The9

I played football that afternoon, kicked off at 2pm and eventually got to my grandparents' house just before the final whistle at The Dell. I heard the latest score on the radio in their lounge and jumped around like a maniac, in doing so accidentally smashing a load of cassette boxes I'd just put on the floor next to the stereo.

Like playing Chelsea or Liverpool away, for instance?

I always found "proper" pitches a lot more spongy than parks ones, and they've started adding artificial fibres which will change the feel, but the biggest problem I see is the overwatering leading to a lot of players slipping - Forster's was like that, whilst Rodriguez's was a freak with a slightly off one-footed landing forcing all of his bodyweight through a joint which gave out.

Also as I don't play any more and boots now change colourways basically every month (and I don't buy PES to edit them into it) there's not much point in me paying attention to who's wearing what any more. From memory, Wanyama wears Adidas Ace as does JWP, Fonte wears Nike Tiempo, Pelle wears Nike Magista, that's about all I can remember. Oh, and it doesn't really matter who wears which boots, there are loads of different types of soleplates and stud configurations for each brand and pros get them grafted onto their preferred boot upper and have a variety of options for stud configs depending on conditions, so even that's not simple.

It was interesting, but I'm surprised he hasn't been sued by Nike or Adidas for offering a half-baked opinion which alludes to the boot manufacturers being to blame for the injuries without anything resembling a supporting argument. My knee injury happened the same as his by the sound of it, two footer from behind half way up my leg scissoring the left knee with a twist on the way down, ruined my ligaments at the time but they were manageable within a couple of months; the smooth back of the knee which the ligament runs through permanently. The ball was at my left foot at the time, so it really was an awful tackle which clearly had intent to injure. We were 15 minutes in and I'd already gone past the guy a few times. Misdiagnosed at first- 9 years later I found out there was a PCL problem which they solved with some ligament shaving and fragment removal, and then 4 more years for them to spot the missing smooth cartilage area and offer microfracture (which they didn't perform when they got in there due to the large area missing). Mine at least had nothing to do with boots or soles or stud configurations, but it is usually having a planted leg which is forced to twist, as usually otherwise the leg doesn't have any resistance to cause the damage. As I haven't bought a new pair of boots in 5 years now, I can't tell you which soleplates might be a problem, but they've changed a lot in the past year with adidas rebranding their entire silos.

Frankly, anyone who even entered should have a look at themselves. Fair enough the girl who won was sent in by her mate to make her feel good, but there are better looking Saints fans within one seat of me.

Good point - I didn't actually see who he tried to chat to.

I'm still amused by his massive PR coup of putting a big picture of himself in the local paper to say "thanks" which managed to annoy everyone even more than the way he left in the first place. I found his desperate bid to find someone in Saints kit to say "hi" to to make himself feel important in the tunnel before kick off quite funny too, he was far too concerned with trying to pretend everything was fine with a club that gave him the most inauspicious leaving comment entirely as a result of his conduct, to have been in the right mindset to be have been effective. The best bit about it was that there was barely anyone he could be acknowledged by, Fonte was at the front of the line as captain and fairly sure of the remaining starting XI only Steven Davis was even here when he was. It showed nicely that we've moved on and got better without him and that he's irrelevant to our progress.

I'm fairly sure Juanmi is lined up to be our Mane replacement going forward, hasn't had much time yet because we've been incorporating other newcomers in positions where we have fewer options. I'll be surprised if he doesn't start on Wednesday. He's already shown excellent potential before we signed him and performed against the top sides in Europe for Malaga so I'm not worried that when he gets a run he'll adapt. Gaston, well if he plays at the level we all hoped he could (and showed for all of 10 minutes in the past 18 months on Sunday) then he might be worth persisting with. But we've all seen this repeatedly before so I'm not holding my breath. Could be Juanmi ends up Gastoning it, but he's got 3 years before we're sure and if nothing else the club will have learned from the Gaston mistakes.

I'd expect a team in the top half to beat a team in the bottom half at home, and a team in the top 4 to beat a team outside the top 4 at home, with the likelihood of it happening dependent on how much further down the table they are in relation to the other side - other than that, it's nowhere near as clean cut at that - based on recent league positions. Also, Liverpool and Spurs are the 5th and 6th largest clubs in the division behind the teams who came top 4, they just haven't come to grips with that fact yet.

Absolutely, but being a bigger club doesn't mean you necessarily have a better team or that you have a God-given right to win matches at any given point in time. Especially when you're below the club you're facing in the league and barely finished ahead of them the previous season as well. I'm looking forward to Carragher's face when Gary Neville tells him Man United "should be beating the likes of Liverpool" based on league position over the past 20 years...

Except that because they haven't actually got anything like as big a club as they used to have relatively to the top sides, they're pretty much in competition with the likes of us for league places, so claiming they "should" be winning games is based on a disparaging perception of Saints AS WELL as a deluded expectation on the behalf of certain scouse pundits.

With the exception of the numerous times Tadic, Pelle and Mane have already done that this season, of course.

They stated at the Fans' Forum that they're using cup games as a way of encouraging new fans to watch, so the pricing is to encourage a wider fan base (and therefore money-driven in the longer term, new fans spend more on merchandise than the regulars anyway).

No-one asked because the answer is bloody obvious - because the people who offered him a new contract think a lot more of him than you do.

And many of us would not. Alderweireld was a class apart immediately when he arrived, I've never seen anyone with the ability to react and clear a loose ball in a crowded box as him. Van Dijk is decent, and offers more going forward and slightly more at set pieces, but is not even close to the positioning or anticipation Toby had defensively - yet.

He's not even the best CB we've had in the past season and a half yet.

Because we'd expect to beat Villa and Bournemouth due to being significantly ahead of them in the League table. Whilst Liverpool are below us, and were barely above us last season.

Still wouldn't have mattered if we'd beaten Liverpool.

Incidentally, this is a terrible analogy, you've used the terms "fantastic" and "bad" in your clarification of what you're like at art, which to extend the analogy as you have, confirms you think a value judgement exists about the "goodness" or "badness" of being straight or gay. The whole point is that what people think is irrelevant, for there to be any point in making a "good"/"bad" judgement there has to be a difference in how sexuality is perceived. I'm sure Jason Donovan has an interesting perspective on this, what with suing The Face magazine back in the 90s for saying he was gay...

For what it's worth you're a lot more likely to get abuse from more for mis-using the word "enlighten(ed)" than for any degree of sexytime activity.

Lots of people will care and make a big deal about it, I won't be one of them. It's 2015 and I couldn't give a monkeys who does what to whom legally as long as they're good at playing football.

Unfortunately they're probably going to have to draw a top-half L1 side (home or away, seeing as their form at Fratton is gash at the moment) or a fellow L2 promotion-battler to get themselves knocked out in the FA Cup First Round this year. On the other hand, that puts them that little bit nearer drawing Saints in the third round than in the past couple of years when they've been so bad they haven't got close to playing us, and I cannot WAIT for that to happen, even if it is only a 1:63 chance when the 3rd Round draw is made. For those remotely interested, the First Round draw is 7pm tonight on BBC Two and Radio 5 Live. Any number up to 48 gives them a League opponent (they're #36), anything from 49-80 is a non-Leaguer. I'd quite like to see them lose to FC United of Manchester, the best-known fan-run team in the country - though Newport might give them a game on current form too after a "4-1 in their own back yard" actually worth gloating about over Bristol Rovers on Saturday. For local chaos, a draw against 66 Basingstoke, 75 Eastleigh, or 78 Havant & W'looville (or Cheltenham) would be the choice.

He hasn't been injured yet this season, has he? Just not good enough to get picked until we had two attacking players out.