The9

Have you considered not buying it?

Also, the reason we had more passes on Saturday was because we were comfortably better than West Brom for large swathes of the match and as a result had the ball most of the time, not because we were passing it around for the sake of it (Swansea-style, you might say). We've played in quite a few matches where we've had a lot of attacking possession without creating chances, it's because of when we choose to play certain passes rather than our ability to do so - for example, Mane to Pelle = goal against Norwich, but Pelle makes that run at least 10 times a match and Mane often cuts inside and runs across the box or looks for a different pass instead of passing to Pelle, either because the pass isn't on, or because he's just decided to take another option. Mane's run creates options in its own right but once Mane stops running, we have a couple of seconds at most of defensive disorganisation before they regroup and any benefit which comes from the dribble is lost. A sideways pass at that point undoes all of the positive action preceding it - and the same goes for that kind of passing on "quick breaks", of which Saints scored from precisely zero last season.

FWIW I've now seen Saints criticised for being too direct (Midtjylland), and not direct enough (any game we haven't scored in). In 10 matches.

And Martina not reacting to the transition and tracking back quickly enough.

I haven't even looked at the draw yet, no idea who's in any of the groups, have no intention of watching any of it and could not give a flying one about it.

Here's a bunch of stuff from Opta: Shot on target Any goal attempt that: a) Goes into the net b) Would have gone into the net but for being stopped by a goalkeeper's save c) Would have gone into the net but for being stopped by a defender who is the last man. Shot off target Any goal attempt where the ball is going wide of the target, misses the goal or hits the woodwork. Goal Assist The final pass or pass-cum-shot leading to the recipient of the ball scoring a goal. Second Assist/Key Pass A pass/cross that is instrumental in creating a goal-scoring opportunity, for example a corner or free-kick to a player who then assists an attempt, a chance-creating through ball or cross into a dangerous position. Key Pass The final pass or pass-cum-shot leading to the recipient of the ball having an attempt at goal without scoring. Chances Created Assists plus Key passes.

Which part of it are you referring to? Passes leading to shots (on or off target) and passes leading to "chances" are not really the same thing. I've actually got the OPTA definitions on my PC somewhere, should be able to clarify.

Lol, no, Smalling has had the best DM in the league in front of him.

That's also what I was thinking earlier...

I quite like the Toluca purple and red ones and even the blue Spurs hooped one. Though it will be interesting to see if they produce fatty-friendly fits for fans, because the match worn Under Armour shirts are skin-tight and no mistake. Fairly sure I've seen some lardo Spurs fans wearing them so that should be ok. Not sure why those uuuuuuuuugly Spain shirts should get any love, and that Germany grey thing is different but pretty horrendous colours even if the material looks nice. You won't see many adidas teamwear catalogues with non-professionals in the pics either...

I'll be interested to see if we play a more attacking front 4 to try and give Morgan something to think about (if selected). We've seen Rodriguez through the middle already, can't see why Mane/Rodriguez/Tadic would be a problem if Romeu/Wanyama sit. Could also Yoshida-up the LB position, though Targett was fine on Saturday and he actually came on for Cedric when it became obvious that Cedric wasn't able to get forward anyway so we may as well use a more defensive player.

I'm quite pleased we're giving him the chance to develop in this newer DM/CM role when you consider how many games it took Schneiderlin to discover his best role and the sort of timescale Ward-Prowse has had so far to do the same. I think Romeu is a solid DM and it looks to me like we're trying to develop JWP to play alongside him when Wanyama goes, as well as giving us some tactical options other than Davis, and also developing Romeu by challenging him to claim his place.

Won't happen due to the nature of our selling policy. If last year's Champions League outsiders managed to put in 5 insipid away performances at the end of the season despite the possibility of getting into Europe's Premier club competition, I can only imagine what this year's lot are going to be like with nothing but upper mid-table honours to play for and a pending transfer to not get injured for.

Interesting stat and non-stat for you, Davis has played 9 matches compared to JWP's 5 and usually plays in a more advanced role, thereby putting him in a much better area of the pitch for chance creation.

That's a random bunch o'questions, especially that volume monitor one! Done.

I think our downfall from an attacking perspective is the disjoint between the Defensive 6 to the Attacking 4 - evidently Ward-Prowse (or Davis) shuttling box to box is an attempt to link the two groups, but even when breaking we tend not to be direct when we get into the opposition half and we don't really have someone other than Mane who can do something unexpected, so play remains turgid and predictable around the box, and Midtjylland, er, teams just keep clearing our crosses. The difference in top 6 and us last season was creativity against established defences, whether Coutinho whacking one in from 30 yards or Hazard buzzing around an arc 25 yards from goal probing for a weakness. Simple fact is we can't buy those players, but also that in Mane we've got the closest thing we're going to get to that creative key *****il we sell him).

Like in our excellent 2-2 opening match draw with bottom-placed Newcastle, who have still only scored those 2 goals all season? I can't help but think we should stick to what works for us - until it actually does stop working (or preferably until we pro-actively identify it's going to stop working, and change at that point instead). We've had a few nils against, I'm fine with that being the basis of our success. It's when we've only got that and it doesn't work we have a problem. For as long as we're keeping clean sheets we're ahead of the curve regarding 3 points.

It's serious in a knuckle-draggers are bad for society way, but not Nutjob Thread Serious, like a "£138m debt, ignoring PAYE and VAT and writing it off" kinda serious. FWIW Newport's Trust's accounts due diligence also showed a bit of a worrying hole where certain payments of that nature were meant to be, but have implied that one's down to the Lottery winner not being very good or particularly bothered about the club's accounting since he decided to leave, allegedly.

UA teamwear catalogue 2016: featuring the Fanshawe/Falcons design: http://shoplts.com/under-armour-2016-catalog-spring-summer/ It is called the Maestro, and looks pretty decent in some colours, but good luck incoprorating red and white VERTICAL stripes into that.

The "Southampton Way" has already, since the term was coined, meant standing it up at the back stick to the big man, drawing a blue line under it management positivity and tactical pragmatism, a high pressing free-flowing attacking swarm, and soul-crushing defensive excellence. It also meant "trying really hard to cover up a weakened defence" for the first few weeks of this season. It is basically just "doing things how Saints do things".

We don't play possession football and haven't since Koeman arrived. We play defensive football and use our other players to try and score. The high press went with Pochettino (hardly a surprise with him being a disciple of Bielsa) but the remaining players did use it occasionally last season more as a legacy than anything - but the core of that side has gone and the coach of that style has gone. Also "scoring first" is only key if the other team doesn't score second. Goals from through balls declining is probably down to teams getting more time to sit in due to all the propaganda possession going on in front of them. It's always been more difficult to unlock an organised defence, than a disorganised one reacting to a threat. Hence the importance of transitions in modern football, teams take a few moments to re-organise and that's when they make poor decisions.

Just realised the Toluca purple, and the Toluca red, are the same design as the Spurs blue away (albeit the Spurs one has hoops, but the indented chevron yoke bit at the top is the same). The also all have the weird filled in V-neck/round neck collar. So that's a "style" of sorts. The white Toluca v-neck and the Spurs home with the diagonal (and third), and Cruz Azul orange are also the same style, relatively plain shirts with a large cuff. The orange one actually doesn't look like a large cuff as it has 3 different colours including the main orange on it, but you can see by the seam placement. You can only really look at the seams, shape of the material and collar, because they can print and colour pretty much what they like - eg the diagonal on the Spurs shirt, and the gradation effect on the purple spurs cuffs. Also the same style are both AZ shirts and the Colo Colo white, and orange are the same style as each other, a flash on the shoulder and a very narrow contrast cuff. The Sao Paulo striped shirt seems to be the same, but without the flash contrast - it has the same shaped collar, cuff and shoulder seams though. There also appears to be another style with the plain round neck (Cruz Azul white, and Cruz Azul blue). The Cruz Azul navy may well be a keeper shirt, if I could see the arms I'd know from the existence of the "ladder" pattern on the inside. Can't work out which the Colo Colo black is because the collar detail can't be seen, but it's either the round neck or the filled-in V. The disintegrating black line is the same motif as the home shirt but the side flashes aren't on any other shirt here. Fanshawe/Falcons is probably teamwear from a US catalog(ue) though I haven't found it yet, Telford and Queens Park appear to be the same collar and also look like (UK) teamwear.

Relatively reliably informed the deals are already done.

Because our approach of defending primarily with at least 6 defensive players has been proven to bring us a record Premier League points total, and it'll take it not looking like it's going to do that again for us to want to change it. We're playing the percentages and the long game, they're not in the business of making knee-jerk changes to philosophy - plus we're only as boring this season as we were last, and we won two games by 5+ goals in last season's league campaign.

We were singing "we support our local team" at the plastic fans whilst watching the Man U v Liverpool match in the pub up the road from The Hawthorns on Saturday evening... Bloody good job I moved down here...