AGONY GOES ON FOR SHRIMPERS!

SOUTHEND United's future remains incredibly uncertain ahead of another crunch week for the club.

- Jason Creasey

Southend City Council must agree a deal with current Shrimpers chairman Ron Martin for the revised Fossetts Farm plans before a consortium headed up by Justin Rees can officially take charge of the club.

But, despite the council setting a deadline of last Friday, those key discussions are now set to continue in the next few days.

In a statement issued on Friday evening, council leader Daniel Cowan said: "Today we have had further crunch talks with Citizen Housing and a number of key items moved close enough to our red lines in the last couple of hours that I have approved us moving forward with negotiating new heads of terms.

"Our terms only being partially met and a late hour means that we need to do further work with external advisers which if proves to be good will enable us to move closer to developing heads of terms ready for new due diligence.

"We have worked every minute possible this week to get this completed but ultimately we needed the input and acquiescence of others just to get to this point.

"Though we could not have done more on our end, I hope it was enough." The statement came after a turbulent day of talks.