The9

Forster slipped on his left leg and as you could see running MotD in slow mo, from the angle of his knee and where his kneecap was, got injured before there was any contact with Vokes, who basically tripped over his other leg.

He's not been listed on the Player List produced after the January transfer window, so short of the following things happening: 1) Bournemouth not being in the Playoffs and therefore Boruc being available to play for Saints, as he can't be recalled before the end of their season. 2) Saints actually wanting to field a loony who burned his bridges with the club and has literally no reason to want to play, and who is out of contract shortly after with the potential of no consequences for his actions. 3) Saints getting around the fact he's not on the player list by (if necessary) cancelling his contract and re-signing him as an out-of-contract player, which is only possible because Saints have only 20 of the allowed 25 players on the list. 4) There not being an end of season registration deadline (end of March used to be the time that happened, before transfer windows existed, and even now I think there's a FL period when loans can no longer take place due to the registration cut-off).

Darlington moved to the 25,000 capacity (10,000 used) Darlington Arena in 2003, jumped from 3k to 5k attendances in the first season, though that was still lower than the 5k+ crowds they got at Feethams in 2000 losing in the playoffs, they then slid from 4k to just under 2k attendances as the team slid down League 2 and have never really recovered, getting the boot from the Conference North in 2012 and reforming as Darlington 1883 at level 9 of the League structure in front of 1000-1300-ish groundsharing with Bishop's Auckland.

I know you're asking a slightly tangential question, but worth re-stressing that the decision is not about whether average attendance increases, it will, it's about whether it will increase enough to bring in revenue to cover the cost. The answer is "anyone who got relegated, but not everyone who got relegated". I've included new grounds as well as expansion. Villa updated in '95-96 and dropped from 36k to 31k in 2000/1 but that was still more than the 29k from before expanding in 1995. Cardiff and Fulham expanded and so have crowds (til this season post-relegation). Hull crowds are in line with the division they're in, Championship levels around 18k, 24k in the Prem. Both more than before the move (but they're also playing in higher divisions) Man City crowds dipped from 45/46k down to 42/40k in 2006/7 but that's still more than the 35k at Maine Road. Man U filled in the corners in 2006, having added a 3rd tier in 2000 and 1996 and each time filled it. Newcastle added 15k to their crowds in 2000 and in their recent Championship season still got 7k more than the previous capacity. Norwich were still regularly getting 6k more than before they redid the stadium in the early 2000s even when they dropped into L1. Saints in the Championship relegation season still averaged 2,500 more than the last years at The Dell (and 5,000 more failing to get promoted from L1). Sunderland got nearly 10k more at the bottom of Championship than at Roker. Swansea gained 6k fans getting into L1 and moving to Liberty, and another 4k since. Spurs dipped under 30k for one season after redeveloping in the mid 90s but it was still higher than their 27k ceiling from the 1990s all-seater redevelopment and they're 5k higher now so it may have been a restricted capacity that season. Pretty much everyone is the same, really. Except Darlington of course. I'll look them up now.

I think what he was saying was either we need a minimum of 22k STs (no idea why use a range there when the lower parameter is the trigger point) or a waiting list for them under the assumption that the club caps it below that. A waiting list with 22,000 people on it is clearly not going to happen and is too ridiculous to think that was even the argument at this point.

The train platform thing has been done to death - it would be at the club's expense, there are at least two train stations under 15 minutes' walk away, and there would be little incentive for the train company to run a service down that line anyway. As for a larger car park, that's hardly likely if they're expanding the stadium onto the surrounding land in a limited space. Much better to get back involved with cheap transport and park and ride schemes to reduce the number of people driving. I'd never drive to a match if there was anything resembling a cheap and time-relevant public transport system going to Hedge End - as it is I drive to and from every game (albeit sometimes not until the following day).

I'd like us to have a bigger ground just for the hell of it, but it doesn't seem viable given the numbers turning up at the moment. It may be the last-minute nature of the Block 43 (or as with Burnley 44) availability, but for some reason we don't seem to have a bunch of people waiting to snap up available tickets for some games. Just about selling out the ground for a couple of months when the team was in the top 4, and not quite selling out against lower sides when the team is as successful as they've been in the past 25 years - but hasn't scored much for a couple of games, all seem to point at the option that the ground is pretty near to being the right size. Yes we could probably shift another 10-20k tickets for matches against Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea, but the payback period from the additional profit by doing that compared to the cost of expanding the stadium probably runs into 20 years, and is too long term to make any assumptions about ongoing club success. Plus the main revenue stream isn't matchday any more, it's tv income. Europa League matches on Thursday nights will probably struggle to sell out (the first one or two will sell out, after the novelty wears off others could well depend on the opposition) and the ease of getting those tickets and total cost of paying for the matches in the Prem on top will mean that demand for games overall will drop as a percentage of capacity, even though total numbers attending will be much higher from more matches. A lot of people are already picking and choosing Cup games, that will only increase the likelihood of people missing some here and there - which is habit-forming in itself. In short, we're near enough the right sized ground that a minor expansion would not be viable due to economies of scale (the cost per new seat would be much higher), and a major expansion wouldn't be viable because not enough people will come to the matches which don't feature top opponents and it would take too long to pay back.

I'd pick Schneiderlin ahead of Wanyama in that particular team, only because Matic and Wanyama aren't the best ball users even though they're both superb defensively at breaking up play. Schneiderlin gives you a load of the playbreaking stuff and the option of bringing the ball out and picking a pass as well. Though with your front 4 they might not need the offensive assistance I can't honestly say Wanyama has been better than Schneiderlin for Saints this season.

You missed the bit where they invented the "rotation rule" in order to ensure the USA got the World Cup in 1994 and revived it to ensure South Africa got it in 2010, but have otherwise completely ignored it. With the exception of 2010/2014 Europe has hosted every other World Cup, and though the idea of adding other continents to the rotation is there in principle, there's no particular reason why they couldn't have 2026 - especially if Russia counts as Europe/Asia in 2018. Because FIFA's not big on principles. 1990 Europe 1994 North America 1998 Europe 2002 Asia 2006 Europe 2010 Africa 2014 South America 2018 Europe 2022 Asia

15 years (and two tidying up surgeries) removed from having my ligaments ruined for me (some ACL damage and PCL was all over the place), the only thing wrong with my knee is that I'm bone-on-bone where my knee's smooth cartilage was also smashed to pieces - the ligaments are absolutely fine now and the physio actually told me to build them up to protect the rest of it! The first 3 years afterwards were pretty dodgy though.

No recollection of your example at all, besides, the rules have changed since any time when Hart might have been loaned out by Man City. There is no opportunity at all for Prem clubs to take players on loan outside the transfer window, emergency or not. Emergency loans are a one-way street towards Football League clubs. Teams don't need to register under 21s on the Premier League player list anyway (though clubs do, presumably as it's easier to do it in bulk than on individual cases if they need to add someone), and it's somewhat unlikely given the separate need for registration for Development squad matches that the Prem won't know how many keepers a side has on their books anyway. We also can't recall Boruc outside the transfer window due to it being a season long loan. The quirk with "end of season" is worth investigating, I've seen other players come back to clubs to be available, but Boruc is not listed on the Saints player list from February anyway http://www.premierleague.com/content/dam/premierleague/site-content/News/publications/squad-lists/premier-league-squad-lists-january-2015.pdf which implies to me that he won't be allowed to play, even though he's actually registered for Saints. Though there is a technicality in which clubs CAN add non-contract players, and MUST list all over 21 players available in their squad on the list to begin with, so it could even be possible to work around that - worst case scenario if they REALLY wanted Boruc to fill in (only possible in the first place if Bournemouth don't play in the play-offs) Saints could maybe release Boruc and re-sign him as an out of contract player (though I don't know if there's still a registration date cut-off for out of Transfer Window transfers or if it would apply in that case). It's all pretty hypothetical anyway, would people want to risk the noted nutcase Boruc in that kind of situation when he's burned his bridges with the club? What is clear is that Saints aren't at the 25 player limit. And for what it's worth, the "we'll be alright, we've got a good defence", "Kelvin is loyal so therefore somehow that makes him competent" and "he hasn't made any mistakes Forster wouldn't have" arguments I've seen on here so far are all just a little bit naive. He is a significant downgrade and a much greater risk than Forster. The bloke gets beaten at his near post with startling regularity, is a far more ponderous kicker with less range, is a lot less quick with his reflexes, and has a kicking habit of chucking the ball into open play to make clearances which is more of a risk than a kick from hands every time he does it. I will readily accept that he's more adept at collecting crosses near the edge of the 6 yard box and command his area at this stage, and he saved the two routine efforts and one decent dive asked of him last weekend, but we're looking at 2 months of this.

Nothing we don't already know about the buyout clause, and extrapolating "would you like to play alongside Vertonghen" into "I would like to play for Spurs" is just lazy - you could just as accurately have written an article saying Vertonghen was signing for Saints to join Alderweireld.

I can believe it. I think we both come across as not suffering fools gladly...

Personally I'm delighted that we're changing our goals and status, seeing as the only contact I have with a kid in the academy was trotting out the "Saints will always be a selling club" line when considering which agent to use for their kid's career - about 5 years before they're likely to even get near the first team and have the opportunity to leave and sign for a Champions League club, etc.

Good-oh, I wasn't sure I was going to bother using my season ticket, but now I know that... Incidentally, we beat the team a place above you in the table by 8 goals, and have beaten every other side in the bottom 7 at home so far this season. But then we were utter gash at Turf Moor, and we've been a bit quiet on the goals front recently, so maybe this will be the end of our CL hopes. Though we did also put in our best performance for nearly 3 months last week.

Well you are (again) wrong. Fonte's good, Alderweireld is excellent.

Yup, and none of them are a patch on Alderweireld.

This does make me want to do one of those "who do you know IRL" threads, although nowadays I don't even know if 95% of my mates who used to be online are even lurking.

I'd probably just back down unless my buttons got pressed, been over everything so many times I really can't be bothered nowadays.

I'm basically the same, though I do go whole days without thinking about football kits when I'm not on here. I have a whole pile of righteous indignation that I'm constantly suppressing, I'm pedantic, blunt, opinionated and prepared to go to the ends of the earth to debate a point when I can be bothered, which is a lot less often than it used to be. Oh and utterly obsessed with football in all its forms. I also tend to just shut off communication altogether when I get to the point where I already know what the other person is likely to say (hence the numerous people I've had on block for over a year). I don't take myself too seriously though... sometimes.

He was just sodding around.

Not to mention the amount of training and fitness required to get to a condition to do that to begin with, in the compressed pre-season caused by the competitive games beginning much earlier than the start of the Prem season. Some might think the best way to do it is just to work through and worry about it when you've actually qualified, which explains why some clubs with larger squads afford players the luxury of mid-season breaks. 5th or 6th would make a massive difference than 7th, assuming Liverpool/Arsenal win the FA Cup.

I suspect a massive-money-making Europa League qualifier against a smaller nation's top side might be a bit more strenous than a game against an MLS team mid-season and trying not to injure themselves, or indeed a small alpine lower league side.

I subscribe to this view - hence my argument in winter 2013/14 that Hodgson should have built the team around a core of English Saints players. By April 2014 it turned out that the philosophy was correct but the team I'd chosen was wrong, and Hodgson built his team around a core of English Liverpool players who didn't quite win the title instead. Unfortunately the links and understand wasn't as important as the players not being good enough. Meanwhile Brendan Rodgers had a similar idea and tried to recreate the useless England World Cup team by signing Lallana and Lambert. The flaw in both their plans being that Liverpool didn't have a defensive midfielder so nor did England and Steven Gerrard was past it and hopeless.