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The9

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Everything posted by The9

  1. He was absolutely dreadful first half of our Chelsea win - I honestly thought we were getting stiched up in that one, and I've never thought there was a conspiracy before. Fortunately his one-eyedness didn't overwhelm Chelsea's absolute lack of effort.
  2. I think this comes down to whether you're in the "he's going to try really hard in every game now to get a move" camp, or the "he only tries against top teams who he wants to move to" camp.
  3. Guessing the derivation of "Stonewall" is "solid". If you're on about Wanyama's tactical foul, Fonte was covering and actually cleared the ball about 20 yards from where Vardy was, it was nothing like a DOGSO because Wanyama got in when the ball was well away from goal.
  4. They pretty much ARE always guaranteed to happen. That's why everyone else in the history of the Premier League has dropped off, non top 6 teams don't have the depth and always have to play weaker players and lose games as a result - but this season we've seen an unprecedented level of top club laziness as well - Chelsea's first half of the season was indefensible, Man City slacked off enough to look like they might miss top 4, Arsenal are STILL only the 3rd or 4th best team even without City and Chelsea above them. I'm not even being critical of Leicester, but that's not really a plan B, it's the same as their plan A, same formation, same team doing the same things, just with less effective attacking as Mahrez is now mostly being stopped. Their workrate usually turns something up for them though - and Vardy is to this side what Suarez was for Liverpool a couple of years ago. Always a threat from anywhere on the pitch and a nightmare to defend against. As long as they have that outlet and don't concede first they'll be ok.
  5. Of that list, I'd say Leicester, Norwich and Stoke are the only ones which are definitely better than ours. I haven't been to West Ham since 2012 but they were pretty loud then (as they should be for a promotion 6 pointer). Palace have about 40 people who make all of their noise and they sing mickey mouse songs and have a drum, the rest of them aren't up to much. Leicester's main problem yesterday was their tedious repetition of the muppet Prem songs (mainly Palace's fault). Everton are alright but have the benefit of an old school ground with decent acoustics. Liverpool's support is absolutely abysmal nowadays, they sing twice a match and when they score, entire stands where one person sings and everyone looks at them weirdly. The problem with judging from the tv is that they turn the balance down depending on the type of atmosphere they want to create. The last couple of times I've been an Anfield I haven't heard a peep, and we've been screaming abuse at the likes of Lallana and Lovren and you could hardly hear it on the tv. Same thing happened with the mics at Fratton in the Championship, couldn't hear them in the ground, couldn't hear us on the box. TV companies don't like swearing...
  6. Leicester's atmosphere on Sunday was absolutely streets ahead of any other Prem ground I've been to since we've been back up, and I go to about 10 aways a season. Clappers certainly help make noise, but they were also all singing all the time.
  7. Actually, "is this a library" preceded absolutely no response from their fans for a few minutes until the goal. It was a stupid song, however, because that was literally the first time they'd shut up in the entire match to begin with. There's a lot to be said for having the entire ground ALL singing almost all the time, and I'd actually forgotten what it was like, because it's been years since I've seen that anywhere. It's also nothing like as silly as when BadBoySaint ran half the width of the away section with his chubby tits out to goad their fans when we scored an equaliser in the Championship in the mid 2000s, only to get over to them JUST as they scored again. That was hilarious.
  8. The answer to "why isn't it us?" is still mostly down to Leicester's incredible luck with injuries and suspensions. If they'd had anything like the number of players missing that practically every other team has had, they wouldn't be in the equation at all. Once you get past that, the huge levels of commitment shown by all of their players all of the time is the difference in a season where fine margins have been hugely significant. There's a list as long as your arm of occasions where they could have lost or conceded goals but didn't, and only the Arsenal match bucking that trend. They've already gone from free-flowing attacking 4-4-2 that people couldn't cope with for a long time because defenders had forgotten how to mark two strikers, to a side which mainly defends with 9 men, never sends the central midfielders forward, and tries to score when opponents over-commit. They're a very solid, very basic side with a load of hard-workers who have benefited from incredible fortune which just NEVER happens.
  9. Agree with the first bit, but completely disagree that we weren't good enough and didn't want it enough. I thought we dominated the match, and probably more than we have any game all season. Leicester just defended well and in numbers and we couldn't get the break we needed. They also had 3 times as many good chances as us, but that's how they play, defend in numbers and catch teams on the break. It was actually one of our best performances. As for the penalty decisions, I thought it was a red card for Simpson live, have seen it about 20 times since and still can't decide. Can't fault Mane either, repeated slo-mo has shown me that had he not lifted it over the keeper's arm, Schmeichel would have saved it before it even got to Simpson.
  10. Unmarked near post header from a corner immediately after Boro had a penalty saved. Then subbed after about an hour. Seemed to do a lot of passing then standing still. Same old.
  11. The9

    Shirt sponsor

    Bolton had Reebok on their Reebok shirts in the Reebok Stadium for ages.
  12. The9

    Shirt sponsor

    The long and short of it is that the tv money levels the playing field a fair bit because it gives £100m to pretty much everyone and previously the only way to get that kind of money was to win the Champions League, but there's still some benefit in trying to get a financial edge on all the teams with similar income, and frankly as long as it's not exploitative I'm all in favour of the club trying to maximise their revenue.
  13. The9

    Shirt sponsor

    Yes.
  14. We're not part of a "country" called "EU".
  15. Absolutely cannot be bothered to contemplate this when the "official" position (ie the politically neutral one) from the FA is "we don't know what will happen".
  16. We could only get 15k SEATED in the Dell in the 90s, but Saints had averaged more than 20k in every top division season from 1967 to 1983 and crowds in football overall were well up from '83 to the early 90s when the ground size was restricted, so it wasn't like there was no demand. Saints also had an ST waiting list for years.
  17. The9

    Shirt sponsor

    There are laws about directly advertising alcohol to kids, not sure the same regulations apply to gambling as it's different legislation - the clubs don't want the bad publicity anyway and self-regulate on the matter. While we're on the subject, Saints haven't had a sponsor on the Academy kit since Cortese was rumoured to have swiftly renegotiated the one-year deal with aap3 for a second year, which suddenly didn't include shirt sponsorship of the academy kit on the adidas plain red kit, even though it had with the Umbro aap3 shirts.
  18. The9

    Shirt sponsor

    Newcastle also couldn't have the Newcastle Brown logo on their shirts when they played Metz (Ginola scored a screamer). Everton's kids' shirts have been blank since Chang took over. I recall Newport's kids' shirts didn't have Bet365 on them a couple of years ago, they had a local kids' charity on them instead. More a matter of avoiding faux parental outrage than anything, I think.
  19. I agree they're far better than other nights (even better than Sunday afternoon in many ways), but they're still evening games on a working day and that's the thing that stops plenty of our fans being able to attend. I guess there may be fewer "away" as they're back for the weekend, but it's still not great.
  20. The amazing thing for me, having been to Gunwharf a couple of times recently, is that at no point have they ever got anywhere with getting to use any of the massive navy sporting facility right near there which has enough land for about 3 Premier League sized grounds. I'm sure the logistics of buying ground from the military is a nightmare too, but if only they'd invested the money correctly when they had it...
  21. AFAIK this is pretty much standard practice in all companies. It's when they actually do owe tax (including massive amounts of unpaid NI contributions for staff PAYE) and then don't pay it because they've spent it on players that they're a disgrace.
  22. The interesting bit for me is that he's seeing "daily headlines" about clubs in financial trouble. With the exception of Bolton I don't think I've seen anything about any clubs being in trouble for ages, funnily enough coinciding with the FL implementing stringent financial controls as a result of the likes of Portsmouth absolutely taking the p155 with uncontrolled spending.
  23. They're getting us, Spurs and (Championship) Villa next season, amongst others. Seems to be working for them. UA's kit quality will be at least as good as adidas' as well, plus the rarity value means we're far more likely to have actual Saints designed stuff rather than a template you see on literally hundreds of teams. As for Hummel, they make awfully designed kits and are nowadays basically a teamwear supplier with one or two Scandinavian exceptions.
  24. The9

    Shirt sponsor

    Beer companies, betting companies etc. Absolutely true. Anything that U18s can't participate in, basically.
  25. The9

    Shirt sponsor

    I don't see the big deal about betting companies other than them being pretty tedious and faceless sponsors, and that I think we should be able to market ourselves better than that.
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