The9

Oi, I have a day job and it was only ever going to be a trailer for something they won't sell until July... when I'll be down at the Megastore banging on the doors trying to get in to buy the thing and maybe getting some new font name and numbers on it.

In which case I agree with you. the first episode implies this is the case too. Someone's nicked the kit.

https://southamptonfc.com/news/2017-06-14/club-statement-claude-puel-southampton I'm quite disappointed, tbh. A lot of people won't be. No lose situation for the incoming boss.

I'd say it definitely isn't, what with most kids not having £65 floating around for the shirt and printing, etc.

New dishrags for the Portsea area launched. Amusingly they had a vote, and option A won all three. I'm thinking they may have been some shenanigans/system failure afoot. Dubious navy third with pink trim. Because when you have a blue home kit, you need a navy third... http://www.footyheadlines.com/2017/06/portsmouth-17-18-home-away-third-kits.html

That sounds very much like an old Cabbage Face joke, I'll have to check. EDIT: It is not he. :/

Nice to see Caceres front and centre anyway. On an unrelated note, here's the first 2017/18 shirt I've seen with a sleeve sponsor:

Well, it's got a Saints logo, an Under Armour logo and an all-black thing in lieu of a proper kit, with a date that's pretty much in line with recent launches. And the hashtag is #madeforheroes with the tweet saying "History is in your hands", it's definitely the 80s-inspired kit.

The away kit looks like this, they've just chosen all black in the cartoon as a place-holder. It actually looks like the cartoon has been designed so they will just add the kit colour to the existing cartoon for the launch: I'm assuming this is navy with teal/jade(ish) in a sort-of Patrick away kit homage without using too much blue.

Anyway... First game of the season: Palace away. Boxing day: Chelsea away. 30th December: Leicester home. Easter Weekend: Liverpool away. Last game: Newcastle home. FA Cup third round: Accrington away. League Cup second round: Newport County away.

Incidentally, why's there an assumption we're playing on Boxing Day and 28th December? 26th is a Tuesday and the next Saturday is 30th. Even the draft fixture pile-up schedule the BBC was flapping about in January only has games on 16/20/23/26/30 and Jan 1 (though it's more than enough to knacker out most teams). I can see them dropping the 20th though, and the 26th games will happen on the Tue/Wed. But that does mean it's unlikely there will be a game on 28th. I haven't seen an actual schedule for the match days yet though there could be one out there.

That hasn't been confirmed yet, only that the 1st round will be. The exact text is "The draw is also regionalised to minimise travelling time for supporters in the first round, with seeding decided by a club’s finishing position in the EFL last season". Of course that doesn't mean they won't, they just haven't said yet.

Don't know if Round 2 will be regionalised yet as they haven't said, but it will be 17 Northern sides qualifying from 1st Round 18 Southern sides qualifying from 1st Round 12 Premier League teams from 8th-19th place from 2016/17 3 Promoted teams from EFL Championship from 2016/17 (total 50 teams, probably split 24 North/26 South and seeded by league position from 2016/17, leaving us with a choice of around 13 of the lowest ranked remaining southern teams and not being able to face the top 12 ranked southern Prem/remaining Championship sides) 3rd Round sees the 7 Prem teams who are in Europe joining the 25 remaining from Round 2. https://www.efl.com/news/2017/june/draw-round-one-ties-to-be-drawn-on-friday-16th-june/

Nice analytical article here about Premier League teams rotating their players. http://eightyfivepoints.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/tinker-tailor-mould-side-squad-rotation.html?m=1 Saints barely get a mention, but it does contain this helpful diagram by way of showing changes per game. That should at least answer whether we rotated more than other Premier League sides in Europe in the top 6 which someone was asking before. Also, if we could just leave Puel out of the discussion here, there are plenty of other places to bang on about him. Also an article about the impact of playing in Europe on overall points total here (which links to studies showing there's not an obvious short term effect on surrounding matches but there is definitely one from playing more games). http://eightyfivepoints.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/playing-in-europe-does-affect-domestic.html?m=1

To be fair, this year's home shirt has the same collar as last, and this year's away shirt is last year's home shirt in a different colour without the 'bra' - the stripe pattern is exactly the same.

It's a design cue taken from the "5 lines" stuff that's outside the ground, and also appeared last season on the socks. This year it's on the bit between the red and white stripe and around the bottom of the shorts. For that reason I quite like it, though it does seem just slightly too wide.

This way we pay his contract until he gets a new job, is he likely to get more money anywhere else? Probably not. So he'll maximise his income by not leaving before pushed. If pushed.

You might be surprised.

We probably will or already have - he's got 4 years left on his deal too.

Fair point - can only assume that as with Forren (and Gardos since his injury) that he wasn't showing enough to justify a place to begin with. Would have been interesting to see if he'd got more games this season with the pile of fixtures and the evident lack of goalscorer given that the YouTubes suggested he could play as a deep lying striker breaking through the defensive line as much as a playmaker, but we'll never know.

Actually I've just said "it's down to the schedule and player fatigue". There is a ton of evidence proving this is a significant factor. No amount of facilities can magically make players untired, especially with the cumulative effects of doing that for months on end. Well, blood doping can apparently but I'm hoping we're not involved in that one. The tactics were driven by the need to manage the number of games the team was playing. This was a factor from August to the start of February, and from April to the end of the season. The two months we didn't have back to back games we only played 4 fixtures, all away from St Mary's, scoring 4 twice and narrowly losing to Man U and Spurs. It's really not hard to see that Puel's options were hugely limited, and personally I feel that we managed it very well and but for a couple of bounces could have won a Cup and got ourselves to the Europa knockouts. Finishing above 8th with all that going on as well and the way the fixtures fell (plus Everton's investment) was a difficult ask.

And he did well before joining us. Some younger players just can't settle in a different country to be able to give their best.

Lolz

Agreed.

You understand that they're playing against other people with the same privileges? And that we're talking about needing to be at peak performance to compete or being disadvantaged before the match even starts?