The9

That "football is about moments" quote from Emery at Sevilla should be running on a banner on this site every time someone considers whether we should pick the reserves in the FA Cup or League Cup last 16.

Got a slime green away kit that looks like Seattle Sounders and some stats that our FB/Twitter following is increasing at 6 times the rate of Man U. I'll ignore the bits where we haven't announced anything relating to Seattle yet, and that Man U are still adding half a million more followers than us a month anyway... FWIW I live in Hedge End, don't find his statements or terminology grating (and I'm a massive pedant who is annoyed by almost everything) and think he's doing a good job - though the twitter/FB stuff is down to our relative success and possibly the quirkiness of our media presence as much as Ralph directly.

Seriously, step awayyyyyyyyy from the argument. No-one wins this one.

I'm not touching that one with a 50 foot pole. Knew we should have stickied it three years ago after the previous three years of discussion.

We wouldn't be less likely to have injuries, we'd be as likely to have injuries, the likelihood of injury is a constant. It's the number of games falling within the timeframe of the injury at Xmas meaning that the injured players are more likely to miss more matches that's the problem. And yes, obviously we need our best players for the biggest matches - in our situation I think we can beat most of the bottom half with a player or two missing in key positions but we've got far less chance of getting a result away to Chelsea (for instance) with say Fonte and Bertrand missing, whilst we could probably get away with it against someone like Sunderland. All of which supports the original point, which was that we could do with having the big games spread out a bit more, rather than all falling over the Xmas/New Year period. This is without even discussing fatigue from the proximity of Xmas matches, or the possible impact of the Europa League in other factors like tiredness, ability to train or work on tactics, and injuries.

No, I mean I have a family BBQ in Gower scheduled for the same weekend as I now think we're going to be playing at home on the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend. Nothing to do with Europa League matches other than them pushing the match to the Sunday. Also, fat chance any Welsh teams will be left in by 3rd Qualifying Round anyway.

Beat the Argentinians, Dutch and the Germans - in the group - so not knockout matches which was the original quote. I think the main point it makes is that England don't even play that many international knockout matches to begin with.

Also that match was a draw in 90 minutes...

Less likely we'll have injuries to key players for matches we really need them all for. Also, an injury could mean missing a lot of matches in a tightly packed schedule.

Family BBQ planned apparently - to be fair as far as trips to other UEFA nations go, Swansea away is a good one (if you can book early). Ooh, now that would be serendipity (and also blow either my Bournemouth linking or Bank Holiday seaside resort theory out of the water).

And only England.

Is it not that they're defined by being Saintsweb exiles, and we're not, so why would we care to be writing about them? I'm only looking at this now because there's an England match on, and literally anything else football-based is more interesting than that. I hadn't actually noticed Bearsy had gone, but I do find him amusing. Pap to me seemed interesting in his ridiculous clinging to conspiracy theories but at least tried to explain himself. I didn't see the personal info bits, but that stuff is completely out of order so no issue with that.

Actually, yes. The levels of luminescence required reduces as you go down the leagues, partially due to tv requirements. Which does make you wonder what ELSE they were getting away with in the Prem.

Part of the selling point of Club Wembley was the ability to resell any tickets to events you don't want, but I'm fairly sure that consists of telling them you don't want them and Wembley making them available through official channels.

I'm watching the Man U "Class of 92" film in preference at the moment. Granty's at his 5th match in 3 days, or something mad like that, over there.

You didn't quote a figure for Mayuka, but you implied it was £5m, above. "paying £5m... with the same end result... a la Mayuka". Agreed overall, and I've already said what my opinion of Elia's worth to Saints is above.

Not just the group stages, Hull played all 4 of their qualifiers on Thursday last season, so assuming we win the 2nd Qualifying Round that's the 3 league matches after the 2nd leg and both legs of the Play Off rounds moved, for a start.

They also don't have spring/summer Bank holiday fixtures in holiday resorts, ever since Leeds fans rioted in the 80s. Come to think of it, if we're twinned with Bournemouth there's a pretty good chance we can guarantee a home game the week of the August and May bank holidays. And given that we could well be playing a Europa League PlayOff round 2nd leg match on Thursday 27th August, I'll stick my neck out and say we'll be at home on Sunday 30th. Which is going to crap up my planned trip to Gower good and proper.

There's no particular reason to do it other than maybe traffic, but as there are lots of teams paired for these kind of reason we probably will be as well just as it fits the fixture model better. Eg when Reading were up you'd find (eg) us at home to Liverpool and them away to Everton.

I'll take that bet. They don't arrange "derby" matches on bank holidays, or the first or last game of the season. And it'll be our "twinned" fixture, so in terms of the fixture list, that's our derby.

Don't let any Swansea fans read that, they won't appreciate being called English, even if... well, you know. By the way, I just read your "striker targets" article, interesting conclusions - the two strikers I hope we're interested in (Austin and Dost), plus a bloke you had on a good FM save who I've never heard of, and bloody Fabio Borini, FFS. Interesting to see your justifications, have you done one of those articles for goalkeepers, we might be in for two of those?

Midnight at the end of June 30th, new contracts start on July 1st.

Re: "Central adidas logo" - here goes that theory; the template design is identical to Saints other than the stripe colour, the collar not being white... and the location of the adidas logo.

No, he's been utterly pants and hasn't justified any fee at all at any point, but you implied we paid nearly 30% more than we did for him, which would be significant if he hadn't been so gash, and certainly could be the difference between a yes and a no in Elia's case. I maintain he's worth having based on the Newcastle and Man U performances, his defensive work, his knowledge of how Saints works and the investment in time we've already made in him, his European experience, and his potential to improve under our care. But he's not worth more than £40k a week and I wouldn't pay more than £4.5m for him.

Yeah, true about food, but then I quite enjoy NOT cooking when away, and breakfast is usually provided. As I said, it's a useful option to consider. Last time I went to Amsterdam I lived on beer and waffles anyway.