The9

Thing is, if it wasn't for their incessant self-aggrandising about being fan-owned, most people would say finding a legit buyer and keeping a 10% fan share was probably a decent idea for them - as long as they were fussy about who they sold to for once (and assuming there would ever be a buyer). Having seen the Newport fans' rapid and impressive ability to pick up the reins immediately when they saw the club could be in financial trouble with their millionaire owner leaving (announced he was leaving in February, club taken over pending FL approval in September, community share funding from Fans' Trust confirmed end of September) you wonder why it took the Skates plummeting 3 divisions, losing everything except the ground, accepting a further 3-ish owners even after the rot set in, and then AND ONLY THEN, when there were absolutely no other viable options open to them, actually doing something to fundraise and take ownership of the club. I can accept that fund-raising a takeover probably wasn't viable for a while, but even then they took years to put something together and they nearly went completely out of business - they had the opportunity to be fan owned as a Championship club but no-one bothered to do anything and they put together another admin and ignored a CVA in the meantime. They're fan-owned because they have no assets other than an ancient, expensive to run, ground that they can't replace, and nowhere to move to even if there was someone willing to pay for it, so no-one will buy them. They *should* be actively encouraging someone to take over who might actually put something into the infrastructure, but you just know they won't stand for the on-pitch stuff coming first. In unrelated news, Newport have just replaced a temporary stand IN THE AWAY END with a permanent structure at a ground they only have 1/3 shares in with 2 rugby clubs. Infrastructure. The first fans to use it? Portsmouth next weekend.

Apart from the factual error of Vin Dijk's "debut" being the week before against West Brom it actually says some interesting stuff about the Tadic/Mane on-pitch relationship along with the obvious stuff.

So no December 2015 news until 12 October then.

Just as you don't think about the tv schedulers. Anyway... "Boxing Day is a secular holiday that is traditionally celebrated on 26 December, the day after Christmas Day. 26 December is also St. Stephen's Day, a religious holiday. In the UK, Boxing Day is a bank holiday. If Boxing Day falls on a Saturday, the following Monday is given as a substitute bank holiday. On the occasion when Christmas Day is on a Saturday and 26 December on a Sunday, the following Monday, 27 December, is the substitute bank holiday for Boxing Day and Tuesday, 28 December, the substitute bank holiday for Christmas Day." IIRC the conclusion was that Saturday 26th was Boxing Day but Sunday 26th wasn't because Boxing Day couldn't be on a Sunday. Anyway, if we could all just refer to 26th and 28th that'll be just great. Though it would be nice to know which day the trains aren't running.

Yup.

If by "Saint's triumph" you mean "the triumph belongs to a Saint", (one individual Saint) you are right, if not, the triumph belongs to Saints would be "Saints' triumph" or if you like "Saints's triumph" (but I just think that looks ugly nowadays and it is rarely used), because Saints as a single unit referring to the football club is singular. It's not even that easy to explain because triumph is a noun and a verb and "the Saints triumph" can refer to the triumph belonging to Saints (the Saints' triumph) or the act of triumphing (The Saints triumph) as used in newspaper headlines which also changes where the apostrophe is. So to clarify, I'm using cat instead: "The Saint's cat" is a cat belonging to an individual Saint. "The Saints' cat" is a cat belonging to the football club. " The Saints " is a football club, which is one group of Saints.

Nice bit re: Boxing Day argument, but the Barnet game is 26th and I meant getting back to Southampton for the Arsenal match. I'm already going to Newport v Plymouth on 28th as I'm up there for post-Christmas saying hello to indigenous family members and checking out the redevelopment of town centre duties.

Surely your C64 calculations would have Liverpool and Everton battling it out and Chelsea in the 2nd Division? Assuming you started running the programme in 1986, which would be a realistic runtime.

I don't know why you haven't done it already?

Up there with the deluded mentals at Newcastle who wanted Keegan back, and even after that the utterly mindblowing "Shearer in".

I am delighted with this as it means I can go to Barnet v Newport at 3pm on definitely-not-Boxing-Day. I just mentioned this to the wife, who said "will be fun to go to both", which led to me proposing again via text.

Just... NO!

Or nearly their entire career in Lambert's case.

Everybody's doing this kind of thing, not just us. There are different elements though - player wellbeing performance and fitness, tactical and positional analysis, recruitment metrics and finding the right players. We're pretty good at most of it, though the tactical analytics are stagnating to a degree because clubs are keeping their data to themselves and they don't have enough of the right people to analyse it or share with the kind of professionals who can interpret the data well.

He conceded a goal, of course he'd be disappointed. That doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Also, I didn't claim to be any kind of authority but I do know how brief the decision making time is for a ball that's hammered in from 20 yards away from experience. Anyone at any level can hammer a ball, just like anyone can run fast.

Actively pandering to his retirement tour certainly didn't help.

Rodgers' biggest mistake was letting himself agree to a load of transfers that didn't give him any flexibility or depth to keep playing his preferred system. And then changing his preferred system all the time. Does anyone still play 4-4-2?

Jesus, I think my wife would have a fit if she saw him shaking his thing in tight trousers and a sequinned shirt slashed to the waist.

It was absolutely whipped it, rapidly - it also seemed to veer instead of drop at the key moment when it passed the onrushing players. Also, speaking as someone who's played in goal a few times, you only have a split second even to read a whipped in ball from a CORNER if it's executed well, never mind a free-kick from nearer. It wasn't going to be headed, but by the time you know that it's already past the penalty spot and you have the amount of time it takes a ball to travel 12 yards at about 70mph to react to that. And again, it was the hardest to save of the four free kicks shown on those links above, they were all Willian goals from similar placed free-kicks, and it was the only one that went in off the post - if he'd not come to punch for the one from close range, or not tracked the bouncing one THEN we'd have a complaint.

Bit harsh on Vardy who is still 3 years younger than Lambert was when he made his Prem debut, and has potentially three times the tenure in the top division as a regular first choice than Lambert had in his two (well, 1 and a half really) years at the top in 2012/13 and 2013/14. No-one's taken a punt on Austin yet so he's only got the 2 years in the Prem too, but even though he's in the Championship at the moment he's a much better comparison so far.

1 and 3 are the same goal, but 1 or 3, plus 2 and 4 show nicely the other outcomes that Stekelenburg had to bear in mind - and 5 (which is Saturday's FK past Stekelenburg) is by far the best execution.

We're third in shots allowed - 9.6 per game behind the Manchester clubs (City 9.1 United 9.3). Bournemouth are 4th with 9.9 shots allowed per game and then a big drop off to Arsenal on 11.3.

The reason he didn't get near Willian's free kick is because it was hit with so much pace. He didn't have time to adjust. Basically he had to position himself to defend the possibility of a shot, a cross and any change in direction on the ball from any of the players in front of him, and couldn't put himself in the ideal position to stop where the shot went without completely compromising his ability to deal with any of the other options. Goalkeeping is about rapid decision-making and percentages, he left the unlikely top corner outcome open to give him a chance of dealing with a much more likely cross to the far post. Plus I still think Falcao attacking the ball (which was far too high for him) in an offside position was also enough of a distraction as the ball came in.

Er, 3 away matches as opposed to a home match.

And how does that make what he says not meaningless?