The9

Yeah, I'm not really liking the edging towards stockpiling English/Welsh players to meet quotas thing - though he was good enough to start the first game of the season at Anfield last August.

Very similar situations. Both English defenders who'd been highly touted then had a drop off in form, both signed to fill gaps from us losing important key players.

I am happy to admit I thought Bertrand was guaranteed toilet with a crappy attitude and wouldn't get better than he was for Villa the season before. Having seen how he's done for us (and how much we're going to miss him for the next month), I'm more than happy to give Caulker, who is certainly no worse than Bertrand was for Villa, the benefit of the doubt - at least until I've seen how he fits the side. For all his flaws and obvious mistakes, Yoshida is still mostly competent for a mid-to-bottom half Prem side, and Caulker is, at worst, competition for him.

Random but seems appropriate here - nearly got run over by a Dutch car weaving (lost) around the back streets of central Winchester yesterday near my office, I'd like to think it was football related.

"Squad problem" doesn't sound right to me either. Probably because it's not a problem with the squad itself, it's a problem with the composition of it. So it's more of a logistical, administrative or numerical problem.

I disagree with your "rota"/"roster" description, they are two different things, a rota is a list of people with the time they do tasks, a roster is just a list of available people. And yes, "roster" is a bit of an Americanism, but what with the internet globalising language terms, most people were over caring about that kind of thing 15 years ago. I certainly was, and it still drives me nuts when people can't tell the difference between "bought" and "brought" or "our" and "are".

I tend to find the ones we send out on loan tend to be the ones we're trying to help find a new club, though Isgrove still being around hits that theory a bit. Stephens and Turnbull might yet go out again, though the CB gap may mean one or both of them stays until we sign another CB.

As it's a week til they start (and we'll pick the kids v Espanyol) I'd expect their big build up friendly to be this weekend. Who are they playing?

I was saying that even though we've sold out Vitesse may not. As we offered them a smaller allocation neither them selling out nor the Block 43 thing was an issue because they went on sale with all the other tickets and the reduced time frame didn't happen. I've said we'd sell out the first game loads of times elsewhere on the site - before the draw was made.

Clasie looked pretty fricking effective against Feyenoord, some lovely early passes through the midfield lines - whether he can do that against players he doesn't know and at a Prem tempo, we'll see.

I was saying it would sell out even against a minnow at £30, so I'm glad it's sold out against one of the biggest teams we could have got at £15 a chuck or whatever it was (bought so many football tickets recently I honestly can't remember).

It does stop you buying if you'd leave a single seat at first, but obviously after a certain point of telling you not to leave a single seat (like it did with me buying one more Espanyol ticket the other day), there will only be purchases possible which leave single seats, at which point the system will stop telling you not to leave single seats, because you won't be able to buy any tickets otherwise.

If that bit is even remotely true I'm fairly sure we wouldn't have signed him. We just don't.

Some of their ratings are useful, but assigning ratings to defenders based on aerial challenges won and stuff like that is indeed completely missing the point. Doing the same thing for strikers is a bit more useful though. The science of scoring things that don't happen is not an easy one. Their stats are handy though.

Did Caulker spend half his matches out of position?

He was utter sh01te, but I am happy to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least until he doesn't get picked other than for the bench in the League Cup the whole time he's here. Caulker is a pretty shrewd purchase, he's going to challenge Yoshida at worst based on his past, and at best could be another excellent player for us. Bit worried about the number of players we might lose NEXT season (Stekelenburg/Caulker on loan, Fonte, Wanyama, Pelle maybe, plus Cedric if he stays as good as he's been so far and maybe Juanmi - then again for all of them to be off we'll have to have a hell of a season).

Well, tickets are only a fiver (though you need to "have your travel documents to hand" - what does that mean? Passport? Flight information? Visa*?) *I know you don't need one.

Judging from the timing with Chester's WBA and Caulker's Saints loan there was an element of us either negotiating with both, or Chester holding out until we definitely confirmed we weren't interested... so possibly we were talking with both of them whilst "not having a clue about signing one".

Martina won't kick a ball in the first team this season based on his performance in Salzburg alone.

Good job I'm Spartacus then.

It's not a discussion of prices, it's a discussion of price rises, of which there have been none.

Fine, it's your site. You're wrong, DellDaysJamieBrettBatman. Steve says so AND doesn't care about off-topic posts.

Let's hope so.

Ben Cull's been in the U18s for a season or two already hasn't he? Due to Targett and Shaw before him also moving up ahead of time.

We always play not to concede. Every single match. Occasionally we try to do that with fewer than 2 defensive midfielders but I suspect we'll be staying tight and sucking the life out of Vitesse and assuming we'll make enough chances to score. We'll then do that in the away leg too, even if we're 2 goals behind already. Because that's how we play.