The9

If we wanted to build a 60,000 stadium I hardly think we'd have a problem on the current site. Plus Liverpool have been trying to do that since before we built St Mary's. Also, those extra 30,000 are nice, but they're not a patch on the millions of shirt-buyers globally, it's there where they've got the biggest advantage.

Can we at least put to sleep the idiocy about Shane Long's "accidental miskick" against Millwall last season now? It appears the vine embedding widget doesn't work.

That doesn't tie up with us threatening legal action. Given that the CFO has left and the timing, it may well be that a case we thought was solid fell apart pretty quickly when tested, and that Atletico had already pointed that out. I wait to see if we pursue our claim against them.

Koeman doesn't sit there in a press conference yesterday and say he's confident he's coming to us if he doesn't think we've got a sound legal case.

Doesn't to me. Looks like a bottom half side. But we have at least one CB signing to come, and there's not much else we can do re: Bertrand and full backs.

I disagree with everything you've said - apart from the last two sentences. Alderweireld was streets ahead of any other Saints player last season when he was playing CB. Miles ahead of Fonte, albeit with a completely different skillset. If Alderweireld goes to Spurs it's because Atletico and Spurs have ignored a pre-existing contractual clause and, subsequently, it will be because either a judge decides something highly dubious given the evidence, or because Saints decide it's not worth our while agitating against it. For now, I'm sticking with "AM and Spurs have done everything they can but can't actually sign him until the Saints clause is sorted". No amount of "it's going to happen soon" for the past 5 days from the media means it will - there's clearly a sticking point and we all know what it is. We can still object and potentially block the thing. Just for the record, for all of those of you who think we've messed up - have you considered that we did all the things Spurs have done now, but a year ago, and that we'll be getting PAID £1.5m for the privilege of having him for a season, not forking out £11m? The only thing amateurish is Spurs thinking they can just ignore contract law and worry about it later.

They can play silly buggers whilst trying to tie up a contractually dubious deal with Spurs for more money, but it's pretty unlikely it'll be ratified if there's questionable grounds for it.

Saints were sitting there saying "but he's our player already", which looked fairly sound when we threatened legal actiion. I'm not sure what there's still to discuss at this stage, Spurs and Atletico will do as much as they can to push the deal through without actually being able to complete anything because they know they'll create a legal mess and will be trying to avoid that as well, we'll either try and prove our legal case or decide to fork out more than Spurs to make the problem go away altogether. Bearing in mind we've got at least the £1.5m to mess around with, whether that becomes part of a deal where we forget about it to get the player or just off-set it against the total cost.

That was my thing for March to May, we'll be looking to sign someone better than him by the start of the Prem season (though possibly not the EL3QR).

I'd be surprised if we didn't hang on to Ramirez and try him in some Europa League games where he'll be better suited to the pace of the game.

You'd imagine so, and he'd better be their captain too!

We have just signed Cedric Soares from Sporting and he's our current first choice RB, as we just sold Clyne to Liverpool. The left back from last season has just had knee surgery and will be out for 6 weeks, and the U21 left back who covers him is at best currently a borderline starter. The U21 right back is injured. So our full back situation for the main and reserve squad is 1 in, 1 out, 2 injured and 1 full back who we decided shouldn't start much last season, plus Martina. There's an U18 RB and LB too, but they've not played a match for the first team between them (and I'm fairly sure the U18 LB is actually the U16 LB due to the rapid promotion our left backs have had in the past few years).

We're doing alright considering. Newport had their own multi-millionaire Chairman until a few weeks ago, you know...

I missed the first 20 minutes due to a Metro/overland train screw up, and every single time I've arrived late to a match (4 times in the past 12 years) it's been just in time to see us concede a goal - twice it was a penalty. So my value miles to minute was actually slightly higher, but I saw 20 minutes less football.

I'm on page 64, just for the record.

Mmm, it's "sort of" fair within the self-perpetuating "fairness" of system which allows one team to spend hundreds of millions more than another in the same division. Fair in the sense that even if we did have the same amount of money as Man City's owners we wouldn't be able to spend it on players until we'd spent it on a load of revenue-generating stuff first. It's vaguely fair in relation to club incomes, but the entirely arbitrary start date and perpetual additional prize money doesn't help its case as equitable. A wage cap which was based on the average wage of a Prem footballer multipled by, say, 25 over-age players, would be inherently fair as it would give every club the chance to spend the same amount. They can use the Champions League money to buy ivory backscratchers or something. Even so, I'm completely in favour of our sustainable approach, I just wish it was applicable to everyone.

I think you underestimate Juanmi, and overestimate the likelihood of us picking the same front 4 week in, week out across 4 competitions as well - plus a load of assumptions about Rodriguez's fitness that I won't start to think about until I've actually seen him kick a ball, live, which hopefully will be Saturday in Salzburg. Martina is indeed filler due to Bertrand's seemingly short notice knee surgery - the 2 year deal is a dead giveaway, and Stekelenburg is precisely what we needed in that position. Cedric basically looks like the kind of signing we make, and whilst we can't assume that any of them are going to automatically be successful, you can't really argue against us making similar sorts of signings to those which have worked before. Also, the more difficult signings always take longer, as in many cases the seller will be getting someone in before they'll let the player we want leave.

Quite - edited. FWIW if Martina gets a game I am expecting a song to the tune La Cucaracha.

Basically, he's another mouldable young player who hits the triggers in our analytics and we have the benefit of a member of the coaching staff having worked with him before, which is additional data around his character and personality that no amount of statistical analysis can give you. It's only a 2 year deal so it's a very guarded signing with short term need and maybe longer term upside in mind.

Our current U21 right back is injured, the current U21 left back is already in the squad, the previous U21 left back signed for Man U for more than £20m the previous summer, the previous U21 right back went to Arsenal for a pile o'cash and we also just sold the first team right back at a profit after a couple of years too - how many of them are we supposed to produce?

I agree with the bit about using loans, not sure we regarded Ramirez as a gamble - massive Cortese vanity project which at least showed Saints were in a different market to previously with the kind of signings we made, but he was only a gamble in the sense of getting a South American to settle in England, and that's been a lot less of an issue for clubs recently.

Not sure whether to or

I'd have Lallana back... though only for £5m... too. Might even consider Lambert on a free if we're not planning on signing any other target men. No problem with us re-signing Arsenal reserve Chambers or Man U reject Shaw for cut-price deals either, we could do with a decent left back (though he'd have to learn to cross). Jack Cork for £5m would be alright too, as long as he didn't mind sitting on the bench.

He's got a couple of weeks to show if he's improved from last season, but he's also got the possibility of playing against European defences in a different style of play to the Prem, and his skillset might flourish with that kind of more tactical game.