The9

So, by my reckoning, we'd sold around 340 aways for Midtjylland by 9:02am on Thursday morning (that's basically the number sold to people with 11 or more aways plus Vitesse). Oh, hang on, I also know someone who bought on the second day at 9:00am too, so we can also find out approximately how many were sold to the first batch.

It certainly hasn't sold out as quickly as I expected, even knowing there were still tickets at 8:59am on Vitesse and 10+ aways day last week I was still twitchy. There wouldn't have been that many being sold each day after the first day, purely because the increments of people with ONLY 11 but not 12, and ONLY 10 but not 11, etc. are pretty small numbers. Come to think of it, my away tickets for other matches have a nominal "seat number" (and West Brom away was pretty low numbers this morning at 9:00am), I could look to see if Midtjylland had a "seat number" and tell you how many they'd sold by 9am on Thursday to get an idea of numbers with 11+ and Vitesse... BRB

From a "right people" perspective, having insisted on it for the smallest allocation we're likely to get, they've given themselves some flexibility for later rounds because if they insist on Vitesse +Midtjylland for Group priority (or at least for the first group game) then they're protecting the (theoretically) "most deserving" people. If people want to buy tickets and don't go, the only way to avoid that is to show travel info (Aberdeen did that) or collect pre-match. As an aside, bearing in mind that with the current allocation rules no-one who goes to Herning won't already have been to Arnhem, they can use the category of Vit+Midt for the first batch of people (and guarantee a ticket for up to 550), then Vitesse (didn't go to Herning) is the second tier of availability, and on from there to ST+aways for the rest. Unless we somehow draw Pot 4's small team with a 10,000 ground and smaller allocation in the opening group game away, there shouldn't be an issue structuring the allocations from now on.

Ah, I get you now. If we were meant to be playing the 2 DMs, one of them wasn't there.

But having seen that for Arnhem, they've clearly stopped that from happening again by adding the ID collection rules.

The 1 was the important bit, whether it was 4-1-3-2 or 4-1-4-1. Everything happened behind our bank of midfielders in the holes in front of the back 4 or where Wanyama wasn't.

For most of last season that ball wouldn't have got within 10 yards of the area to begin with.

We need 2 DMs when we have a weaker back 4, in order to protect them. When we have a full strength back 4 (I mean 2014 full strength as opposed to Cedric/Clyne, Targett/Bertrand and Yoshida/PleaseSomeone) we can usually get away with the 1 DM at home to bottom half sides. At the moment we don't have that luxury.

I'd have Stekelenburg in there, and will point out against that we don't play 4-3-3 and never have. So --------Stekelenburg Cedric Fonte UnYoshida Bertrand ------Wanyama Romeu -----Mane Davis Rodriguez ------------Pelle for all the Davis-bashing he's still the only player with some defensive qualities who can play in the CM position and drops back to help out (at which point it's a 4-3-2-1... ) - Mane in this side drifts all over which is a bit of a risk to our defence down the right, whilst Rodriguez is often going to be up with Pelle - though I'd probably pick Long away from home as he works back more.

Still Europa League. About the only EL option I wouldn't take is EL and relegation versus FA Cup and not relegation.

I'm fine with it, provided the name isn't outright stupid. I'd prefer it to be the Liebherr Stadium with their money, but not sure that's a link the family wants to make.

Aside from the online store and the two club shops in Southampton, the JD Sports deal sells Saints shirts in Gatwick (South terminal only), Oxford Street in London, and 3 outlets not that far from Southampton (vaguely recall them to be Southampton JD, Eastleigh JD and possibly Whiteley?). Our shirt revenue is WAY below where it should be, will be interested to see if changing brand (as the rumours are Under Armour) makes any difference to the retail side, we've had the "club shop only" model since Lowe's time and we're pretty much the only team to be so restrictive. Can't be blase about additional revenue opportunities when FFP and the amount we can spend on player wages is more or less what will determine our league position.

Davis didn't play in Morgan's position though, we hardly used a DM pairing in the first half, I was watching it very closely and it was basically Wanyama with Davis in front of him and Mane well up the field. It was nearer a 4-1-4-1 (with Tadic/Long/Davis as the 3 across the middle and Mane the support striker) but there was never a 2 DM shield - that improved hugely when Romeu came in and just sat alongside Wanyama - but of course then we're looking at a more sound defensive line up but with half as long to score a goal as we usually have and the opposition 2 up with 10 behind the ball, which is much more difficult to score than just doing that for the full 90.

It's not really the matches, it's the lack of recovery time between matches so you're starting the next game still a little creaky from the previous one, and also the impact that midweek travel has on the team's ability to prepare not just in watching video but also repetition on the pitch, for upcoming opponents.

Agree that the Targett-bashing has been unfair, he's been in a difficult situation, left exposed by the midfield and (apparently) playing despite illness. I will say that the main reason we didn't take him off was because we didn't have a defensive replacement on the bench though. You can say what you like about Martina only having been with the club 2 days and being alongside Stephens in Salzburg, but he was SO bad at left back I'm fairly sure he won't be risked there again, even though he's doing ok at right back when given a run. Had Caulker been fit I suspect he'd have come into the middle with Yoshida going left. Also not ideal, but again, a side-effect of our desire for sustainability.

I like that you've only just realised, I'm not even playing and that was the first thing I thought...

It's not wrong if that's how they want to do it, they obviously have their reasons. It was "vague", but not so vague that it wasn't entirely obvious that Play Off Round aways would give priority to people who went to Arnhem (or at least spent £10 to make the club think they did). Also, you're saying people with a lot of aways don't have priority over 6 aways and Vitesse, but they do... provided they went to Vitesse, which was said at the time would be the criteria for priority. This is literally only a problem for people who had priority for Vitesse, chose not to use it or spend the £10 to retain that priority (which they could get back by shifting the ticket onto someone who WAS going), and now want to go to a more restricted match. It is affecting so few people that it is not really a consideration, no-one needs to make regulations that cover that kind of exception.

But only the normal travelling support without the appropriate number of aways as defined in the rules laid out by the club. You can't make rules for those marginal cases - for instance I could have missed out due to going to Stoke away on the day and not having it against my number, but them's the rules. Also, I still have a back up in the home end, if anyone wants to pay me £20 for it.

Well they do have the same owner, so why not? Brentford fans might be interested, it's cheap and relatively near and their owner will want to build links - PLUS they'll have a minimum sized area of the ground, there may as well be people in it as not - Saints fans are in blocks 44 and 45 already. so they've only got 1/3 of the usual away allocation.

Definitely the Europa. By a long long way. Much more prestigious.

If they're complaining about players who are worse than the ones that made the tactics work then it's valid. It's completely pointless because we're dealing with the parameters of success driven by our sustainability and a set of generally longer term successful processes rather than any kind of short-termist (eg single result) performance measure, but it's still valid. The long view of what Saints have done and will continue to do is that we will sell players to make money to buy cheaper replacements, we'll use a defensive system which focuses on preventing conceding because it's cheaper to get players good at that, and we'll prioritise Europe because it gives us the ability to recruit better players. Sometimes in and around that process we get blips like not being able to sign our number one defensive target, and being left with a less strong team now and then, and that will affect the results - but it's all part of a calculated risk. Don't think the club hasn't already made decisions about what we're doing with playing loads of top 6 sides immediately after Europa League Group dates for instance... We'll be alright with that model barring an outlying number of critically-timed injuries or suspensions, there's really no point in stressing about it.

Cedric is absolutely good enough.

This is the reality of sustainability, and we're adopting the most rational method of getting the most points we can within those parameters. I can moan all I like about Yoshida not being good enough but Koeman already knows it. We went for a more attacking team in the last two matches precisely because we weren't strong enough at the back to stop the other team scoring, I think we have to accept that having seen Romeu shore things up a lot on Saturday that we should just stick to defending like hell and picking up goals when we can, because we don't have the players to unlock sides going forward AND defend. Having said that, we're also not strong enough to do that defending (as the second half still showed), but hopefully that new CB will plug that gap. It doesn't help when we're left with Yoshida against Lukaku and we can remember what happened with that in 2012/13, before Koeman was here. Second half (which I know we lost 1-0) was much better and the 2 DM shield needs to remain our focus, as the 1 DM and 2 floating midfielders hasn't provided enough defensive capability either out wide or in front of the back 4.

The tickets are the cheap bit. On the bright side, so are the hotels and flights if everyone else is daft enough to wait for the matches to come close before booking. I have every intention of getting flights and hotels in 3 different cities booked before the flight back from Aarhus (not ideal given that we'll be basically going through security at the airport when they make the draw).

For it to go to 4 or 3 aways they'll have to offer them to people who didn't go to Vitesse, because there's no-one with that many aways who even got offered Vitesse tickets (and no matter which of their mates weren't eligible and went, they won't be against their customer number). So by my reckoning, it goes "6 aways+Vitesse", then "10+ aways no Vitesse", then back down to "5+ aways no Vitesse", THEN fewer than that - assuming there are any left. They might also want to take ST only out of the equation at some point, and may want to give members priority over non members too. On the bright side, now I've got Vitesse and Midtjylland aways I'm gonna be pretty high up the pecking order for group games if we get that far.