total stalemate is reached, Everton look elsewhere and Koeman spends a year on gardening leave, a situation that rarely happens in football and is rarely reported when it does.
But Saints silence almost seems as if they are protecting Koeman, that they don't think that he is certain t go to Goodison, there is a rumour doing the rounds that Koeman's agent has pushed this to almost the finishing line whilst he was on holiday, of course Koeman himself could put a stop to it overnight, but it is a mighty big carrot dangled and it is not that easy to turn it down out of hand.
Last weekend Koeman had to make a snap decision he did so apparently wanting to take the money and run, but suddenly he back tracked and went on holiday, could it be that he is using this time to run things through his mind and reconsider ?
This is not as far fetched at it might first appear, firstly Ronald Koeman has spent his entire career indeed life as a very moral and ethical man, this last week will not sit easily with him, basically a good man does not become bad overnight and vice versa (I did have a stronger phrase in mind here lol)
Secondly Saints by failing to make even the usual " Ronald Koeman has told us he no longer wants to be manager of Southampton and we have reluctantly accepted that" statement we have made several times in the past notably two years ago when Spurs poached Pochetinno, seems to suggest that they are not completely sure that Koean will walk away.
I'm sure that Ralph Krueger will be using all his experience both in sport and in man management here, he will point out 20 reasons why Koeman should stay and invite him to give the only reason why he should go, MONEY !
I'm not going to go too deep here, but I would not be surprised if Koeman going on holiday wasn't a Krueger suggestion, take a step back sit back and look at what you are giving up and if you decide you want to stay the contract is here and ready for you.
It's a last gasp try but we all know what happened the last time Koeman told a club he was all ready to sign and then went on holiday after all it was only a month ago !
So although I would say it's still odds on that Koeman will join Everton, those odds have increased in the past week, the fact that the press are no longer being briefed suggests that all sides are not feeling confident.
It is Saints that hold the cards though and those who have screamed at the club for not being ambitious and matching Everton have to realise that we have a strategy and that strategy does not mean that we throw money at everything, Everton themselves are going down a rocky path, one that has seen Leeds almost go to the wall, one that has seen Man Utd rapidly lose their status in the Premier League rankings despite spending much more than Everton are boasting about.
Success can still be achieved by doing things the right way, in fact even wit money you still need to do things properly otherwise it doesn't happen.
The next few days will see this saga come to it's end, whatever tha end is Southampton Football Club will march on as it always does and that is because we are building foundations with a strategy that does not rely on the efforts of one man, but of the whole club.