The9

Also, good luck waiting on an attendance figure, loads of stuff on the Coventry Telegraph's site about queues of an hour outside to buy tickets, and then them opening a cash turnstile just before kick off... away fan(s) not affected, but they'll probably take a while to work out the number who were there if they had an unexpected cash gate last-minute.

They have made 11 changes in their 3-2 defeat... so I assume the kitman's playing.

Just for the record: "29 MINS KEY EVENT Replay reveals We’ve seen a replay of the penalty incident and it looks like Bennett took a dive, minimal contact from Gadzhev from behind as the Pompey player raced into the box. We’re not allowed to put footage from the game in the live blog but on our Twitter account you’ll be able to see the foul. Very soft." Sayeth Coventry's local paper's live feed.

I'd just have left it there, tbh.

A nice late night for the literal few, extra time... should be knackered for Saturday too. We won't talk about Newport.

Evidently they've realised we've already got two rounds further than this without kicking a ball, now 2-2 (as is Newport, who've let a 2-0 lead slip).

So, I was joking... but... http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/20160809-under-23-report-southampton-qpr-friendly-3236731.aspx

Yeah, noticed that after the other posts - he'll just have to sit on a pile of money and resist the temptation to arrange his next job for 16 months' time.

Probably because all the L1 and the Championship sides unfortunate enough to be playing are fielding weakened teams. Newport were comfortable favourites against a weakened-by-11-players-and-named-yesterday-coincidentally-by-their-welsh-manager MK Dons side (and are leading 1-0 as well). Had a trundle around Betfair earlier, there's no value anywhere.

Probably why McCarthy signed for Saints.

That makes a lot of sense. Though Everton could have more than one recruitment person, I doubt they're the same roles.

Both my immediate thoughts.

The strikers (in theory), it seems to work because if a CB has the ball he doesn't even try to pass to the FB if he's marked. Not sure it works if the FBs are pushed a long way forward because there's no way Redmond is confident tracking that far back to his own goal (Long's probably used to it by now having played glorified left mid for us for a while). The interesting thing is how far forward the player in the hole/creative role behind the front two seems to play. It's a level front 3 with the point of the diamond player as far up the pitch as both strikers. Our use of diagonal from left back/left CB position to set Cedric off up the wing was interesting too, all the other players were marked up as "immediate threats", leaving Cedric unmarked with half a pitch empty in front of him. Interesting to note the use of both Romeu and Hojbjerg as sole DM at different times yesterday. Romeu didn't have his best game for passing and also got caught in possession a bit.

Did you happen to notice if they had any away shirts in stock? They had the shorts and socks but not the shirts last Tuesday when I was in there.

Even the Wales "Euro 2016" t-shirts were only £3 in SportsDirect last week in Newport, and they've actually got a reason to want to remember the tournament.

It's completely invisible at any kind of distance, too.

SportsDirect constantly mark items as "sale" prices from the off, they presumably get around it somehow by having a bunch of their permanent shops claiming to be "closing down" when they aren't. Effectively they set their price (which remains unchanged until they actually do want to clear the stock and reduce it further, around April), and just claim it's a discount over RRP. IIRC the law is that it must be on sale in x number of shops for x amount of time to be able to advertise it as a "sale", I'm pretty sure they haven't met those criteria - which I'm guessing is what you're referring to with "breach of consumer trading law"?

Last season you could buy it in JD in more than 2 stores, it was in Southampton, Eastleigh, Whiteley, (possibly) Basingstoke and Gatwick South Terminal. It was also full price at £55 (cheaper in Gatwick though), this year's is the same as with ST discount for the shirt (give or take 1p) but the shorts and socks are cheaper at SportsDirect. Then again Mike Ashley's lot are currently selling the wrong socks, with a flipped white version of the actual red ones. The club's obviously moved away from only selling them themselves to make them more widely available, but for the record the Newport SportsDirect and JD didn't have Saints kit in them when I was up there last weekend. Then again they didn't have Newport County kit either.

No, he should have laid it off, but done it properly instead of terribly. But that's why he's a centre back.

I saw Ward-Prowse making far more attacking passes against Groningen, he didn't do that so much today though. I don't really have a problem with it provided we're leading. Austin is fine in the split striker position and if either Van Dijk or Rodriguez had played the right pass he'd have scored.

I think we've looked pretty good. Plenty of midfield depth, could do with another CB and maybe a striker who can win balls in the air, but then with the split strikers we're not going to be playing it at a target man much, and I think Austin is the closest we have to that option. We've looked solid, and pacy, and sharp, but can't tell how much and for how long we can do that until we play another Premier League side. I think our depth in midfield is excellent though.

If you don't mind paying through the nose and not being able to move.

Admiral Lucius Curtis.

We've got plenty of options, Højbjerg and Romeu have already played in the same side, and I think they're my preferred selections but it's nice that we have plenty of alternatives in that area and I don't think there's really any tight or wrong at this stage.

Not only this, but also clinging on to something no-one cares about for far longer than it is relevant, where everyone else has moved on and improved, because they're so entrenched in their mindset that they must have already been the best at it so why would you want to do something different? See also banging on about winning the League 70 years ago.