The9

I'm pleased for Fonte that he's been personally successful with Portugal despite choosing to stay with Saints when so many others have left and not done anything as good - but he's already the longest serving player, captain and has proven himself over and over again for Saints with lots of different centre back partners. I'm pleased that Cedric has added to his probable transfer value whenever we sell him - he's done ok for us, but isn't always first choice and hasn't done as well as hoped in the first season. Overall it's just great that no other Premier League players have won Euro 2016 and Saints have two of them.

I think they're dull as hell, the gradated effect is already old hat as well. I've never really liked any Joma kit though, except maybe the Valencia shirt from 2012 and their adidas shirt was miles better last season anyway. I'd even rate Macron above Joma. Though this Partick Thistle 2013 shirt is nice too...

Hmm, suppose so... Toluca then. I don't remember any Mexican bra-talk...

I can vouch for this. I can probably find the leaked picture too, not that it'll prove much now. I should also try and claim +2 ITK points by proxy also!

I think it's alright, just a bit more of a mess than it needed to be. Not entertaining the whole "bra" nonsense, no-one said it about last season's Spurs away which is the exact same style just with a couple of hoops on it. Though the away is much plainer, and as a result pretty bloody boring. I'm waiting to see if there's a Europa shirt or 3rd kit sold to resolve the plain back and Bournemouth away kit matching issues.

That Bert Lemming, he's a card.

Fair argument, but his Portsmouth tendencies also impact on his status. FWIW I wouldn't have Kelvin Davis or Benali up there, longevity is no replacement for success.

Keegan's main reason for being "era defining" was his success elsewhere when not a Saints player. Fonte has already done more as a Saints player than Keegan ever did.

I'd like to make it clear that they're starting work on the in-stadium wifi for fans this week and claim some points if that's at all ok with you lot? You can have them back for the "Lambert not modelling the away shirt because he's leaving" debacle of 2011/12 (or whenever it was) if you like. I've got new neighbours now.

Good spot, I knew it wasn't something any of the Saints players had actually worn. I'll be surprised if it launches with the white sleeves though. Just read that FourFourTwo article, how in the hell can they describe the away as "less bra-like" than the home when the panel design and size is exactly the same?

It is just the lighting, yes. They are black. I quite like the idea of navy shorts too, very Chivas of us. UA's replicas are regular fit anyway, but as usual with this kind of thing, I'd be trying them on before buying. God only knows how many thousand of the "own-brand" 2014/15 shirts must have been returned from online purchases because they were labelled up two sizes too small.

No, because I noticed the bit where they said they won't be sending the shirts out until launch day, and I REALLY don't care about Season DVDs, so I haven't pre-ordered.

Remind me how many Saints players have won international tournaments when captaining the club?

He's a Saints player who's come from League One and won the Euros when he's actually a Saints player - that's more personal international success than any other Saints player in history... apart from Cedric of course, who doesn't qualify because he's hardly done a year here yet.

I'd say *most* people want the team to wear a kit they like, though plenty aren't bothered no matter how bad it is.

That photo seems to show early options rather than the actual kit and is a little confusing. The socks are mainly white with red rather than red with white (I guess they could be alternates), and the training top (right) we're currently using doesn't look anything like that (there's no white lower sleeve on any of them, and the red training top has a black panel on the top of the red one and a narrow fluorescent line across the front). Quite like the keeper socks...

I was just thinking that on Sunday night.

Well, I either have to buy a car or not have a car, but we'll be going to Man U to keep up domestic aways 2015-17 just in case it's a consideration, so we'll probably still be going. The trouble is this year the qualification doesn't really matter much, hardly any of the sides make the group stages anyway, I may have a look before the play-off round.

We sold enough of that awful all red thing to know that there's a base number who'll buy it no matter what (I bought that one for £10 in April of that season as opposed to most years on launch day at full price - minus ST discount). It's significantly better than the two red Cortese efforts, and will probably shift more as a result - though one of those had the benefit of the return to the Premier League bounce. It's still a little bit weird to me that we only got one striped shirt out of a supposedly 3 year adidas deal.

Strange thing to say given that I'm pretty much neutral on this, you might want to actually read the thread!

That Spurs navy away with gold is bloody terrible btw, the worst attempt at a minimalist round neck shirt I've seen in years, even our black L1 promotion away looked better than that, and everyone moaned about that one being "a training top".

Thing is, they can produce anything they want for the "first UA Saints kit", because the new brand sells itself. They also have to come up with 7 years' worth of kits, changing it every season, so I'm not surprised they went with a year old design, because we'll probably end up with everything they've got over the course of the 7 years, and we haven't had one of that design yet (even if Toluca and Spurs did last season). The yellow kit thing is as simple as "all Saints fans already have a yellow kit and most of them won't buy another one".

I still like it even though it could be a lot better, and I have a collection to maintain anyway.

Most disappointed to see the shirt Hjobjerg is holding up and the fact the (printed red on white) stripes on the front are clearly a much lighter red than the (dyed) red sleeves and collar. Looks like a dodgy colour match at best and a jarring contrast at worst. It is an ongoing problem with mixing white shirts with red stripes printed on them with actual red material though - and it's not like you can print white on red shirts well is it? I'm still buying it. :/

In principle I think the League Trophy should be just for Div 3 and 4 sides, and I can't imagine most of the lower league sides care much about it (having been to Crawley v Newport in 2014 and had my family and friends constitute 10% of the away following that night), but the teams getting to Wembley always love it - so the secret to liking it is of course "be good in it". However... I think it'll be good for the Saints Dev side to have some competitive games at a reasonable level without compromising our efforts at the Europa League, League Cup or FA Cup, and I think it's also a good chance for the lower league sides to get a chance to see where they are in relation to top sides' kids - in the longer term it might help a bit with scouting for lower league sides AND academies, seeing the not-going-to-make-its in a competitive environment. Of course the end of the emergency loan system weakens the short-term benefits significantly to lower league sides. Though I think it'll be funny if we draw Portsmouth, which there must be a decent chance of with a regionalised group stage and likely seeding of the entered U21 teams.