The9

That's mainly because when he gets given the ball he's been making runs to the near post, but he often pitches up late having been deep starting the move - the reason he usually doesn't get the ball in those situations is because by coming away from the area he's created space for (usually) Mane to run into the box from deep, so the ball is already further forward than he is and there's no particular benefit to giving it to him at that stage. His movement is good in the area - in that he gets away from defenders, but I'd be lying if I didn't think his near post run from which he most frequently gets the ball was almost always a complete waste of time, as it gives him no kind of angle to score from. Maybe the key to us scoring more is someone coming in behind that and him dummying rather than shooting from that angle.

Not sure how we looked no more convincing in attack. We created 4 decent scoring opportunities in the half. Admittedly everything's relative, but we've been having whole halves without a shot on target recently. There are no "similar opposition" to Burnley, no other bottom half sides who have come to attack and certainly none who work as hard. It was a completely unique situation. This weekend we'll be back to a side parking the bus and hoping for a point, for which 2 defensive midfielders is unnecessary. As we move nearer the end of the season with Sunderland and Leicester both trying to stay up and us playing away, we might encounter a couple more bottom half sides trying to have a go, but until then, one DM at home, maybe two away (and definitely at Stoke and Man City).

We went 1-0 up. It worked. Two of Burnley's 3 shots in the first half came after we'd scored in the near 10 minutes left after our 41st minute goal due to added time for Forster's injury - if anything we should have brought Wanyama straight on - but at that point we were 1 up at home to a bottom side who'd only had 1 shot up to that point. Plus in that time period between our goal and half time we also had 3 shots (including Pelle hitting the bar), still more than Burnley had. http://www1.skysports.com/football/live/match/313683/commentary

I'm guessing Dijk autocorrected.

Defenders HATE players who drop into midfield and make late runs into the box, and Pelle does that all the time. He also wins more aerial duels than most strikers (just over 50% - Diego Costa wins 1:3, while Pelle's also got a better percentage of heading success than Drogba. Lambert this season wins 1.6 for every 2 he loses, about 44%, just for the record). He also shifts the ball on quickly and usually effectively, and he's got a range of passing that means he can't be given space away from goal either. He's quick over short distances and fairly pacy over longer ones and he's got the skill to go past a defender on his own (though he doesn't often get into those positions as he mostly plays back to goal). He is far from easy for defenders to play against.

We shall have to disagree then. I'm pretty happy he is both "good enough" (though maybe not for what you want him to do, seeing as part of his role is making space for others to get chances) and "mobile" - though that one's more difficult to prove as apart from the top 10 distance covered in the league that's up there with the most secret Opta data which they charge the most money for - but he's clearly getting about the place a shedload more than Lambert last season and often finds himself making passes on the halfway line AND being in the box soon after, which is a new thing for Saints in the past few years.

Which is a bit of a problem once anyone sees you do it twice in a row.

Hes already been back, he'd have got booed to hell if he'd touched the ball more than twice. I know you mean permanently, but we can't afford those kind of wages. We'd all forget about it all pretty quickly though, it's the nature of the thing.

FWIW Wanyama does say how much of a fan of Man U he is, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2862997/Victor-Wanyama-recovering-burgled-Southampton-star-looking-continue-Champions-League-dream-stealing-victory-against-Manchester-United.html , along with saying he'd like to play in the Champions League again. You'd have to work pretty hard at taking those out of context to come to the conclusion he wants to leave though. Even if the Mail mentions how many of our players have been burgled as of December.

I suspect people shouting "stop trying to hit long diagonal passes" at him for the first 6 weeks he was here did plenty for him too.

I reserve my head-smashing against wall emoticons for moments like this.

You can't blame the Atletico bloke, he just took what Athletic gave him to wear and liked it. Rather like some of our fans from 2012-14.

I can see one game they will almost certainly win, three they probably will (Everton, Palace and Hull away), and 2 they are as likely to as not (City and Arsenal). Plus Chelsea away. 6 points from that lot is a lot less likely than them getting the ONE point (or even just two goals) more that would put them above us in the prediction above.

Here's another one, this time about Atletico Madrid: http://blogs.20minutos.es/yaestaellistoquetodolosabe/tag/juan-elorduy/ Through the contact section, José Manuel Alvarez sent me an email in which I question why Atletico Madrid Atletico wears and why they are called 'mattress' . Behind the reason why dresses and white the Atletico Madrid (new champion of the League from 2013 to 2014) there is a curious anecdote at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century and which would determine the future of the equipment you use for kit Madrid and the Athletic de Bilbao . As many of you know, Atletico Madrid was founded in 1903 by a group of Basque students who wanted to set up a branch of his beloved team (Athletic de Bilbao) in the capital of Spain and the first name that was given to This new team was to 'Athletic Club Branch Madrid' . In 1909 Bilbao players team (as well as its Madrid branch) wore a shirt that consisted of two stripes, a white and blue other (the same design as used English team Blackburn Rovers ). At Christmas that year, performing during a trip to England, the player Juan Elorduy instructed the president of Athletic Bilbao him to buy fifty new shirts (those in the UK were a lot better quality than those they had). But the good thing about Juan Elorduy misled and left for the last day execute the order, finding that there was insufficient Blackburn Rovers blue and white shirts to buy, so in a last attempt to find them and to return home with them decided to try in Southampton , a town south of England where I had to embark back to Spain. But there either found the equipment of Blackburn Rovers, but a large number of shirts Southampton Football Club , as many as had been commissioned. The problem was that they were not white/blues but red/whites. At the risk of not liked them bought fifty units and brought them, handing over Athletic Bilbao 25 of them and the other half left them stored in his grandparents' house as the T-Madrid branch were still in good use and did not know if would like. The locals took to willingly change gear (mainly for the best quality tissue) and the January 9, 1910 premiered the new shirts. It was not until a year later that coincided players of the two teams in Bilbao (the Athletic and its branch in Madrid) in which it emerged the issue of new shirts, wondered the locals by the new Kit of the Basques. That's when Juan Elorduy recalled that 25 more units available and made available to the 'Athletic Club Branch Madrid'. On 22 January 1911 the Madrid team debuted their new red and white shirts . Although in 1921, the locals stopped being a branch of the Bilbao team, they continued to use ( until today) Atletico colors both been characterized. The fact that over time were known by the nickname of 'mattress' is because once the mattresses were usually dressed in a white cloth with red stripes. They were rivals Atletico Madrid who in the mid-twentieth century began to popularize the term mattress.

Also here: http://athletic.elcorreo.com/noticias/2010-01-06/colores-siglo-20100106.html which translates as "Although not try to remember a great victory, the anniversary can not go unnoticed. The next Saturday, January 9, one hundred years since the first match that Athletic played with the red and white shirt, the traditional colors of the club. It was in Irun, at the newly opened field Amute against Sporting, one of the two teams that were then in the border city. The change of clothing was a surprise, but the fact is that not generated more controversy and was accepted with a naturalness that view the issue from the perspective of a century, catches the eye. In fact, the premiere of the new equipment had not even reflected in the newspapers of the time, you just spent a few lines to that inconsequential friendly match. The reason why the Athletic released new shirt not found in any of the books written so far about the history of the club. What happened has been known recently, from investigations of journalist and 'mattress' researcher Bernardo Salazar and conversations that some of the descendants of the head of -the change footballer Juan Elorduy- held with Asier Arrate, historian and Athletic responsible for the museum. Everything was due to chance. Juan Elorduy was a young Bilbao, Mining Engineering student, who played for Athletic Madrid, then a 'branch' Athletic. Rico heir Elorduy was to spend the Christmas holidays 1909 to London. Before leaving, the board of Bilbao club made a request: the purchase of 25 T-shirts Blackburn Rovers, whose dress had adopted the Athletic. The players who had donated at the time by John Moser, began to be worn so many sweats and washed, and had to renew your wardrobe. Why buy them in England? Because the British were the best. They were lined chenille not desteñían. Come on, that there was no comparison. The colors of Bilbao Insurance John Elorduy was determined to fulfill the task, but the fact is that time is was very fast in the London capital, when wanted to buy the blue and white shirts in the store there were no sufficient. Forced to leave for Southampton to catch the boat that would bring back to Bilbao, the young Bilbao had to improvise. In the port city bought 50 shirts local team, dressed in red and white. At the end of the day, might think Elorduy, it was the colors of Bilbao. It is not known what the reaction of the board of Athletic when he saw the shipment of shirts. It is not known if the club's board, chaired by Alberto Zarraoa, discussed much or little on whether to play with other colors. What is known is that a few days after the return of Elorduy, Athletic wore new clothes in Irun and I stayed with her forever. Atletico take another year to use another batch of red and white shirts brought by the Bilbao student. Amute game did not have much history. Irun Sporting won 2-0 to Athletic played poorly. They were not the work that afternoon the players. Or maybe they felt strange with her new dress. You go figure. The fact is that the 'team' Bilbao, consisting of Ahasuerus, Amann, Arzuaga, Eguren, Belauste, Villaamil, Hurtado, Hairspray, Zuazo, Iceta and Arteche, disappointed. Only Seve Zuazo, who was then a promising young striker who tried to earn a starting job, was able to give some bite to play a team that had a big goal in sight for two months. Specifically Cup , which would organize the Spanish Union of Clubs, since that year, by disagreements between some equipment and the new federation, two parallel tournaments would dispute."

Yeah, for some reason there's a theory that a boat from Sunderland to Bilbao was as likely as one from Southampton to have carried the bloke charged with bringing back shirts for Athletic Club (and their Madrid subsidiary, who became Atletico). He couldn't get Blackburn's colours that they'd already been playing in, so he got a load of mattress-like shirts. FWIW, it says "Southampton" pretty clearly on this official Athletic pdf, even if the rest is in Spanish: http://www.athletic-club.net/pdfsrevista/234.pdf "Did you know that on 9 January 1910 Athletic Club premiered against Racing de Irun with the Athletic kit directly brought from England , more specifically from Southampton , from the colors of the local team ? the result was 2-0 ."

I think it's entirely unlikely that Man U will only get 6 more points, and also highly unlikely that any side will make next season's Champions League with only 68. Or 69. One less than 78, though, that's realistic. 68 should be a good bet for Europa League and hopefully Group stages though...

You want to get that looked at.

特に英語に物事を変換する。 For instance, 特に英語に物事を変換する。becomes "In particular I want to convert the things in English" despite me putting it in as "particularly to translate back to English" originally. This is only improved by actually getting Google to say it back at you. Disappointed to find my username in Japanese translates as "9". Rather unimpressive.

Anyway, これは楽しいです. より多くの人々は、Googleが翻訳使用してください。

Or Kirin Yo!, Zen Asahi, Shochu Kyotokitchen, etc.

It's called kanji, Bear. Pretty sure 私の間違いは、それはキャベツの顔ではありません is about right.

Surely only if they haven't been watching AT ALL? Do clubs sign "the other one" if they can't get their target? Do they REALLY have such scattergun transfer policies? I suppose there's always Spurs. And I guess above-average competence at basically everything is what got us to where we are compared to the general levels of wastefulness and incompetence around football. Looks like I've answered my own question. On the bright side, we'd probably be able to run the price up on them if they were desperate.

Isn't that what buying genuinely borderline case Prem players and loaning them to the Championship is for? Hence my prediction of Wallace ending up mainly in L1.