The9

Sound.

The level is garbage, and the media coverage absolutely infuriates me. When the standard is decent, THEN put it on national television. They've already proven they don't give a toss for competitiveness by auto-relegating Doncaster last year to parachute Man City in, so why should I care about them playing out an insignificant competition which the organisers have already rendered worthless?

Oh I think that we'll be alright with stripes now we're Cortese-free. Some bloke on Facebook came up with some guff about "adidas not liking stripes" yesterday "because their stripes don't stand out on striped kits". I'm sure they were gutted to provide the Stoke, Sunderland and Brentford kits last season.

It's Here! Obviously information about Saints' kit for next season is a little thin on the ground at the moment, but last I heard, the club was in negotiations to have adidas back, and they have just released a few adidas 2015 shirts for international countries and clubs - many of which are the same style. Round necks are in... So here goes. Northern Ireland Wales Wellington Phoenix (New Zealand) I'm sure there will be more of this kind of nonsense to come.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=Apple%20iPod%20classic%20160GB

Click the link above. It's been mentioned a few times, not sure about the validity of the sources, but I think that it's been mentioned in conjunction with the Tesco development. I suppose it beats them spending it on wages, not that they're allowed to do that at the moment anyway.

And while I think of it, what in the hell are they thinking, talking about building/expanding the one stand when they can't get close to filling the ground currently? You have to love half-baked ideas like this, which is the sort of thing they shouldn't even consider until they've got themselves into the top 2 of the division above. Long and short of it, if they were well-run and competent, when they're out of transfer sanctions they SHOULD be able to get out of L2 fairly easily, as they SHOULD have a much bigger budget than most and they're at least Sheffield United sized. Confirmed L1/Championship yo-yo club within 10 years. If they actually invest in their academy they SHOULD also be able to get some kids through and maybe only run at the kind of manageable loss most L1 sides make. But channel those resources into a bigger stand for... well, no matches, and they can forget all that lot, they're back to not paying debts (or just siphoning money off the private HNW real owners if they're daft enough). I was about to say "I can't work out how they managed to get Whatmough through their "youth system" " but then I remembered he was one of ours and we let him go, plus L2 isn't exactly the Premier League for punishing mistakes (or even Saints youth level for that matter). But for now, lets enjoy the lolz.

I suspected they were punching above their weight after Newport went there and won, Skates haven't won a match since, I don't think. I can't take all the credit (or even any of it), but... "when the 'Port go steaming in" has actually stuck with the County fans as well as being hilarious at Fratton. Somehow Newport are still a point behind them though. It's like last season in reverse.

It was probably his fault that Crouch had to wait so long for a run in the team, too, I recall a pre-season friendly at Swindon where Van Damme spent the whole time hoofing the ball at Crouch despite loud and clear instructions from the bench to stop doing so. Spoke to some Ajax fans at Euro 2004 when we signed him who basically said he was a clumsy donkey who got sold because Maxwell was a lot better. I also recall he had a Hummer (may even have been a yellow one), had looked at buying the flat in the building next door in Westwood Road when I was staying there, and due to the petrol consumption of said Hummer, apparently once ran out of fuel half way up the M3 on the way to London. Oh, and we had a song to the tune of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which didn't catch on but it was at a ridiculous pace that the back of the Northam would have loved.

He sat on the bench for the 0-0 with Mozambique and the 2-1 defeat to Cape Verde, the other game was only a few hours ago, haven't seen the teams yet but finished 0-0.

Though it has to be said, losing Mayuka isn't even a blip, and Mane's position is well covered by Rodriguez and Long even though Senegal top their qualifying group on goal difference from Tunisia and 4 points clear of Egypt with 3 games to go.

Difficult to say as they'll only be halfway through the final qualifying groups after this weekend. Kenya lost to Lesotho in the 2nd round of qualifying for the groups. Zambia are 3rd of 4 at the moment but even one of the third place teams goes through. You'd hope they were better than Mozambique if not Cape Verde.

A mate's daughter is a student at this uni. She has confirmed the story is true. She isn't the type to produce photographic evidence, however.

Paul Gascoigne's judgement as a benchmark eh? As for "mostly wide midfielder scores fewer than central midfielder", this is hardly a surprise. Also, Robson played for Man U when they were rarely in Europe whilst Beckham had loads of Champions League games, and Robson played for England at a time when you could stick 9 goals on Luxembourg and Turkey. Admittedly England's current Euro 2016 group isn't conducive to my argument that international football is more competitive nowadays, but the recent complaints that it's too easy support that it's an exception. And it was only 5...

Nature of the game in those days, he was a water carrier.

£20 a ticket, wasn't it? I know two people who went who haven't been to an England match in years AFAIK.

I'd take Adkins over him, and Pearson, and probably Phil Brown for that matter.

Captain Cour-utches, as I recall a Liverpool fanzine referring to him in the late 80s. . He was decent in 1982, but England were better without him by '86, and Ferguson himself noted that the drinking culture Robson led was the main obstacle to Ferguson getting success at Man U. His general Souness-like thuggishness was enough back then, playbreaker with an excellent engine, lots of aggression and a good shot. He was particularly awful towards the end, with his cameos in the Man U number 12 shirt in their first Premier League title win involving people dribbling past him and him hacking them down from behind. He was like Michael Brown but with the media on his side from about '88 onwards.

The sooner Wenger gets around to converting Chambers to a defensive midfielder, the better for England. He started in central midfield for Saints, even played there against Stevenage in the League Cup a couple of years back, and he's versatile enough to fill the massive gaping hole that exists in front of the back 4 (which Gerrard was terrible at filling in the World Cup and Milner might be better at - but who could tell against last night's opponents?). I struggle to understand why you think a bloke who does nothing on the training ground at all at his club (apparently), and tries to buy his way to success, would be a better option for a "high intensity in short bursts over a long period, work with what you have" coaching job like England.

Chambers went down the wing and crossed at least twice in the time I was watching (I put Slovakia v Spain on when it got interesting) - but his "crosses" didn't get off the ground or past the first defender. You'd think, having set up camp at St Mary's last season, that Hodgson would have worked out that Chambers is better for defending and Clyne better at going forward, but apparently not. Of course his get out of jail card is if he played Chambers to keep Clyne fresh for the trickier match against Estonia (everything's relative). But then why pick the "first team" against San Marino if that's the case?

A 4-4-2 with Le Tiss as the supporting striker and 2 defensively minded central midfielders IS basically a 4-2-3-1, so he'd have done well - because he did.

Bryan Robson was a dirty, overrated heap of hacking toss who wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes in the modern game and thrived on 80s football because it was almost all about harrying, haring around like maniacs and "getting rid" - except for Liverpool, who knew how to keep a ball (and admittedly kill a game when leading with endless backpasses), hence their success. His strengths were fouling people and running a lot. Oh, and getting injured and shouting. Roy Keane was twice the player Robson was.

He was gash in his last England (U21) game too.

Strange, I'd say he was the only good thing about them so far, hardly his fault teams know they have nothing else going forward at the moment and set up to stop him. And even then he's been decent.

I laughed very loudly when his goal was wrongly ruled out for offside earlier.