The9

That's because the Premiership ceased being the name of the league nearly 8 years ago. Unless you're talking about Scotland or Rugby, in which case, apologies.

We've already sold the left back after the left back after the left back after him anyway, his mum's always on Facebook telling people Saints are a selling club and intend to remain so. :/

Solent Green being inspired by the film "Soylent Green" about a futuristic food product of the same name. The twist has been spoiled, above. It's sort of like Cardiff calling their away kit zombie blood red or something. Full points to hummel/Saints for the silliness though.

We did indeed - couldn't buy that one in the first Prem season either, lucky I bought one in the Championship promotion season. Didn't buy the twice-worn white away kit and only wish I had now.

I am eating many pies (and still fitting the 2XL from the summer), but I was not between the end of April (large crappy all-red home shirt reduced to £15) and June (new lovely stripey thing launched).

Not where booby-traps and ambushes are involved.

This leaves me wondering what 5 letter swear is missing. I can't even think of any 5-letter swears.

You'd think that at some point in the past 18 months when he's probably been available at a knock-down price he would have signed for Milan then? Instead of playing for two of their rivals. Also, at the point where he left Roma they were in the top 3 and Milan were scuffling around midtable, so it really makes no sense.

Though having said that, Osvaldo's latest supposed outburst and argument on the pitch with a teammate was completely overblown and happens all over the world every few matches with any striker who's even remotely in a decent position. It was a fraction of a second of yelling and then getting on with it - of course his position wasn't helped by Podolski being far better placed than him anyway. I shall be hoping he starts against Torino on Sunday, I'll be keeping an eye on him.

Oh come on, when Miranda exists?

Erm, this is probably going to sound a bit heartless, but why were they given compensation anyway? I mean the guy died in a terrorist bombing which is horrific, but is that the state forking out to prevent claims over failure to provide civilian security or what? Who's stumping up the cash and why? Isn't that what life policies are for?

I had less sympathy for the one that's doing the rounds about the guy losing £42k because he cashed out his TWO 10-12(ish) team accumulators for £87, bearing in mind that 3 of the matches hadn't even kicked off at that point, including Saints at Newcastle and the two Sunday Prem games. That's not really a "near miss", it wasn't even the same day, and he made 8 times his stake.

I have every sympathy for him, it was an appalling and obviously hopeless offside decision and the ref was no better, not seeing that he was in his own half. Surely every near-winning bet that doesn't win is snatched away by fate?

Didn't he just use it to describe a player who'd recently been on loan to now-non League Torquay? So not just any one-time Prem team (which is now around half of the FL anyway) but also non-Prem teams, and non-FL teams. It's probably Indian Premier League cricket or something.

I wish, I went to Cambridge and had the pleasure of seeing Newport get humped 4-0.

I went, and I can't for the life of me give any justification why anyone would have gone. God only knows why we did. Three hour drive there (because we left at lunchtime and not nearer kick off time when it would have taken at least another hour), three hour drive back in torrential rain and blowing a gale, and near death experiences ahoy on the M25 whilst passing lorries displacing every bit of surface water onto my windscreen. Also, the away end was basically sold out apart from one half-row of seats next to me, so it's not like we could have sold many more even if we'd wanted to. And as you mentioned, I could have stayed at home and watched it for free in HD on national, "terrestrial" tv. Hopefully they heard the "are you watching Pompey scum" chant after about 10 minutes then?

Edinburgh turned them down last season, to stay at Newport (who've beaten them 4 of the 5 times they've played since County got back in the FL, remember). Just to give you an idea of how tinpot that is, there's now serious concern at Newport that Justin Edinburgh is about to leave to join Gillingham.

Funnily enough about a week after the match, the Newport County Facebook page found some video footage from behind the goal which showed that O'Connor not only didn't touch the ball, but also that he was ONSIDE when the ball was played. Made me laugh, perfectly legitimate goal.

I had the same reservations about Bertrand, to be honest. 22 league games in and he's exceeding all my expectations. Elia has so far, too. Also, we're talking about talented young players with the very top achievements on their football CVs, not some fringe Polish international Championship signing.

Given that Elia was in Ajax's youth team in the early 2000s when Koeman was the first team manager, Koeman has a knowledge of Elia that he doesn't have of Osvaldo - in fact Pochettino had that level of Osvaldo and STILL couldn't handle him. So no, Koeman's policy with troublemakers seems to be "get rid" rather than risk it. In addition, Elia is clearly grateful to Koeman for the opportunity after his career starting sliding from the 2010 World Cup Final, which can work wonders for attitude. Osvaldo has no such gratitude or inclination to change, and clearly doesn't feel that way towards Mancini at Inter either. As for "it's his bird", I'm pretty sure that's not what causes Osvaldo's combustion on the pitch at all, which is the problem. Though it might be contributing to a bit of instability off it.

Stats say we had the fewest soft tissue injuries of any Prem club. We are reliant on a smaller core group than most though, which means the players are more likely to be fatigued - but even then we've got a load of monitoring going on.

Hammies are at least 3 weeks, up to 5 for "normal" ones and over that depending on the severity of the pull/tear - so that's Alderweireld/Wanyama taken care of (though Toby's is meant to be thigh not hamstring). Groins can be a sod, could be anything for Schneiderlin and really difficult to rest. Mane's away until at least the first week of February whether he's fit or not, his recovery was meant to be 6 weeks from New Year's Day (though he was hinting at 2 weeks, he wasn't fit for yesterday's Senegal match against Ghana). Rodriguez will be back next week for the Dev Squad or never, depending on who you believe.

Which "friend" and referee is that? I didn't mention either. It has to be deliberate, and the consideration of where the player's hands would be if he was deliberately trying to stop the ball with his hand will obviously influence the referee's opinion of whether it was deliberate or not. The only truly accurate way to make that decision is by knowing what a player ALWAYS does when trying to block the ball. The laws of the game (so we can all discuss from an informed position) state this: Handling the ball involves a deliberate act of a player making contact with the ball with his hand or arm. The referee must take the following into consideration: • the movement of the hand towards the ball (not the ball towards the hand) • the distance between the opponent and the ball (unexpected ball) • the position of the hand does not necessarily mean that there is an infringement • touching the ball with an object held in the hand (clothing, shinguard, etc.) counts as an infringement • hitting the ball with a thrown object (boot, shinguard, etc.) counts as an infringement http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/refereeing/02/36/01/11/27_06_2014_new--lawsofthegameweben_neutral.pdf Fonte may always block with his hands in that position, or he may have put it up there especially to prevent the ball passing. That has a significant impact on whether the ref believes it's deliberate or not. I agree with you that he wouldn't have time to block it deliberately. The bit you're not getting is that there's a discussion to be had about whether the position he "naturally" adopts is reasonable or whether it's a position which intends on blocking the ball deliberately in the event that it moves at him - the Laws obviously aren't designed to allow players to spread themselves as widely as possible with the defence that they didn't mean to handle, when they've put themselves in a position which makes it so much more obvious that the are likely to handle. That's the nuance of the "natural position" debate. He didn't move his hand to the ball, Either way they're often given.

I am, she isn't

They print it whilst you're there, they have a bank of screen printing machines - one word of advice, try the shirt on, this season's kit is totally ridiculously sized, I was in a Large and a XL last season, both home and away this season are 2XL! There's a store at the ground and another downstairs in West Quay - but they don't shirt print in the one at the shopping centre.