While Sheffield United manager, Neil Warnock, is Mandaric's first choice, it remains to be seen whether Warnock will be prepared to leave his home town club with his side nicely positioned in the automatic promotion postions. He is out of contract in the summer and a counter offer from Sheffield United may see him stay after all.
As the other alternatives continue to be ruled out with Rangers and Palace refusing Mandaric permission to speak to McLeish and Dowie respectively, Redknapp's name keeps cropping up, largely thanks to the local media and Mandaric's word games.
Saints issued a second denial in a week on the official site saying that they still have not been approached about their manager, although stopping short of saying that they would reject an approach in any case.
Also absent from the latest release is the manager himself, although he may feel that more comment would only continue the story, having said at the weekend: "Do me a favour. I have a job at Southampton and have never been asked to go back. If I said I wanted to go back now I would be crucified. That's all I need."
Pretty emphatic, but clearly someone continues to brief the media and not just Mandaric. The Observer reported from an as ever anonymous 'senior source' that Redknapp was "feeling pretty desperate" and that "Woodward's swanning around on a fortune while I'm working my b*llocks off and taking all the flak".
Whatever the truth behind the stories, the important thing for Saints is closure on the matter. Rumours of unrest have gone for too long and need to be settled one way or the other. Unrest behind-the-scenes affects the first team who themselves are on a poor run of late with yet more dropped points in a winless run of four games.
Once the mangement situation at Pompey is resolved (although before would be even better) Saints need to put out a statement backing the manager as part of a united front - and mean it. With the team on the slide and the January transfer window looming, Saints need to put the troubles of the past few weeks behind them and move on.
Yes, manager and chairman may never be bosom buddies, but divisions will never get us out of this division.