The9

There was about a minute and a half of "distraction" talk in a 15 minute video.

FWIW a 33 year old striker with 3 months left on their contract in England, who hasn't scored or played in the past 4 seasons and is at a side which averages ZERO POINTS PER MATCH, has spent the entire time before this year below the 4th tier, who has never played international football, is worth 50,000 Euros.

This is all kinds of amazing, however. Though there are a few restrictions - it seems to assume that the player is currently playing at the top level of one of the top 5 nations in UEFA even though it allows for previous seasons to be below the 4th tier, and the player has to be between 18 and 33 with a current contract (though I suppose if they don't have a contract there can't be a transfer fee so technically they have no value).

It's not my fault you didn't pay attention at school - maybe if you had you'd have been able to actually make the point?

It does seem to be utterly arbitrary - value for money can only be judged retrospectively, and even then there will be a subjective criteria over the nuances involved.

If you're judging Schneiderlin's contribution based on the number of goals he scores rather than chances he prevents, you're really in no position to be criticising their "sums".

Are they matchworn rather than replicas? The badge looks a bit "clean" for a matchworn?

And the Spain ones:

LOL @ the concept that if someone gets injured no-one else is allowed to replace them in the team. Demented logic.

A hint to next year's adidas keeper's style from the leaked Germany keeper kit:

Seeing as one's not going to get time to do anything, and the other one probably won't get near the team because he's been trying to leave, this kind of sums up your paranoia.

Oh and FWIW Saints lost to Universidad Automata of Mexico in the semis, the Mexicans played St Mirren (who had replaced Dundee Utd) in the Cup Final. There were 4 teams Saints beat Perth Azzurri 4-1 St Mirren 0-0 Automata Saints 0-0 St Mirren Automata 0-0 Perth Saints 0-1 Automata St Mirren 2-1 Perth (in front of 564 fans) http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19870525-1.2.44.12.aspx?q=southampton+epson&page=5&sort=relevance&token=epson%2csouthampton&sessionid=97bf2ec2ef694582a89a32e997d1921e Saints being Saints conceded a last minute goal whilst only needing a draw to miss out on the final, I can't find any record of who won between St Mirren and Automata in the Final!

Vaguely amused to see they actually cancelled a different competition as a result of the poor turnout for the Epson Cup. http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19870608-1.2.44.18.aspx?q=southampton+epson&page=2&sort=relevance&token=epson%2csouthampton&sessionid=8ab9a3fa5c0c4feca03161fafb163bef

It's as much as anything football clubs taking the p155 because they can exploit employees because of the stardom around them and nature of football loyalty - ask the analysts if they think they're well paid for the hours and contribution they make towards the club's success?

Coquelin? Good enough that they decided not to buy Schneiderlin...

Seems neither relevant nor amusing.

Hmmm, this Singapore Newspaper clipping from 21 May 1987 suggests you were right the first time... http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19870521-1.2.49.4.aspx

ORLY? So you have the shirt now then..?

They managed to win the World Cup in 2006 despite not getting out of a group with Sweden, Bulgaria and Denmark in Euro 2004. They're always second rate... except when they're winning the World Cup!

Ah but also when you didn't get substituted (well, apart from that one time in 1970 )...

I had assumed she didn't respond well to his axe blow to her neck.

Mane and Lallana's roles are similar in the sense that they create space for others by drawing players to them. Lallana because defences knew they needed to close him down and prevent him having space or time, Mane because his style often shows the ball to opponents so they go to close him down. Mane creates more directly because his pace gets him away from markers, Lallana usually just passed to someone unmarked nearby when he'd drawn in the defenders. Very different ball retention (and finishing) skills though.

Same reason as Schneiderlin did, I'm guessing - just that the Schneiderlin issue arose a month earlier so didn't affect any league matches - we actually did very well to keep him considering there were 3-4 weeks to the transfer deadline when that happened last year. Wanyama's probably been given 2-3 weeks to sort his head out, and that'll be over by the time he's due to return. More importantly he didn't have a summer of building his expectation of leaving like Schneiderlin did, so shouldn't take as long to get over it. I'm not having this "he's been rubbish" stuff though. He was superb in pre-season and has looked ok when partnered with someone defensive in midfield (as opposed to holding on his own or with S Davis). Tactically he was hung out to dry by the lack of a defensive midfield partner in a few games, and was still good in the second half v Everton when Romeu came on. Both of them were decent at Watford too. So except when he's been our only defensive midfielder (and sometimes even then - Arnhem home), he's been good.

You mean "has one bad match in 10" like he has so far?

Charlton getting the chance to play at least 2 matches a year against Wales and Northern Ireland can't have hurt him much either.