The9

He's already loaded beyond the point to which it'll make any difference, it really might not be important to him. It's a stupid career move at this moment - he'd have to recreate success to stay at this level, when he's already proven he can do that with Saints. It doesn't move him any nearer the jobs he obviously wants (Barcelona, and Netherlands when it suits him, at an outside bet another top 4 nation CL club) and he'd be tying himself to a long deal when the flexibility to go for one of those posts if they come up is currently available to him. Everton offers him nothing but money.

All their ITK-ness is in the area of player transfers, there's a big difference between that and manager negotiations.

Why would he risk going to Everton and not doing what he's already done with Saints? Making them a success gives him a small increment of additional kudos (especially small given the rumoured money being thrown at it), whilst not making them a success undoes everything he's done here. If he does the one year I fully expected him to, new contract or not at Saints, even if we slide back down into midtable he'll still be the bloke who took us to the Europa League group stages when it comes to his next move. It would be like when Adkins went to Reading rather than waiting for a more concrete offer at an established Prem side - putting themselves in a position of having to match recent success just to stand still. He's already in a position to get whatever move he wants, Barcelona couldn't give a toss if he's a success at Everton or not, his reputation there is from his playing ability (and tainted by failure at Valencia irrespective of anything in England). So basically, if he does go to Everton, it's not a "career move", it's purely for the money. Somewhere already in Champions League in a top 4 nation would be a career move at this point. I still remain convinced that his planning is all for the summer of 2017 and anything Saints negotiate now will be tacitly agreed to be improved terms for next season only to allow the club to line up a replacement more formally.

No, other than "Saints have threatened legal action" there's little similarity. Alderweireld wasn't under contract to Saints, there was some complexity around the possibility of a pre-contract agreement that doesn't exist here, he's a player not a manager, etc.

I'm still fairly sure the interest in Koeman is just a wage-negotiating tactic for his Saints extension. Everyone knows there's money to be made from new contracts this summer. As for "I wonder if we've got a replacement lined up"? I should think we've got a short list of two or three, all of whom have known for 18 months that we might be interested if anything happens here.

Other than being a completely different situation.

It was also available for about 25p in January, as about half of the players had already left by the time the season started. I suspect it was 2009/10. We had a similar problem with the 2007 one, as 17 squad members left in the January window after Burley arrived.

Two things: 1) That sign has their badge before the badge before the badge before the badge on it, which means that either someone didn't know what they were doing and had no idea what the club's badge actually was when they made it (surely not? though the "PROUD" is a clue...), or, and this one I like - they actually made it when they were in the Championship before they got promoted to the Prem back in 2003, and they were actually celebrating the possibility of a relegation. It is the only time they've actually had that badge and been within one division of League One since League One has been called League One. 2) Be fair, I've counted nearly 35 of them. If I adapt the maths I used when Saints fans queued up for the all red adidas kit we really hated, when there were 6 times as many people in the club's photo, and extrapolate how long it takes to process a ticket purchase for everyone in the picture via that method... I'd be very sad indeed.

Having lost their millionaire and drastically cut back, Newport had 19 players on full-time contracts last season (of which 3 were youth team kids on dirt cheap deals), the rest were loans (there were 9). Can't do the loan thing any more unless they're season long loans, it's going to make a big difference. They've released 13 already this summer, currently have 19 pros (though around 8 haven't signed new one-year deals yet and are may be only technically still at the club for now until July 1st) including 7 kids who tangibly aren't good enough at the moment and two of those they've offered new deals to are thought to have signed for someone else. 33 is bloody ridiculous.

Typos on "Steven" Davis, and "Schneiderlin" (who is a late call-up and would have missed out had dirty Skate Lassana Diarra not got injured). I don't think you've missed anyone. I think we should mention Lovren just for the massive lol of him missing out on the Croatia squad after slagging off the manager, though.

It's also a couple of years old. Their new one is this, as seen earlier in the thread. Rubbish high round neck collar. Shorts (can't see much) and socks in this pic:

I'm looking forward to finding out when Newport will be visiting League 2 newcomers Cheltenham, Grimsby, Crewe and Doncaster... three new aways for me (my last visit to Cheltenham was when Newport got relegated from the Southern League Premier Division, which is a nice frame of reference for the auspicious level at which Portsmouth are now playing).

The home kit's definitely based on the actual shirt, that's already been leaked. The away colours were leaked in November, the style is probably right too, though the original article says the Spurs badge is going to be gold. http://www.footyheadlines.com/2015/11/leaked-tottenhams-16-17-home-and-away-kits-are-sure-to-be-classy.html

Just a load of adidas River Plate shirts. I don't get it.

Hey everyone, big day for Portsmouth today, the League Two Playoff Final. Ah, whoops, sorry. I meant PLYmouth.

Last year we were surprisingly close to being in Pot 4 (before we lost), this year I don't think there will be any concerns on that front. We only need 12 lower coefficient sides to get through.

Yeah, but the fact not all of them are is why we'll end up in Pot 3 not 4

I looked at that Sunsport "ref decision" list once, and disagreed with pretty much everything they said the refs got wrong, so I wouldn't read much into it.

Spurs Away leak to go with the home one: That collar appears to be a "thing". I notice they both have last season's Prem badges on, so who knows how legit they are - but that's the same home shirt from at least two sources now. I wonder if our shoulders will be red or white...

The emergency loan system has finished - there won't be loans outside transfer windows next season (though I'm not sure if U21 loans will be allowed?).

Strange that the Leicester thing happened this season rather than next, given the levelling out of the money available to clubs and the closing of the revenue gap. Not to mention the huge jump in money available to clubs and the opportunity to actually build a team by prioritising particular key players' wages. All the money in the world doesn't mean anything if the XI you put on the pitch aren't trying anything like as much as they're expected to. Man City and Chelsea had that for a big chunk of time, and Chelsea's players are as likely to react to Conte the way they did Mourinho rather than Hiddink. Guardiola at Man City might or might not get the reaction he wants. Liverpool haven't got Europe but they also don't have Suarez like they did the last time they could concentrate on the league, or reliable strikers at the moment. Man U have Mourinho, but it remains to be seen if the bloom is off that rose - anyone fancy a cheeky bid for Mata? We can guarantee him a game, if not his current megabucks, and he probably won't feature for Mourinho. Leicester will not be at the same level due to Europe, but they won't completely collapse and will probably finish top 8. Actually, it would be nice if they could drop into the Europa last 32 and we were in there... Spurs and Arsenal are going to be up there somewhere, but Spurs tailed off badly either through fatigue or lack of bottle. There's still a ton of transfer activity to be done though, ours will be more important to Saints than anyone else's.

After last summer's Alderweireld stunt I'd be hoping that our "gentlemen's agreement" is just a load of absolute blather which we use to string them along and waste their time before selling him to Chelsea or Arsenal reserves.

*cough* Alderweireld too *cough*

Why would teams bother to produce centre backs when any decent centre backs they produce will be better used elsewhere on the pitch? Huth and Morgan have shown how far you can get with limited footballing ability this season in that position. The problem isn't that we don't produce CBs, it's that we produce footballers who are better at the more difficult stuff and don't end up being CBs.

Saganowski literally looked like he switched off his "give a toss" meter the second he got a full time deal, it was completely brazen. But I'd go for Ryan Smith - he was utter gash, came in with a load of hype, so one footed he looked like he was going to fall over every time he had to change direction. Lee Holmes wasn't much better, always injured. Best game for us was Kelvin's Testimonial. Mark Hughes was a big letdown too. Osvaldo was clearly an excellent footballer with the brain of a complete nutcase. Delgado was clearly decent, just never available. Anyone saying Skacel is out of their mind - he was a player coming from the Scottish leagues to a team in the Championship, had a great partnership with Bale, and was still good even when made to play left back. One of our best players during the decline in the mid-2000s.