The9

This one?: I don't, but the pic may help.

Steve is always off to Fecktardistan and San Banano watching England win 2-0, he has far more pointless European trips than me.

Danny Fox managed 14 in that first season back up, it's hardly a badge of honour. Gaston has made 23 starts for us in over 3 years.

Fairly sure he'd be walking for free in January if only someone else wanted to pay him.

In which case you should be well-versed in 1950s culture.

I think we established that in the third post, probably.

Guh. Leeds didn't fail when they had money, they were massively successful by making the CL semi-finals when they had money. It was precisely the kind of overspending Cortese looked like he was trying to implement that brought Leeds down - precisely because it was unsustainable - which is the counter to the stability that Katharina has introduced, and exactly what Cortese was lacking. Which "young, untried players" are these that we signed? For every Clyne and Rodriguez (hardly unknowns as well-known young talented Championship players) there was a Ramirez and an Osvaldo, and as we haven't signed any overpriced Italian-based players since he left* I'm fairly sure we can work out who the influence was there. The academy was a no-brainer - it had existing infrastructure and reputation. Cortese's attitude to it was certainly to try and improve it, but he did so by spending money that hadn't been sanctioned, wasted money on numerous changes which would have been much cheaper had they been planned up front, and put the club in debt, rather than grow it sustainably. So despite his good intentions, he pretty much ballsed up the execution of that too. *that's an argument with Batman right there.

He's not wrong. I think there's a fair chance with their new gegenpress clearly going into effect from their run-distance stats against Spurs, that we're going to be under pressure on the ball and will have to knock a few into old gel-head on Sunday. Liverpool seem to be struggling to convert that effort into goals though, and if we use Wanyama/Romeu to strengthen our defensive resolve we also have the offer of countering through Mane, who thankfully won't have had a trip to Africa and back this week. Not quite sure how Liverpool are going to implement pressing yet in the longer term, but if it's got the weaknesses of Pochettino's model having pace on the counter could be significant. This is also another of the post-Europe matches where missing out on the Europa League can only help us with planning and recovery compared to Liverpool's need to focus on Rubin Kazan until today.

Suspect it will take time travel for Saints to ever play Newport again (also not sure I ever want that to happen).

I agree that "so many are bad at it", and he deserves credit for not being as bad as lots of others at running a football team, but they had a clean slate, low expectations, lots of money, and for all the competence there was a pile of ego-driven, costly club-harming incompetence. And no-one's writing it off, but it's still all in context of him basically bailing at the first idea that he wasn't going to be able to spend excessively.

I can't believe you actually think this. They had lots of money, took over a shell of a club, and started winning games by buying better players than the rest of the league could afford. Getting out of L1 should have been a piece of pee for anyone in that context; pretty much anyone throwing that kind of money at it could have got us into the Championship. Whoever took over was going to be "defining the departments", and are you seriously trying to say that we might have prioritised, say, the club shop over the first team? Again, ANYONE would have prioritised the first team and the academy with the existing facilities. In addition, EVERYONE'S vision is to win football matches, and practically nothing of Cortese's "vision" aside from generally being more successful than a L1 team (or at least what he hinted at, stadium expansion and Champions League) was achieved. Getting out of the Championship at the first attempt was more impressive, but by then the "winning mentality" from outspending L1 was the norm and we had a core of players who went on to be successful in the Premier League when we were still in the Championship - which is shrewd purchasing to add to the likes of Lallana, Schneiderlin (and K Davis, who was excellent in the Championship), but again only the kind of basic competence so many others are lacking in football. So basically Cortese's success came down to "having more money than the competition". Shame his claims of CL and hints at expansion weren't supported by his management. We sure as hell weren't planning on being sustainable, and we voted against FFP because he assumed he'd always be able to spend enough to improve.

Oh I don't know, I'm rabid about the apostrophes in "ideas" and "its".

I didn't mention any of them... Stockport is the obvious one: 87th to 5th in Conf North putting them in 121st, a drop of 34 places which puts them level with Coventry on the sh1i1t list. Never been reformed, still the exact same entity. Less clear cut... Darlington 68th to the Northern League via a reformation Hereford, (78th to Midland League) also via reformation both listed as "N/A", as well as Wimbledon and Aldershot(!!!), but apparently being reformed doesn't exclude Halifax (down 24 to the Conference) or Newport (down 30 as they were relatively decent 1979-86 and gash at the moment). So basically what they've said is that "you don't count any more if you're below the Conference". I dare say they'd argue that it takes too long to calculate once you get into regional divisions, but if they're going to do it, do it properly, and they're not even consistent with the teams they have listed as some have reformed and others are excluded for having done so. So in short, FL half-asses something. I'm shocked. Also of note, I know more about lower league 1980s football than Steve Grant. I knew there was a niche there somewhere.

It matters because the players ahead of you are a measure of your manager's assessment of your ability. If you're sat on the bench at a L2 club you're likely to be worse than if you're sat on the bench at a Premier League club. If they want him to play, I know a L2 club in south Wales who'd have him, guarantee he'd play every match.

Played out wide because we played Seager through the middle - given that Seager is a goal poacher and more of a finisher in the box it's natural that the others get shunted out wide to play as AMs. Personally I think Seager's got no chance at Saints because he doesn't suit the system - though I think he's a good striker, he's not the kind of striker we want. Gallagher is more of an all-rounder but probably not as good a finisher. Then again Seager isn't scoring many from 25 yards into the top corner. FWIW I think McQueen is the one who shows the most "Pelle-style" skills, even playing wide on the left - so maybe we should try him through the middle for a while and see how he does.

Just like there's no asterisks to say "7th place Southampton were the only team to play against Daniel Sturridge twice last season" or "+2 goals for Kevin Friend not giving penalties".

Not "all", I fully believe Strachan felt we could keep it tight, outlast them and beat them in extra time. We sure as hell weren't going to outscore them in a free-flowing open game, but we were fitter than anyone. It was always going to be much more difficult for us to stop Henry and Pires and the like than for them to stop Ormerod and Beattie and we had to try and reduce the game to something where we could win. The 6-1 a couple of weeks before showed what happened when we DIDN'T concentrate on just neutralising them.

Oh God, this 4-3-3 bo11ocks again. 4 attacking players, including the AM. 4-2-3-1. STILL. All the time.

I don't think there's any animosity, people just look at him in hindsight (and some at the time) as a bit of a d1ck. Which is not to say what he did was easy, or not to be admired in places. But we've been just as successful without him and without the egomania, pettiness, fan-unfriendliness and terrible PR. Well, a different type of terrible PR, thanks to Ralph.

We made it in 2003 as well, still got relegated 2 seasons later.

It's 6 teams including Spurs and Liverpool. This possible CL place loss has been news for about 2 years now - if Italy do well and England don't it could happen as soon as the season after next - the points are calculated on a 5 year rolling basis, weighted in favour of recent results. Man U's 2011 final appearance being degraded in terms of points and being replaced by nothing resembling a semi-final appearance since Chelsea won it in 2012, with Juve making last year's final, as well as England not picking up anything past a QF in the Europa League recently, are all factors. Bear in mind also that Saints were all of an early Kevin Friend penalty decision off coming 5th last season. But there's a EL place for winning the League Cup and FA Cup, which is one of the reasons we're focusing on those this season.

The most important thing about that table for them is that it only includes sides which 1) still exist and 2) are still in the Football League*. There are plenty of post 1985 teams who were in the League and now don't exist, they should be glad they got away with that much. *hang on, why are Tranmere there?

It's a pretty difficult thing to make an impression as a defender if everything around you is a mess - you might try and work harder and chase things down and end up getting yourself out of position and then you're no better off than if you keep your position and everyone else screws up around you.

Probably wasn't him at fault then. He was wearing #22: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34512986

The9 wins £600 if his home town team get relegated this season (and only loses the £50 he staked 12 months before if they don't), call it a really bloody obvious insurance bet. Having said that, I was very pleased with the result, an own goal by a Skate reject Bean which was going wide, and gigantic hoof from the keeper flicked on for the second (which went through the right back position, is that where McCarthy was playing?). John Sheridan being new manager is having an impact, but possibly not as much as the Welsh young player of the year they have on loan, or his Cardiff City U21 colleague who is playing centre-back. If they stay up I'll be delighted, I have also just bought shares in their Fans' Trust so I'm a part owner.