The9

If he was running his contract down we could sell him in January, when we'd know if we needed players for EL knockout rounds, and the loss of value from him having 6 months left would be offset by the inflated January market. The risk being, teams could decide to sit it out and get him for nothing so there would be no takers - you'd expect he'd be Europa League cup-tied by then.

Ah, the old "not putting in a transfer request to keep loyalty bonuses" trick.

Long cost £15m, played 21, didn't play 24 last season. Mane played 26, missed 19 (5 played before he signed, so missed 14). He's been integral though, still sat out 1/3. We're already sinking resources into the squad, and this season we'll have the chance to do it more than ever before - and the one player who wasn't rotated is in the position Austin plays. For completeness Austin started 36, didn't start 4 last season - but played in 23 defeats and only 7 wins. I suspect we wouldn't pay the wages he'll be asking for to sit him on the bench too often either, but we're already guaranteed to be playing more than 40 matches, 42 if we lose as a seeded team in the EL3QR, minimum 44 if we get to the EL Play Off round, minimum 50 Group stages, add to that any wins in FA Cup or League Cup...

I guarantee my mate who still refers to "Borat" (Boruc) and "Pinocchio" (Pochettino) will call Juanmi "Jumanji". I am unamused by this.

This is the key, plus the knowledge that we've got inbuilt restrictions on the players we can afford and our recruitment reflects the need to maximise specific skills and add value to players we bring into the team to meet our overall aims of success and profit. Saying Elia is poor judges him on goals, rather than his defensive work in front of Bertrand, and what his positioning allows us to unlock in Bertrand's skillset. Saying Djuricic is poor ignores our need to bring in attacking midfielders to boost a flagging and uncreative side in January. Saying Pelle's "age is against him" and that he's "limited is ability" is just nonsense, and saying "Long is not a striker" when we've only played him as a striker in maybe 5 games all season is spectacularly missing the point. ALL of our players will have weaknesses, but the overall team improved hugely and most importantly we go into this summer with European football as an incentive for targets who'll improve us further, and we're unlikely to lose as many as last year so can actually build and improve rather than patch things up and hope to get to the level we were already at (which we did superbly). The likes of Toshida are not starters, but usually do enough of a job that they're worth having around. But we don't buy reserves, we buy skillsets and people generally have found the role in the team or squad they were intended to fill. People need to look at the bigger picture. And why yes, I am still reading Moneyball.

Diego Costa played 32 and missed 22 for Chelsea last season, take out about 10 for injury, he's still been rotated for a quarter of their matches. So if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for Austin, Pelle, Long, Juanmi, Rodriguez or Mane too.

Training gear from July 3rd as well...

First shots of the away/alternative yellow GK shirt too. I like the black training top with the charcoal yoke, though even the plain red poly tee is decent. This season is going to cost me a fortune. The freeze frame bit right at the end shows Pelle in the black/charcoal tracksuit zip-through top, the red tracksuit top too. Side view of the shirt shows it is a LOT of red with two narrow white stripes looking from that angle.

They're still selling the year before last's Skate shirts in the clearance section despite the fact they were under a tenner 2 years ago and claiming to be the cheapest in the division even when they launched (a lie, Newport's were 5p less).

Intreresting development, it'll lead to more sales, even if JD are more the "polyester as overpriced fashionwear for chavs" end of the market, rather than the "churning out a billion football shirts and other tat for pikeys" end. Actually that's basically the same thing, but there are degrees of "cool" within that market and SportsDirect have none, whilst JD at least pretend to be contemporary and on trend.

So your view, supported by no evidence at all, is that "success still comes from having a british core". Fair enough you might not like the team as much. But evidently, the club's approach is to try and compete as best it can with the resources available, which doesn't afford paying over the odds for players due to their nationality. Staying within the regulations, yes, but not for nationality's sake. Signing any player is a gamble, not much more or less so for a western European than a 22 year old northerner. Ramirez did fine in Italy, he's not Italian.

Redknapp wouldn't be able to buy players, wouldn't bother with tactics, and would be interested for as long as he could make money out of it. He'd be an absolute waste of time. He was successful at Spurs, as with everywhere else he was successful, by buying lots of players to improve the team and playing them, as well as fluking his way into Bale becoming one of the best players in the world after nearly loaning him to a Championship side on arrival.

Slovenia twice, Lithuania, Estonia, San Marino and an admittedly decent win away to Switzerland - who Hodgson also used to manage. Being better than five mediocre-to-poor opponents and one mediocre-to-good one. Not really sure how that shows signs of improvement since the World Cup.

Well, yeah, but he was playing for Chelsea at the time so it doesn't count.

We needed a bigger squad 2 years ago, we'd have one already if we hadn't spent last summer replacing players. Not sure I agree with you re: "youngsters", and I'm 42. Footballers, maybe. Also, isn't that exactly the same for young foreign players moving to the Premier League? This guy was playing for Sporting on a regular basis, with about a 1:3 chance of winning every domestic trophy and already playing in Europe - you'd better believe he's not here for the weather either.

Why would we care about Stoke?

"What you don't want to do right now is base your pronunciations on a bloke with a funny accent..." Actually as that link's from BeIN the bloke sounds decidedly arabic, surprised you didn't pick up on that.

That's how they pronounce it here, when he's getting himself sent off in the Portuguese Cup Final two and a half weeks ago... http://footyroom.com/sporting-lisbon-2-2-sporting-de-braga-2015-05/ Full on "Cedereek Suarayez"

He's Cédric Ricardo Alves Soares, guessing we'll call him Cédric. And that's probably pronounced "Say-drick".

Because we signed the European Player of the Year. Today's equivalent is signing Ronaldo, never mind Fonte. The closest we've come to doing that kind of business since is getting a La Liga winner and near Champions League winner 2014/15 in on loan...

General travel advice and "best place to go for pre- and post-match football-type experience" type advice are not the same thing. For instance, Premier Inn is great for Saints fans due to proximity to the Stadium and City, but nothing special hotel wise generally. Best restaurants are going to get feedback from people considering proximity to the ground and around a matchday rather than just "best restaurants". It's added value from a targeted search.

You've already had my feedback on GlobalSaints FB page. Nice to see someone else suggesting Turtle Bay.

Not that I'd seen, but then I'm not on here as much as I used to be.

Why? It is very much in our interests to buy players cheaply and sell them at a much higher price.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/features/home-grown-quota-for-premier-league.html Though they are looking to change it, they haven't yet. It's neither "English" nor "British" fwiw, it's "English and Welsh" - though only in the sense of being registered with one of their FAs - Schneiderlin currently qualifies as home grown.