The9

It isn't much of a reach to say that we'd have done better with Alderweireld in defence than Yoshida, or Cork in midfielder instead of Alderweireld. I completely subscribe to this view, hindsight being what it is and all.

That definitely is not going to happen unless Stekelenburg also gets a season ending injury.

I still think it's interesting to note that nothing Lungs said in the thing he's still getting hammered for was actually not true, the only bit that was wrong he clearly noted was guesswork even at the time. Which obviously was because his contact at the club left with Cortese so everything after that time was speculation. I can't do anything about his comment about Forster being a League One keeper at best, though, he's at worst a top half Championship one like Scott Carson.

I don't suppose anyone has heard about the plans for collection yet, I seem to recall them hinting at multiple locations as opposed to the ar5e-pain that would be "everyone to the stadium for 5pm" or something. I'd hope if they are going to do collection only in one place it was it town not at the ground and starting early to avoid 600 people queueing, but who knows? Says the man who has to hang on til Friday thanks to paying on the day at Stoke...

Let's get this right, half of the Skate first team was marginally better than Derby's reserves. I've been saying they'd be up in three seasons for 2 and a half years now...

Ask them a question in Danish and if they start shouting in response... Saints fans.

They wouldn't let it lie.

11,573. Massive club. What did we get in the first round of the League Cup last season? Silly me. The year before? No? What about in 2012? Never mind.

Also, they appear to have changed their badge AGAIN even compared to last season. Either that or Sondico have done it for them. I almost pity the idiots with skate badge leg tattoos. Maybe not.

It's on Sky Sports 1. I'm watching to see if they're still as cack as they were for the last 2 years before I decide which of the stupidly-short odds I'm going to lay. I'd quite like them to stumble into the 3rd Round, for obvious reasons. Still no grief for Baird - amazing how blinkered they are not to even recognise a player who played in the cup final for us. I know all of theirs, probably. Admittedly that's only from checking the CVAs to see who they still owed money for (and to). Forgot about John Utaka though.

Good grief, they're actually singing "one nil on your big day out" at fans of a team two divisions higher than them with a ground with twice the capacity, the delusion knows no bounds.

I liked the half time linkman saying something like "we've had a lot of comments about it, we really are very sorry, it really is completely out of our control"... They won't be back. Another thing about that ground redevelopment plan - where's the broadcast portakabin going to go if they put seats on the area where the crumbling corner bit is? And is it REALLY possible to demolish the North Upper without any kind of impact on the North Lower? As for "there doesn't appear to be two divisions between them" - well no, it's a reserve team against half a reserve team. The locals also seem to have not noticed Derby's captain is a scummer. And dear Paul Merson, dropping into space and hitting shots from 25 yards off target is neither impressive nor "intelligent for a player at this level". It might be intelligent compared to you, however.

Wait a minute, you've had a roof AND seats AND moved the portakabin with the telly people in it. Fussy bugger.

Completely agree - still not up to Prem standard but has made massive improvements - I expect he'll go on loan to a Championship side when Forster is fit.

I think he's been absolutely superb. Hasn't put a foot or hand wrong, and the goals he's conceded no keeper could have done anything with - deflected looping cross with pace on it against Newcastle and a header from 6 yards against a stationary defender which he couldn't have got out to in time and wouldn't have been able to stop at that speed. Improvement on Forster, dare I say it?

Sooo, I've watched two videos of Romeu (two more than I usually do) and he looks like he'll do. God help us if he ever plays a pass forwards though.

Wasn't just me that noticed that then?

Having seen his ability to ping quick passes through the midfield lines against Feyenoord, and the way he was bullied by teenage Chelsea Hair Bear Bunch wannabes against Vitesse, I think a more advanced role where he picks passes isn't entirely out of the question, with the opportunity for him to sit deeper in his previous role when necessary. Then again we might just have 3 DMs rotating into the 2 DM slots and use Mane and one other somewhere across the midfield behind Pelle, at which point I can start another argument about us not using 4-3-3.

Two. And a 100% success rate to within 9%.

There is a slightly contradictory conclusion here: http://thegameisafoot.weebly.com/sport-articles/premiership-statistics-part-1-scoring-goals-or-keeping-clean-sheets But on re-reading, what it's basically saying is that because all the teams in the top half are already good at keeping clean sheets, scoring is more important to distinguish yourself from the other teams who can defend, whilst in the bottom half teams leak a lot of goals so its more beneficial to stop doing that. Our finishing position of 7th would bear that out, had it not been for our run of games in which we conceded 2 goals wrecking a finishing position of at least 5th.

A clean sheet in a match where we had scored 2 goals would have got us 3 points. No-one anywhere was claiming there were more than 3 points. To anyone else wishing to continue this argument, I recommend this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0670922242 Or you could just read this: http://footballmythbusters.mvrray.com/2015/03/04/a-clean-sheet-vs-1-goal/

The gaping hole in your argument here is Caulker for Alderweireld, even if we ignore the "can't play two instead of Schneiderlin" problem and the lag between buying players and them becoming what we hope they can be. We got very lucky last season with the speed of integration even considering the detail we go to in recruitment sifting.

I shall update people on the availability of our tickets in the home end in Denmark following tomorrow (and then Friday's) ticket bids. Suffice to say 3 of us are currently in the home end at worst and those tickets will become available (to appropriate people) if we all get the away end ones. I have a horrible suspicion that after tomorrow, only I won't have a ticket.

"You're our second favourite team..." as we were singing outside the ground having beaten them three times in a season the last time we played them.

I didn't realise the membership cards were also smartcards that could be used for match entry? Suppose it makes more sense than printing paper ones for everyone who isn't a ST holder. It also means the ST book waving from L1 can be replaced by "paper ticket shaming" for people who don't "EVEN" have membership, if that's your thing.