The9

I'd get a few quid on that Rangers treble and Europa League run then... decent odds. I'm confused why you're brought FM into this, especially as Rangers themselves did a hell of a job of proving themselves to not be a patch on their former selves last season, and if anything FM perpetuates the idea that big clubs will always be successful. We're talking about him having proven himself by the time Koeman's contract expires, July 2017. And no doubt the club will be keen to avoid a dead-end of a season so we might switch things round a few months before then if he's clearly not going to renew. It doesn't really leave time for Warburton to be in contention at the level I think we'll be looking. Someone with some success in a stats-based environment who's worked with a DoF/management team, firmly aligned beliefs and almost certainly extensive European experience, maybe someone with previous successes but not currently at the top of his game. Could be someone with new ideas underpinned by the kind of things we want to do. If anything Warburton showed he wasn't on board with the analytics stuff at Brentford and we're just a different hue of that. No idea who, it's likely to change a lot in the next 18 months anyway.

There's this on the St Mirren link: And some of the Singapore newspaper searches come up with pics of the competition advert. Unfortunately some of the results are offline and the paper is only visible in a Singapore-based Library.

But the fact there are loads more minnow teams that England don't play against isn't really relevant. There's at most 4 more games per qualification and the standard overall is much better than in the 70s or 80s (including for England of course). Plus Charlton played 90 minutes in all but 1 match for England. Also, Norway lost 4-0 at home to Scotland in 1979 (and 4-0 to Austria) and 4-0 to England in 1980, and 4-1 to Hungary in 1981. They regularly shipped 4 or more against others in the 60s and 70s. Though from a quick look at their results they were better than Finland and Iceland. http://www.fotball.no/fotballdata/Turnering/Terminliste/?tournamentId=39899 Oh and they lost to Luxembourg in 1973. And 9-0 to Netherlands.

Oh, when everyone's saying it and you have absolutely no basis for any "bias" claims, I think you kinda just have to accept you're in the minority.

Well the one Newcastle goal came from him passing the ball straight to the opposition, so no argument he was at fault there, but he definitely wasn't too far up the pitch for that one because he was in his own half with the entire game ahead of him, and it was Martina hanging around watching rather than getting back to defend which was why there was a free header at the end of it. The other one presumably was the awful corner we conceded from, and I'm not sure why that's his fault any more than anyone's else's *if* he's not one of the players we leave back to defend that. By "on a par with Shaw" you mean "crap" then.

Three of them aren't even games, so I'm not sure what your point is really?

I don't think he'd improve England, Scotland or Northern Ireland, let's put it that way.

Thanks to us being occasional match day carers for an ambulant friend of mine, the cost for three of us was £47. No way I'd have gone at £50 each. My overdraft is still recovering from Salzburg, Munich, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Arnhem, Aarhus and Herning to be honest.

Turkey were utter gash well into the 80s, FWIW. And Norway (hence all the Lady Diana, Maggie Thatcher stuff in 1982-ish). Basically the rubbish teams were just different ones, and if you aren't a top tier side, England at home are probably going to beat you and whoever their striker is will probably get a goal or two. So Rooney has done it via longevity (as the strike rate shows) rather than any kind of excellence - other than getting regularly picked at a time when the number of English players in the top English division is at an all time low.

We have a recent history of intelligent left backs.

Good job that's not the club's approach.

He won't be getting near Saints, his washing machine is too unreliable. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2007/nov/13/newsstory.realsociedad

Three year deal signed in 2014. Two years to go: http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/16062014-ronald-koeman-appointed-1645420.aspx

Successful due to an unprecedented level of player ability (more Prem players in that squad than for years), plus a core of U21s who'd played together for 5 years under Brian Flynn. Not to mention Bale.

So he won't be Koeman's replacement then? Or do you think that he's going to win the Scottish second tier (and, say the Scottish Cup) this season, and then win the Scottish Premiership, League Cup and SFA Cup with Rangers in 2016/17, as well as a superb Europa League run from the Cup qualification? Because that European success is probably the only thing that would put him on our radar for when Koeman leaves? And even then it would still look like a step backwards due to Koeman's playing experience (which I readily admit is not THAT big a deal in terms of managerial ability but does give him a gravitas to players that Warburton wouldn't have). Fair enough if the "in a few years" doesn't mean "after Koeman's contract is up", but that is what we're talking about here.

I'm assuming he had some minor damage to both knees that he'd been playing despite, and it wasn't causing any significant problem but could probably have done with being tidied up - but then something happened to require surgery in one, and the club decided he may as well get both done at the same time. We'd have sent him in for surgery the day after the Man City game at the end of last season if there was a significant known issue at the time to give him the longest recovery possible without missing matches, so it's likely that it was a summer incident (he could have been weight or balance training, they still do stuff in the summer now) and they must have chosen to take advantage of him being out of action to fix a minor issue in the other one.

As long as it's Xavi and not Javi.

But he has a terrible record as caretaker manager for Saints.

Not all of us, though in those circumstances I might. I did do it at Anfield last season when he was warming up in front of us, (though I drew the line at singing it in Arnhem during the match like some).

Nah, Targett's crossing has been sub-par on the occasions he even gets that far forward. They're usually overhit long or he just doesn't find a teammate with a low ball. Interesting to note that when the ball is on the right Pelle often makes his early run (and recently we've got better at shifting the ball to him early instead of checking inside and dribbling into trouble instead), but he never makes attacking runs diagonally to the near post towards the left wing. I assume that's because his right foot is stronger so he thinks he can angle the ball in more accurately from the near post (e.g. his deft jumping lob that Howard saved at Goodison last season, his near post goal from Mane's pass against Norwich), but it's too technical for his weaker foot to do the same when short of the near post on the left. Targett's crossing is not a patch on Tadic's for instance, which Koeman pretty much illustrated by bringing Tadic on in Midtjylland as we weren't getting anywhere despite Targett getting the time and space to cross plenty of times. Tadic's first couple of efforts were much better and provided more of a threat, but quickly after that Midtjylland closed off the options so Tadic got far less ball, even though they'd been happy for Targett to have it in the same position for most of the previous 20 minutes and defend his crosses. And we all know that lot did their homework on which threats to defend and which to allow. Somehow Targett is being criticised here for being "too far forward" as well as "not keen enough to get forward often enough". It can't be both!

More to the point, everyone got out and there were twice as many exits as there usually are to disembark all located away from the fire. If self-preservation was a factor you'd better believe no-one would have been getting their luggage, so what it implies is an organised, controlled exit during which there was plenty of time to decide whether to leave stuff behind or spend 5 seconds opening an overhead compartment and grabbing stuff from it. Had there been a time-restricted threat none of that stuff would have happened. I am amused by some of the comments too, people being appalled at "being barged" when trying to get off other planes in evacuations. What exactly are they expecting? Clarkson's apocryphal story about monkeys and hot floors springs to mind.

I'd like to see a statistical breakdown of this - I'm fairly sure there are now retrospective world rankings going back to the pre-War era and England matches are so well documented they're actually numbered nowadays, so knock yourself out.

Anyway, is it actually open yet? Bunch of stoojunts pitching up again soon who are going to want to try and hang flags out of the windows if my first experience of South Stoneham House on Wessex Lane prior to the 1991 Rugbish World Cup is anything to go by.

FWIW I only really like one thing about the fag butt, and it IS the crappy astroturf you can see on the right. Coming down Burgess Road, from a distance, it actually blends into the hillsides of Midanbury and beyond and pulls the place together with the backdrop. Which I suspect was designed to make the contrast with the big ugly stump and clashy bright boxes all around it even stronger. Even that bit is bloody horrible close up though when you can't see the hills behind, and it really can't have been that hard for them to have chosen some actual organic material for it either.

Is it anything to do with the "movement"? Personally I think clubs will charge what they can get away with, and their data will determine pricing - prices may also be coming down because the tv deal now dwarfs match day income and clubs are well aware if they can get more people in they are more likely to sell merchandise and hook people longer term.