At this time of the year numbers pop up regularly which make interesting reading.

Every club wants to be number one and at the top, but most are happy to be one-four in the Premier League, meaning qualification for the Champions League.

At the other end the battle is on to avoid 18th, 19th or 20th place.

It is always a sad time if a club is relegated but never more than now with the amounts of money involved at Premier League level.

Other numbers that hit the eye were £5m, which would be paid by a new team in Los Angeles in America to 35-year-old Zlatan Ibrahimovic. That comes with the added bonus that he would be allowed when their shorter season finishes to spend the rest of the time back in the Premier League.

And then we get Diego Costa being offered, would you believe, £625,000 a week, after tax, to pop over to China.

I am sure the players who we mentioned last week being in the lower divisions desperately wanting another contract will be impressed when they read that.

Other numbers were to do with age, with our good friend Harry Redknapp, who is now 70, being asked to step in to save Birmingham City from relegation.

The task will not be easy with only three games remaining, and the first one being tomorrow against deadly rivals Aston Villa. One of the other two is against Huddersfield, who are pushing for promotion.

Harry impressed everyone by saying it wasn’t about money, he was just happy to do the job free of charge, but I can imagine if he does keep them up there will be a big bonus, and good luck to him.

He could well join the veterans club which I referred to earlier in the season, who are often called in when owners are panicking, with no long contract in mind but a request to keep them in the league.

A good example of this has been Neil Warnock at Cardiff. Neil is now 68.

When he went there he said he had retired to live in Cornwall, but when the offer came along his wife begged him to take it, whereas Harry said when he accepted the Birmingham situation after a 15 mintue meeting in London, his wife said ‘you must be mad.’ Basically I think the wives of all football managers will understand the attraction of the ‘one last chance.’ Sam Allardyce, who is now 62, is another who could be following Warnock by keeping his latest club, Crystal Palace, in the top flight.

Roy Hodgson emerged from the shadows after leaving England last year to go all the way down to Australia, but only I think for a shorter stint doing coaching sessions. He of course is now 69.

It’s not only managers who are getting on and still wanting to be involved.

We read and hear a lot nowadays about Arsene Wenger and his 20 year period at Arsenal.

He is the longest serving manager, with the second longest being Paul Tisdale, an ex-Saints youngster who, along with Steve Perryman, the former Tottenham player, have been leading Exeter City for 11 years.

The interesting thing there is that another of our ex-Saints youngsters, Matt Oakley, is still listed as a player-coach, and he will be 40 in August.

The message is certainly that there are still calls for English coaches, particularly when clubs are in precarious positions.

  • Congratulations have got to go out to our southern neighbours, Portsmouth and Brighton.

It is great to see Chris Hughton come back into the top flight, but I would also like to give a mention to Tony Bloom, a local businessman who has stood by the club through thick and thin.

I put him into the same category as Peter Coates at Stoke City, Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough, Bill Kenwright at Everton and ex-footballer Dave Whelan at Wigan.

They are all local businessmen who make their money and never hesitate to put some of it back in to keep their clubs alive and kicking.

  • A big thank you to the electricity board.

My wife Anne and I, like much of the country, got settled down just before 9pm a few days ago to see the final episode of Broadchurch.

So many suspects but that night was the one where we would find out who was actually the guilty party.

The programme was halfway through at 9.30pm, excitement was building up when bang, everything went off – TV, lights, heating, the lot.

I looked out the window and it wasn’t just us. It turned out it was the whole village.

As it happened everything went back on at 9.55pm just in time to show who the guilty one was.

We didn’t know whether to look, but when you are like me and don’t know what catch-up means, and every newspaper the next day would have the names in anyway, I had no choice, but it does make me want to delay paying my next electric bill for at least 25 minutes.