The9

"Yes he did, and yes he has".

I was told there were only "about 30" around the time they actually used them. McCarthy was on the bench, they all had two shirts that day, and there are a few blanks that have been sold too, which suggests 40 might be a bit more accurate. 16 outfielders x2 shirts = 32, plus a few blanks in different sizes to print up (bear in mind we had McCarthy, Hesketh, Isgrove and Targett on the bench for this match and Gardos and Reed started so there was every chance other U21s might have been involved!). Eighty seems way too many, but I suppose they might have made up another batch just in case they were needed for another match.

Seems reasonable, we'll see if Leicester fall off a cliff like we did in April.

If history is the main consideration with the majority of Pompey fans how many times have Saints Ladies won trophies compared to Pompey Ladies? No comparison I suggest The Southampton Women's team are level on points with Solent Uni and Fleet Town, and below Chesham United, and three teams in their division have been deducted points for failing to get a team out, which should give you some idea of the level they're at. They also have pretty much nothing to do with the club.

Also Saints' fault. I can comfortably say I've never given the "Golden Gloves" a second thought in 43 years of football supporting.

Yeah, but it was still the number of shots they had to face due to not having both Wanyama and Schneiderlin available at the same time that was the problem as much as Forster being out. The Hull game 11 April was the last time we fielded Schneiderlin and Wanyama together, Forster missed 2 wins home to Burnley and Hull and a defeat at Everton before that (if you count the game he was injured early in), which didn't impact on our form much. After Schneiderlin's injury our best result by far was beating Villa 6-1 at home, and we drew home to Spurs 2-2, but we lost at Stoke 2-1, at Sunderland 2-1, at Leicester 2-0 and at Man City 2-0. To be honest the only way to really check this is to look at number of shots faced for the keepers, and then shot percentage saved, but even so we've been down this road before and the difficulty of the shot faced is still the key factor which makes it very difficult to compare.

Pff, it's not like I actually identified the grounds they used!

Lots more than I paid for it, which you might or might not be able to find out from the site I bought it from. Prob best PM if you're interested.

You don't have to agree with me, you just need to find an amount of money I'm prepared to part with it for.

The one thing I will say about Pochettino is that by getting squad depth and finding kids who can do the job he might be able to manage challenging in two competitions - his players are being rotated very cleverly, mostly in blocks so they retain the understanding they've built up but also get a rest which is essential with his preferred Bielsa-esque pressing style, and unlike when he was at Saints, with Spurs he has good enough players that the quality doesn't drop off much.

Sat in a box about 3 yards from me. I'll sell but I'm only accepting stupid offers.

I bet there are fewer of the grey keeper's shirt that goes with it, even though they wore it in more than one match - especially as there are MUVI and veho versions as well as the unsponsored ones I have. 80 is about twice the number I expected them to have made.

Yes, but we didn't. I actually said that in the thing you responded to.

"Van Hoof" = "Huth"? Surely not.

The ground in the background of the team sheets is at least 2 tiers all around and isn't St Mary's, the ground from the aerial pic next to the water only appears to have a roof which half covers the seats and is smaller than St Mary's. However, the ground in the live match footage is very St Mary's-esque even down to the red walls mid-Chapel end - though they've painted the concrete entrance areas into the bowl white for the ground-level entrances.

Not in 2013/14 we weren't. We came 8th, and were 8th for about 3 months before the end of the season. We were nowhere near the top 4 team Cortese claimed we were - and we definitely weren't there in 2012/13 when we finished bottom half either. It took 2014's "meltdown", Koeman coming in and the re-investment of the money from selling the Cortese Cultists allied to a sensible recruitment policy to get us to the position where we're able to consider challenging the top 4. Last season showed what happens when your principles are sound, the infrastructure has good resilience built in, and it underpins everything you do. And even then we dropped off for a month near the end of the season almost inexplicably and ended up only 7th. You've only got to look at Gaston and Osvaldo for how off-piste the former Chairman could go compared to our widely-known recruitment principles to see how his ego was never going to work with the communal goals which became established (ironically of course he did help put that infrastructure in place). The margins are too slim to go wasting money on two players who don't contribute much over a season. As for "aiming for Champions League", well that's fine as a target now, when we've got players who can come in without an obvious drop off in ability, it wasn't viable under Cortese (or in the 6 months after he left) - but you always try and aim as high as you can possibly get, the difference is whether it's likely to be achievable.

Markus had been dead for more than a year by then, this would have been Cortese selling the players on the club's imagined future success and in doing so sowing the seeds of them all leaving when the supposed foundation of it left, followed by the manager, (and then half the team). You only have to look at the Season Ticket video with the illustration of the updated ground to see the kind of baseless fantasy he was peddling to anyone who'd listen and wanted to believe.

I'd sell, he's not been a patch on last season and we've shown we can win without him. Too much uncertainty and inconsistency around his performances and availability and he's mostly only put in last season's performances against teams who might buy him.

Don't forget the Chelsea fans booing their own side when they were playing Bolton in the last game of 1997/8 because they wanted to see Everton go down, not Bolton. Plus the Skates at West Brom made no difference to us getting relegated, we started above West Brom and because we lost we would have gone down even if West Brom had lost, but if we'd won we'd have stayed up irrespective. Had we drawn it would have been the difference as we'd have been 18th on 33 points with them safe on 34, but we didn't.

And Crossley Place where the old Dell car park used to be, not that he was ever a Saints player.

A month isn't particularly "short notice" - We just had a game moved at 6 days' notice a fortnight ago which wasn't even a consideration before the draw was made 2 weeks before that. THAT was short notice (and it mostly affected West Ham fans). No-one with any sense commits to any plans around a football match which don't take tv or other fixtures and possible changes into consideration. If there's any doubt, we tend to book Friday and Sunday evening travel and get an hotel. We haven't yet been stung by a Monday night game, but if we are, it'll be due to lack of foresight and planning on my part, because everyone knows there's a chance games will get moved. e.g. I haven't booked travel for Leicester yet even though I'm definitely going, as there's every chance it'll be on tv.

I used to work in Titchfield (Segensworth Road) and that was more Skate than Saints in the 2002-5 period when the clubs were as near as they could be to on an even footing.

Fortunately I've never had to choose. I've only got a season ticket to one of them and it's Saints, but I have missed two Saints home games this season to tick off a few League 2 grounds (twice in total). If they ever played each other I'd just go in the away end wherever it was played. I've also had 11 times more Saints Season Tickets than Newport ones, and I've also played against Newport County which was... weird. Probably worth bearing in mind that I win £600 if Newport get relegated this season, but I'm also a Newport Supporter's Trust shareholder. I'm an enigma wrapped up in a paradox, me.

I haven't said anything about it helping us, I just like the idea that someone else will win it other than sides with shedloads more cash than the others. Hell, we're looking back to Blackburn winning it with something approaching fondness nowadays. They were the worst thing to happen to English football in terms of money at the time, but now it looks like genius timing and a miracle it ever happened.

Wolves and Millwall are the only places I've ever thought were remotely intimidating, a 10 year old should be fine anywhere though. Even Wolves is only because you come out in an enclosed space next to the away fans.