The9

I like him more now.

Should have died as soon as the murderer was revealed, it was utterly pointless for months after that.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/dave-kitson-lined-up-for-england-721841 - some of the "Kitson for England under Capello" evidence.

We could have been tracking him for a full 3 years without it being any kind of backhanded compliment, given that we started so well in the Championship. Also, we're not in the Premiership now, either.

Players can also have contractual clauses stating they must be informed of any bids (or indeed just any bids above a certain amount). The flaw with Morgan's timeline (though it doesn't affect the reasoning) is that we'd signed Pelle and Tadic 2 weeks before selling Lovren and Chambers.

I'm a tad cynical about it, as I'm pretty sure he'd still have left between that match and the closure of the window if the club had let him, but speaking as someone who went to Anfield, it was a massive lift to see his name on the teamsheet before kick off, and was a clear statement of intent from both Koeman and Schneiderlin. I'm still incredibly cynical about players and their futures at Saints after this summer, but for me, that was the time to hope the move was definitely off and get on with backing the current players, of which he was one.

I went to see One Night in Turin (possibly not as good as the Paris version, too much football from 1990 in it, not enough billionaire heiress humping) but left when it became obvious that Jim Rosenthal's Q&A was hosted remotely from some cinema in London afterwards rather than him gracing the building with his actual presence. Not sure why that mattered to me to be honest, saved me half an hour anyway. This is as close as I can get to the loser-level needed to watch an FM film. And I'm not buying it this year, it doesn't have the level of geekdom I need from creating regional lower leagues and simply doesn't work properly.

I haven't seen the "goal" since it happened, but I remember the Dell nets, rather than being "taut" as described, were in fact quite loose at the back, probably to try and absorb the energy of the ball before it hit the adverts.

We'd be fine if our first XI could play 90 minutes in every match, but as with last season, we don't have the depth to maintain a serious challenge. We can beat the poor teams, and most of the mid-table ones, and some of the top ones, but we need the wind blowing in the right direction at the right time to be able to do it consistently, and any kind of injury, fatigue or suspension reduces the likelihood of winning enough of those games.

The fact a L2 defender is even near the England U19s says a lot for the limited number of English players coming through.

Guessing that all that happened is that they paid in full, but early to save on the interest. Which is what we were saying they should have done months ago. Admittedly we were suggesting it on moral grounds rather than financial ones - but they do appear to have used the last PP to pay it off... once they'd made sure there weren't any repayment fees and suchlike. Such a lot of effort and boosting for doing what they should have done in the first place.

"Gibbering", but as I was saying, they've managed to get the players to accept a deal without threatening anyone this time, that's progress. But yes, of course they've not paid the full amount, they weren't even paying most of them the full amount when they announced the repayment plan in the first place, and now they've taken even more of a cut in what they're owed. The players are either stupid, or... nope, that's it. Anyone not getting the full amount owed by their contract from before the last CVA (and probably from before the one before that) is just being stupid. Then again, they signed for Portsmouth in the first place, so... I wonder how many of them were "just tell us you'll take £1 less so we can say everyone's taken a cut". Presumably this money is all from the HNWs? They'd already had the last parachute payment, so unless that was just sitting there they probably wouldn't have the money. EDIT: maybe not, see below.

Funnily enough 29 is exactly as many as Newport have, and they're one of the lower spenders, so depending on the level those players are at (Newport's list includes a 16-year old with 1 L2 appearance, but the Skates have Whatmough) I'd say that was about standard. How much they're offering them is a different matter. Eiterh way, they're about where I'd expect them to be in the table if they weren't diddling the books. Based on attandances alone they should be in the top 2 though. Which for as long as they're not, is funny.

An extra year's worth at an increased rate, plus extra in L1 and L2 from the new tv deal. They were indeed very jammy in that sense, though notsomuch in the share of dosh they get for being in the league they're in, which is much lower in L2 than it would have been in the Championship.

Some of their fans have been swearing blind this happened ages ago. Based on recent reporting it shouldn't be too tricky to track down.

Football debts have to be paid in full and weren't watered down by either CVA. Unless of course you get a bunch of neanderthals to intimidate your players into accepting lower payouts. I think they've managed to do it this time without anyone actively threatening or being threatened (and without begging players to take wage cuts and write off money owed to them in full view of the Sky cameras at Wellington), so THERE'S progress for you. Though admittedly there might have been non-football creditors they've managed to get to agree to less (again) too, and that lot would already have been hammered twice, but it seems unlikely they'd not have already paid th... oh who am I kidding?

I doubt anyone is going to read the whole list, what I'd want to see is an analysis of the clubs being reported upon as a proportion of the overall football stories. Knock yourself out.

"Panic buy" who the club have been tracking for years? Moneyball theory is "identify your target, get them if available". Cost isn't particularly important in this equation, other teams have spent loads more on their side with far less overall success. We've had a few frees with the academy and can afford to pay a bit over on some others without it being a big issue, especially if they're long-time targets who've been identified as being suited to our style. And as for "we all thought", speak for yourself.

Yup, came on late against Norway.

Does this mean he'll have to wear a special built up boot (or whatever that Skate rumour about Fuller slipping over was)?

Quite. Bloody popularity contest. They should shrink the votes based on UK fanbase or some such Saints-beneficial method.

I think Long's been doing fine, he's a hard worker, good Prem experience, wouldn't expect him to score many from out wide. It's not his fault it cost us £12m to buy him because he was only 6 months into a contract, but Mane has come in and looked a lot more impactful purely because he's a more pacy dribbler who draws more fouls. If you want consistency, that's probably Long, if you want an unpredictable spark, Mane.

I didn't think Pelle had any kind of service whatsoever, whilst Adebayor and Eriksen were being passed the ball by counterattacking Spurs players pretty much all the time. Adebayor didn't score either, so not sure how he could be described as the difference. Pelle could have made all the same runs but what's the point when the ball is 40 yards away and no-one's passing it quickly enough or they're already under pressure? Most of our attacks went through Mane, that was clearly the plan. I thought the Spurs fans were a LOT better than the Liverpool fans - and they were notably completely unembarrassed to sing OWTSpurs - or at least the fans next to the away section were, they were loving it - even if it did just sound like it was us doing all the singing as a result, the idiots. Personally speaking I thought the best response to Pochettino was to ignore him.

I went. Very frustrating first half. Spurs completely negated us for the first 45, and were (like Liverpool) STILL lucky to beat us in a match where we probably deserved a point. Worst game Forster's had with 4 obvious mistakes yet none of them cost a goal. Not sure about the Kaboul/Mane challenge, could easily have been a red but the ball and player weren't headed directly for goal so gave the ref a cop out. Our midfield was fine, but Spurs' gameplan apart from the early press was to catch us with players upfield on the counter from our set-pieces - it was like watching Saints last season but with fast blokes where Lambert and Lallana were which made them more of a threat - and even then we got a lot of important blocks in at vital moments. The reason we edged possession was because they both sat back and pressed the ball high up the pitch during the match, so they never really had the ball for long - but at the same time in the first half we never had the time to string passes together. Weird contradiction in the play due to our slow build up in the second half (which was costing us dearly) adding to the possession stat without having any impact on end product. The thing I was most disappointed with was our lack of rapid switching of play - we left it until reallly late to start moving it between the full backs and they were all over the place when we started to do that. It's not like we didn't know what they were going to do, they've been doing it all season (with varying results). Once we started stretching them and playing behind the full backs we looked good, with both Mane and Long there. Our full backs rarely got the chance to go forrward though, and the Naughton injury was the worst thing that happened to us, he's awful and Bertrand was unmarked the couple of times he did get up there. Completely in agreement with the decision to chase the game taking Wanyama off, as noted, they were doing all the right things but never in a position to repel the Spurs counters which were always from transitions and broken play, and they went in behind us up the wings. Only Forster really looked below par, and even Mane's miss was clearly just because the two defenders between him and the ball impeded his view so he saw it very late. 1-1 would have been fair in the end, but equally they could have been out of sight by half time and at 2-0 down it would have been a long way back. Oh, and for all the cobblers that's been spoken about our much better squad and strength in depth, use of Long aside I didn't think we had a player on the bench who would have improved the team.