The9

As were most of Forster's.

I didn't claim to have memorised it - took all of a minute to go to Soccerbase and look at the league table and fixtures. Saves all the guff of people misremembering stuff.

It needs be about maximising global market share, and the only way to do that is to win stuff and get people interested in buying your stuff all over the world, and selling ads and sponsorship to businesses based on global awareness. People who go to games are basically insignificant in terms of revenue for Prem clubs as of this summer compared to the tv deal, and they're already maxing out merchandise from the people who actually go to games - and it's dwarfed by the money from TV revenue. I suspect that's why the Cups were meant to be the focus this year. Look at the "Match Day" compared to "Broadcasting" figures from 2014. It was an even bigger gap last year as we got more for finishing higher - and next season that Broadcasting amount will be significantly more. Even Man U with their massive capacity only get around £100m from Match Day revenue, and whilst their Broadcasting revenue is only a bit more than ours (£70m to at least £107m-ish) based on being on tv more and a bit more prize money for league position, they get nearly £200m from commercial revenue on top which is WAY more than Saints get (under £8m in 2014, though it went up in 2015). It will cost a hell of a lot in Stadium development to get Match Day revenue up to Man U levels, and while we can't expect to be a global brand on the level of Man U, it's easier to make inroads to selling stuff to 7 billion people, and building a marque that businesses want to advertise with, than it is to sell tickets and merch to the number of people who can fit in a ground.

Football is always more subject to "upset" results than other major sports, but nevertheless there's an interesting shift in the "ability to effort" ratio being embodied by Chelsea and Leicester this season. From the early 2000s until this season it seemed it didn't matter how bad the "top 6" sides were, they always kicked on and turned things around and finished near the top - and as we showed last season, it didn't matter how good the "non top 6" sides were, they usually didn't have the squad depth to maintain the position over 38 matches. Still not quite sure how they've got the improvement out of numerous Prem-journeymen alongside the lightning in a bottle moments from the likes of Vardy and Mahrez. Ranieri has to take a lot of credit - still another third of the season left though.

Not going to happen, especially now the Prem money is worth more than the CL and the top clubs have tied up the FFP rules so they're all but guaranteed to be able to spend more than everyone else.

Fortunately for them they'll also be getting shedloads more money from the new tv deal like the rest of the Prem, which will engulf the additional CL money. The CL income as a proportion of their total revenue will be far lower than in any year up until now, and they'd have to go some to massively overspend with wages not yet adjusted to match the new levels of money available. I still don't think they'll finish top 5 anyway.

This is true, it can't happen before 2017/18 and requires Italian sides to do better than English ones, but the Chelsea CL win and the Man U Final appearance will drop off the calculations soon.

We didn't make the play-offs, and couldn't make the play-offs, finishing 7 points off them. Meanwhile, Southend were already relegated, also finishing 7 points away from safety. They'd only won twice since December 28th so I doubt they had travelled in expectation. No pressure for either side - which probably explains why I can't remember a single thing about it. We'd blown it against Gillingham the week before (which I do remember), though it was the 0-0 with Oldham at home 2 matches before which took us out of the "likely" category. Huddersfield got the last play-off place despite losing 2 and drawing one of their last 3, and as I said, we were a further 7 behind that.

Big incentive for Pellegrini to balls up the next 4 months then.

I wonder if his first 6 months are at the same rate as the rest of his deal or if there's a massive step up? Biggest deal of this window is Chelsea selling Ramires for £25m, 5½ years in the Prem, Champions League winner, Premier League winner, Europa League winner, 2 time FA Cup winner. Of course you'd barely know it had happened because it doesn't suit Sky's agenda to mention players leaving...

Absolute nonsense. Ticket prices are increasing well above inflation and most of the added TV revenue goes to the players' wages. The only "benefit" to fans is that Premier League clubs can outbid all but a few foreign clubs for good players which means the standard of players (and theoretically football) on show should be higher - but that's very much a subjective criterion anyway and as we saw in the Championship in 2011/12 and League One before it, there are plenty of people who'd rather a competitive league with lower wages and less tv-faffery.

Only if the club made a special exception. The T&Cs re: ST sell-back are very clear, only if the game is a sell out and the amount you get back is a credit against next year's ST. Which frankly makes it near as damn it pointless. Back to the OP, I'm pleased with the fixture move to 5:30pm, I'm very displeased about the complete lack of notice or regard for fan arrangements, I can only imagine how mental the Hammers fans are about it.

Saints fans used to sing You'll Never Walk Alone quite a lot, fairly sure they sang it at Wembley in 1976. But back then most sets of fans all sang the same songs, before some became more associated with one club more than the others. As for Stoke and Spurs (there's one more but they escape me at the moment), they just look daft singing what is clearly a Saints song.

I beg to differ re: the Orient winner (which apparently was a dodgy-as-hell-penalty), but bigger picture and all that.

I do wonder that we don't do enough on here to dispel the Portsmyths. There's a lot of p155-taking but occasionally we should probably dissect a few with some facts, just to prove how comically ill-informed they are. The "0p in the £" CVA is indeed hilarious. To be clear to the idiots, there was no CVA because Markus bought the club and paid all the creditors their outstanding debts in full, so there was no need for a CVA, a reduced sum agreement, to be in place. The debt was £30m in total, with £24m of it being the cost of the stadium owed to Aviva and the £5m debt to Barclays (which when it was cut to £4m forced the club into administration). Plus a couple of million of other late and unpaid costs (e.g. staff and player wages). Paid in full.

I don't remember our defence not leaving him exposed for the ones he let in. His worst "mistake" was probably for Willian's free kick and that one was completely understandable. He dropped a couple around the Man City game too, but nothing led to a goal. If we'd stopped giving opposing strikers all the time and space they needed to score past him (particularly against Liverpool in the League Cup), he'd have had a lot more chance of making saves.

I think Stekelenburg's perspective on his role now Forster is fit may have changed since the Dutch failed to qualify for the Euros - if he was 2nd choice on loan and there was a squad place to play for I think he'd have pulled a Caulker and been relocated - possibly also to Liverpool! Now he's got no international incentive he might be happy to sit on the bench when he's fit - but then he's still got his next contract to think about as I believe his Fulham contract runs out in the summer.

You're not the only one. If Stekelenburg had faced 2 shots in 3 matches he'd have kept 3 clean sheets too.

It's a fair point, I once got a penalty whilst running out of the box away from the goal towards the touchline with the ball when the defender clipped my heels. I just lay there face down laughing with my toes just about still in the area, totally needless foul.

Fairly sure Strachan also had one at Saints, I seem to recall Lowe refusing to give him a longer deal after the successes of 2003 was what caused him to decide to go (before Lowe forced his hand due to exactly the kind of lame duck concerns that raised this point to begin with).

All indications are that "Charlie Austin's red and white, he hates Pompey" was the main one coming out of OT.

Obviously having Wanyama trying and Austin added makes a difference.

Since I bought it for me too - and I've gone back to it this week after about 3 weeks with no PS4 activity at all.

The death of crossing is partially linked to the rise of possession football. 23% success means 77% failure. Thing is, if you stop doing anything completely you just make yourselves predictable - you have to cross occasionally to keep defenders thinking about the possibility. There's also not much detail of the kind of crosses - crappy floaters are pointless, quick balls in behind defenders who are facing their own goal are much more successful.

Hardly. It's vaguely comical to me how he's getting any credit. He's a decent keeper but he's had nothing to do. He has faced two shots on target in 3 matches, and one of those was right at him from 25 yards from Rooney. It's half formation and half being the games Wanyama's decided to turn up for (though he didn't play in one of them, and Romeu is always at the races). At least he's completely sorted his kicking after the couple of dodgy ones on his first game back. No coincidence that yesterday saw us with 7 outfield defenders on the pitch when we scored with Romeu having replaced Clasie. We know what we're good at underneath the changes, and we have a striker who probably takes more chances than we've ever had before (except maybe Kevin Phillips).