The9

As for Newport's Fan Ownership... there's a hell of a lot more transparency about targets and fundraising than I remember with the PST - it will be interesting to see if any local businessmen buy a load of trust shares or if there's one of those "not really fan-owned" deals, because one of my old schoolmates used to be a sponsor and he seems to be selling "a" house on Facebook. Anyway, here's all the documentation. They need to raise £195k by the end of the month. http://www.ncafctrust.org/trust_news.php?news_link=share_launch FWIW they also have no infrastructure or academy facilities, and they're terrible at actually putting their goods in their online shop, but at least the cost of the ground is relatively cheap to maintain and split between 3 different clubs. I'm pretty much compelled to do my bit there despite logic and rationality... hmmm, wait a minute.

The "their rivals" I was referring to were the League 2 sides they have a massive advantage over. One of those are indeed likely to be Eastleigh next season. Assuming they don't sneak out of the League themselves. Even they're surely not deluded enough to think Saints aren't streets ahead of them in every department at the moment. Although I personally would enjoy it greatly if they missed out on promotion and Eastleigh didn't, knowing that Eastleigh will probably be better funded than them next season (financial fair play limitations aside).

Cardiff away (which was his 17th match for Saints) was the first one where I saw him make a save and not concede goals I thought he might have saved, and by that point it had become a thing that in 2013/14 he hadn't stopped anything much. Admittedly I have completely forgotten what he was like in his 11 matches in 2012/13. Either way he's got a lot better since then and continues to improve, and I see no problem with us giving him another deal, he's not that far from being a Prem starter and if the current setup continues he'll be good enough with more experience. I'm still expecting us to send him out on loan now the FL loan window is open though, especially as he's signed a new deal - that's practically a pre-cursor now.

To be fair I probably played football every day from the age of about 6 until I was 15 too, that's hardly a sign of dedication. I'm sure he's still got a chance of turning into a solid Prem player, but he's suffering in comparison with Bertrand at the moment and some people expect him to be as good as Bridge or Shaw just because he's come through the same system for some reason.

He's no Romeu or Wanyama, that's for sure. We always seem to look short when he's meant to be playing DM rather than AM.

As I've mentioned before, it doesn't make sense to pick another new player in a position we don't have to, at a time when we're already picking a lot of new players due to injury or player sales. Juanmi's time will come.

Juanmi over Martina on the bench, now I've remembered he exists. I don't think we'll start Juanmi in an away game first. As for JWP/Davis further back, we're going to have to do more than have one win at home against a promoted side with 10 men before I think that's a viable option away from home. We'll keep picking defensive sides until it's clearly not working any more. I think with our first choice players (especially Bertrand) we'll be a lot more solid than we have been, though Van Dijk/Romeu/Clasie's level will have a lot of effect on where we actually end up.

Schneiderlin was on the pitch for +0.93 goals PER GAME. Yoshida 0. You carry on thinking there's no correlation, but it's pretty obvious that when all our good players play we do well, and when crap ones play we don't.

Wow, positivity. FWIW I think we'll finish in the mass of mid-table outside the top 6 including Swansea, Stoke, Palace, Leicester, Everton and maybe Newcastle and Villa. Losing Schneiderlin will cost us upwards of 10 points this season and it'll take time for the replacements to hit the same levels, though injury-free we're much nearer 5th than 18th.

I think all positive noises from Koeman around Wanyama, plus Mane's late return and Yoshida's long haul, means we'll go with this: -------Stekelenburg------------ Cedric Fonte Van Dijk Targett -----Wanyama Romeu--------- Rodriguez --Davis-----Tadic-- ------------Pelle---------------- Subs: GK, Martina, Caulker, Yoshida, Ward-Prowse, Long, Mane That rotates a fair few of our longer-haul players who played international matches. Assumptions are: Wanyama plays if fit; Van Dijk starts; We play not to concede away from home - but 4-2-3-1 provides that with 2 DMs so we don't need the back 5; We need an attacking front 4 but we are still away and Davis is the most defensive AM we have; Mane may be tired - so Rodriguez gives that attacking presence; Yoshida may be tired so Targett continues (though personally I'd play Yoshida at LB if he's ok). Bit harsh on JWP especially as he scored for U21s midweek and must be flying. Might even start Long at his old club instead of Rodriguez but we don't start with Long often.

Yoshida was on the pitch for the same number of goals scored as conceded last season. Our goal difference over the whole season was +21. Please do not attempt to tell me his presence "didn't seem to affect us too badly".

Dunno about them any more (have had all of them but never actually cancelled them). I do know VirginMedia charged for cancelling back in 2012. We moved into a place which already had VirginMedia, I even told them it would stop me re-subscribing later but they still charged for it. And then due to the discount they were still by far the cheapest so ended up signing up with them again.

Bit biased here, we pay staff rates for the XL package so it's about £13 a month for TV, Broadband and a load of cable channels. That comes with all ESPN and BT Sport channels. On top of that we're getting Sky Sports through VirginMedia which is something like £37 which is ridiculous but I can't be bothered faffing about to get live football online any more and there are various other programmes series linked which I don't fancy having to hunt down myself.

Well, I'm sorry to pointlessly bump, but this was 13th least recent thread and showing worrying signs of falling off the front page altogether. Can we see this as a sign that: 1) People aren't on here as much generally 2) It's not as much fun when they're winning a bit more often 3) Without fake sheiks and arms dealers it's a bit dull waiting for incremental screw-ups 4) They've finally achieved vague competence with a massive advantage over their rivals after 6 years of hilarious self-harming 5) I've decided not to dump loads of stuff about Newport County following the same ownership model (and me joining their trust) on here 6) Usually when it goes this quiet something ridiculous happens.

Keegan is about 15 years too late, and even that's being polite to his ability to get Fulham to the Prem with Fayed's money. Great motivator at one point, but "the bloom is off the rose" and more on that one. Would be an absolutely awful appointment, we may as well get Ron Atkinson... or Alan Shearer... in.

I didn't realise we were submitting it to the board for their perusal to begin with.

I think that's making quite a jump. Adkins was a keeper, but spent years managing before he got a look in at a Prem side. No idea about Watson's all-round outfield coaching ability or suitability for managing a whole squad as opposed to specialist relationships with a smaller group, but I don't think "he's there at the moment" is as important as "he's definitely got the skillset and profile".

I'm fairly sure their field is barren.

People still watch stuff on BBC1?

The one at Chelsea was rubbish though.

I think we have to retain some premise of continuity or there's no point discussing it. As for "Rangers are bigger than Swansea", there are a ton of arguments there, but money and prestige are going to be the two main motivators and they've probably got one of those each. "Newco" have a big ground and claim a lot of history, but they're currently the team who weren't as good as Hearts and Hibs in the second tier last year and a year behind schedule with their comeback, plus there's no guarantee they'll have the money to match Celtic without repeating an administration.

A poor second to Belgium. And I said ENGLAND.

But only 2 matches max, every 2 years, so at most 12 matches (and Rooney would be injured or suspended for a few of those) would be against a "minnow" regarded as worse than the teams around when Charlton played. Even with that taken into consideration it's speculation about the relative abilities of the weak teams in the 60s anyway. Look at Zaire in the 74 World Cup - would you see a team like that play in the World Cup now? (And yes I know England didn't play them, it's illustrative about how the bad teams were much worse, more naive and easier to score against than they are now - had England played the Cook Islands or American Samoa repeatedly then fair enough, it's a big skew even nowadays). Whichever way, never mind everything around the difficulty, longevity, character or likeability of the people considered, it's still a record of fact.

Lots of people all nicely spaced apart on the runway, shows plenty of time. No cramming or panic. Agreed they CAN create hazards, but clearly this was a relaxed "emergency", some of them were probably ready to get off it before the fire even caught. In fact the abc video here shows the staff telling people to remain seated when the fire starts, it was totally controlled and there was clearly time to grab a bag: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34206347

Awkward choice of 4 countries which didn't actually exist 30 years ago there, but I think the whole standard of opposition thing is overplayed anyway, overall much of the relative standard is similar, England are worse overall in relation to others compared to either Charlton or Lineker's time which can be judged by their lack of tournament successes. Doesn't mean I'm not going to argue that Norway weren't cack in the 60s to early 80s though.