The9

I think there's a sense of entitlement built up over those years of special treatment, especially when parents of young kids are talking to agents who've done deals to sell the likes of Walcott, Bale and Shaw on. By the time they've got to about 16 they're the thing that's buying mummy and daddy's new house, in some cases, and the longer term isn't necessarily a consideration when all that could come crashing down in one bad tackle or an awkward landing...

I've been looking for a 1992 Barcelona away shirt (also orange) for some time for this kind of reason, I still probably wouldn't actually wear it to a match.

"Where has that money difference between level and wages got to, as well as the increased tv revenues and summer sales?" If you mean "we're taking loads more money from fans than we're paying out in wages", it doesn't work like that. We're still taking a lot less in revenue than a lot of our rivals, but we're trying to compete with them for the same players who generally will go to whomever pays them the most. We've just proven that the correlation between wages and points won is strong but can be broken (plus, calculations on last year's wages). The increased tv deal money doesn't exist until 2016/17 anyway, and around 3/5th of the summer sales money didn't come into the financial period Saints reported on. Being "responsibly run" and "sustainable" still means getting as much out of your customers as you can. People will pay the prices, they will still be the prices. Also, we had "real cuts in ST prices" this season, in the corners of the ground, with everyone else staying on the same prices.

Surely having chav names after aspirational brands for social housing-dwellers is the complete opposite of being middle class? We've just had an Oxlade-Chamberlain and have a Ward-Prowse, ffs. Not sure why Holder-Spooner went by the wayside given those precedents but I suspect it's something to do with the cost of letters for the shirts.

I believe he's entered into the box as KEN~!!! and you can't get a more sensible name than that.

Aha- Ronald Koeman day is being run by Unique Saints and you can follow them on Twitter here https://twitter.com/unique_saints. Plus a link on this article to some t-shirts you may wish to buy. So that'll be 5 blokes in orange tees then.

Well, this is the first mention of it on here, so I would say that is almost entirely without foundation as far as the fan base goes. Even stuff originating at the Ugly gets here within minutes (and there's no way that lot would be starting this kind of thing). It might get a bit of momentum now though, but personally I've already seen a few people oranging it up with Koeman shirts at previous games, and we generally do this kind of stuff in the last away match (which of course is City, which by then could be vital or an absolutely dead rubber). Absolutely cannot see it happening.

Not surprising if they're giving handouts to local football clubs for the privilege of building next door.

There is also the little matter that I haven't touched upon that Hazard has a bunch of world class players pulling the team he's playing against all over the place as well, which makes his job that bit easier.

Impossible to know how much, if anything, Saints are paying towards their wages whilst they're out on loan. Osvaldo in particular is a case where we'd pay him to stay away, though his desire to only play for top clubs in certain countries means they should at least have the means to cover his wage. There will be promoted sides looking for borderline Prem players with experience who are prepared to take a punt on a "flair player" who arguably, at a glance, looks like he might benefit from more matches. Can't see either of them staying in England for anything other than the inability of other clubs they'd want to play for to match their wages though.

He just looked too small (or more accurately lacking core strength) and was easily muscled out of pretty much everything. He was certainly trying hard though.

We don't have the money to afford a world class player like Hazard. It's why we don't win games with moments, we win or lose them with percentages. As for "Long is running a lot because Pelle isn't", just no. Long's role requires him to run a lot, Pelle isn't supposed to be tracking the right midfielder and pressing the right back 5 seconds later. Pelle is doing his role as coached, Long is doing his. If the role requires it, it's because of how they're being told to play, not because of any deficiencies in the players - I've seen Pelle hare around like Long in patches, including against Hull. He has obviously been told not to as a general rule.

I'm fairly sure they had a pretty good idea West Ham would be dropping prices to try and get more people in. It's the usual argument about overall revenue and the number of people who are buying a shirt / food and drink, programmes etc. Matchday revenue is a drop in the ocean compared to tv money, and that's even more the case from 2016, but that doesn't mean you don't want to maximise matchday revenue as well.

You'd imagine they would, what with us finally shipping out all the low earners on League One/Championship promotion incentive contracts and having to replace them with players who'd actually contribute something. Equally, I think that "wage rise" should be viewed in the context of how much we'd have had to play the departing players who went to Liverpool/Arsenal etc in order to keep them, which would have meant an even larger wage bill and possibly a lower finishing position.

He has, but he's also repeatedly said it's out of his hands.

It's one of the reasons they pursued the legal/appeal avenue so vigorously. The Olympic Stadium is nearer Brisbane Road as well.

A discussion which I had both last night at the match and in work during the day, weirdly. I love his enthusiasm and the snappiness of his closing down, he just needs to ease off the times where he actually levels the opponent. There were 4 of them on Monday and that's at least 3 too many nowadays.

Always weird to see Long judged on his goalscoring record when he's only once been in the position of being the main goalscorer at a club and he responded by scoring the most goals he ever has. Just strange logic to expect him to be weighing in with 15 goals from the wing.

Incidentally, if you go to the Skates' wikipedia, not only is there a load of visible formatting at the top, but their first game in Europe AND their crappy 2-2 draw with Milan are both described as "historic" within two sentences. Funny, cos I went to the San Siro museum in January and they didn't have anything about it anywhere.

But all the best clubs buy new floodlights. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/23062014-st-marys-led-floodlights-1661239.aspx

I'm annoyed that they're annoyed about finishing below Newport (who by the way have lost 5 on the bounce to get out of the inconvenience of having to get relegated from League 1 next season, but still beat the Skates twice this season and twice last). Unfortunately, I can't see the same thing happening next season. But only because County's benefactor is pulling out and they're going to be utter poo. SURELY the Skates will get it right at the third time of asking? I mean they're making so much progress... oh wait. I genuinely thought they'd be turning things around by now and showing signs of nudging against the Play-Offs, but if they do anything next season it still looks like it'll be pure fluke as opposed to any kind of plan coming to fruition. They just keep signing unmotivated journeymen on too-big-for-the-division wages.

There are none. Not like that 2005 Liverpool team which came 5th... We've already pretty much topped the historic and ground-breaking Skates 8th of 2008 (which only matches our best ever Prem finish of 2002/3 anyway), and those feckers hadn't even paid clubs for their players.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. He got injured shooting on the edge of the box, thigh injury.