The9

Sixty-five Aberdeen fans are there.

For those getting a bit antsy, Kairat v Aberdeen is on Premier Sport (Virgin 551) right now, which I assume is the channel that will become BT Sport Europe on August 1st (though they are claiming it'll be added). Kairat are a bit tasty, have Tymoschuk playing for them, and are wearing Vitesse Arnhem colours. I am very glad we didn't have to get to Kazakhstan by 3:45pm today, I had meetings yesterday.

"Etymology". Ok, that's enough of that. What's there to discuss, really? It's a list of the players we have, we're nowhere near the limit of players and we've got enough homegrowns so it's not an issue in the Prem.

If anything he's a poor man's version of Saints Forever me.

Agree with the bit in bold, haven't heard anything of the sort re: the rest and I know a fair few Everton fans. Now taking the p155 out of the bloke who signed him, fair game.

This sounds like bo11ocks, 28_F. Of those that left, I'd expect Lambert to be the least disruptive. Also, West Ham didn't tap him up, everything I've heard says we offered him to them and he didn't want to go.

Le Tiss is a legend too, I wouldn't want him playing for us now, and saying that isn't disrespectful either.

They randomise the draw to determine who plays at home first, it's not dependent on seeding.

Not sure we were even "relegation candidates" when Adkins left.

He'll be a liability by now, was creaking around the place even in 2013. I can't see him leaving Liverpool unless someone offers him a daft wage hike, to be honest.

No need to apologise, I just wanted an excuse to post the exterior of the Ibis in Bucharest, it's not a frequently called-for photo.

Not only were they given out, I won a signed shirt for using it and a mate won a free hospitality day. They've cancelled the original ones with the ugly Saints bands now and sent out generic Barclaycard ones, which I'm not using but I have got the chip on me, so they've won me over (at least until my bank sends my new card next month, I still have 2012 Olympic stuff on the current one).

Yeah, there's a bunch of assumptions there. 1) There's no automatic assumption that he's not going to be a starter, just like Bertrand was. We have no idea, at the moment he's probably a first choice CB (of 2) competing with Yoshida. Also, last year plenty of people who should know better were claiming Targett would start. There is a slight difference in that there are 2 CB positions and only one LB, but that's about it. So not much difference there. 2) Caulker and Bertrand were around the same level of "known" on signing. Caulker is 23, Bertrand 25 (but was 24 when we signed him) Caulker has 188 appearances right now, and Bertrand had around 180 appearances before signing for Saints. They were at almost exactly the same stage of their development - a minor difference is Bertrand had around 35 top flight games to Caulker's 82, but that's mainly compensated for by Bertrand being higher profile from his first match for Chelsea. Again, in terms of similarities there are significant parallels, certainly not "completely different situations" - in fact more parallels than not.

Ibis, IIRC. Seeing as I was there too and that's where the coaches went from...

I also remember how much trouble people had spelling Steaua in 2003.

Wasn't joking about the rain: Irony: With police outriders: Just getting dark in said coach/car park: Match time:

Yup, in the dark, in the coach park, which was basically full of holes up to 5 ft deep. I managed to get a Steaua scarf from the 1988 European Cup Final in exchange for five american dollars which caused the guy to go nearly apoplectic when I gave it to him through the segregation fence - we'd agreed $3 but it meant a lot more to him than me. Got soaked head to toe by a bus ploughing through a pothole around the corner from the hotel in Bucharest, motorbike outriders on the coach to the ground, our fans being on extra good behaviour because there was a fit Romanian policewoman, someone buying a round of pizzas for the hotel bar full of about 30 people, drinks prices being "put up" to an appalling 50p a pint from 40p, didn't stop raining for the 5 days I was there, all that stuff. Apparently there was a match going on too.

Already done at Salzburg and Feyenoord, glad I did now! Considered uploading pics, but... nah!

You give 99% of our fanbase too much credit. I for one have never even heard of them. I'm sure one or two might have.

Interesting to see that Vitesse will be an "attacking side" - obviously they'll be young with all the loanees and sales, hopefully we can withstand any early onslaught from annoying teenage dribbling types. I wonder whether their Georgian captain centre back Kashir will be trying to get a move to St Mary's? http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/20150729-the-inside-track-vitesse-southampton-2580018.aspx

I'll be interested to see if we have a tweaked home shirt with a panel (we don't need to for the qualifiers, only the Group stage onwards), and if the numbers used are Premier League font or a generic adidas one, which would be an interesting change. We could wear the green though. Technically we also don't need to have names on shirts but I'm sure we will. As for my (player's stock) UEFA Cup shirt, I think I'll leave it in the garage with the other 50-odd Saints shirts and give a second outing to the home shirt, unless the club specifically says we're in green for some reason before I leave home today. Also, 2003 shirts were a lot baggier than current ones, so...

Well, that's false memory for you!

Quite. Except he's just wrong.

Synonyms don't have to have the exact same meaning, only some overlapping meaning. Which would be as I've indicated - some rotas are rosters. Not all rosters are rotas. PS Clue: he's american and that's what americans call lists of players. I also find the term "depth chart" very useful, as there's no equivalent term in British English.

That's because it's CURRENT, currently they're in the process of building back up to being horrendously run, a cynic might claim they need to learn where they can cheat first. They'd be in the top 3 of all-time terribly run clubs, there's still only one club that's managed to go into administration whilst in the Prem and therefore whilst actually receiving Premier League tv money (as opposed to just parachute payments) for a start, and the 3 relegations in 4 seasons takes some beating. Even the late 70s/early 80s meltdowns at Wolves and Bristol City where they plummeted weren't on the same massive scale of over-expenditure and for relative pittances. No-one else has written off anything like the same amount of debt as they did, either. Let's also not forget that no-one really notices what happens in League Two.