The9

Ha, having said I have no idea how much they get for being on Sky, here's Portsmouth's Mark Catlin to confirm it's approx £10k. http://www.fsf.org.uk/blog/view/pompey-refund-fans-travel-costs-after-tv-moves-game The article is also all about how the club refunded the travel costs of 70 fans who were inconvenienced by the fixture being moved for tv, and then in classic Skate style, buries the news that actually the club didn't pay for it in the middle there somewhere.

http://www.football365.com/f365-features/8914671/Parachute-Payments-Are-Crippling-Competition Solidarity Payments increased by £12k as well as their final parachute going up by £1m. They were also on Sky a few times but no idea how much they get for that. The old parachute payments revised in 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22171365 were £48m over 4 years (£15m for the first season, £17m for the second and then a further two payments of £8m per season) The new deal was http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11661/8646585/premier-league-wont-budge-on-increased-parachute-payments relegated clubs to receive £23million in the first year, £18million in the second and £9million in years three and four. As the Skates were in the 4th year of PPs last season, they got £9m instead of £8m, plus the £240k solidarity payment for L2 clubs. Presumably Pompeynomics means that despite them going on about "all" the PPs being redirected to the massive outstanding debt they owe to former players when their League status was in doubt before 2012/13, they've still had away with the extra million PPs as some kind of surplus.

Hence "underrated". He's been superb.

I'd be inclined to think the difference in terminology is purely the number of players doing the closing down. "Defending from the front" alone is pointless, doing it in numbers to close off all short passing options is much more effective at winning possession. "Defending from the front" in numbers is pressing, Rooney "defending from the front" is not.

No they didn't. They might have said Schneiderlin was more lightweight than Wotton, but they didn't say Wotton was better overall.

I didn't think it was possible for a shirt to be thinner than last season's adidas home. The away at least felt like it had a bit more solidity to it. The Umbro sash shirt was a decent thickness and felt like the best quality of anything we've had recently, the Championship shirt was "normal" (I just spent a weekend wearing a couple of them) but still felt thicker than last season's home. Haven't got the new one yet, will pop down in the next couple of weeks to try some on.

It'll be interesting to see if Ward-Prowse jumps forward this summer as much as he did last, when he added some pretty awesome set-piece delivery to his skillset and immediately gave himself that angle to get into the squad.

His name is on quite a few of the FA's coaching books.

Partially because they were put in an impossible position by the sales job Cortese did being based on his imagination alone and nothing that had been agreed with the person who was actually funding it - leaving the "new lot" having to either live up to unsustainable goals or reduce expectations based on the reality of the situation. I think they could have managed the transfers better so far (always bring players in before letting others go being the obvious example), but they were left with a bunch of players who'd been told we were aiming for the Champions League when clearly last season's squad could only have done that if the first XI was fit and available for every match - Cortese didn't oversee a squad that could get into Europe, just a first XI that thought it could, many of whom jumped when it became obvious they wouldn't.

Well, they're not in the Scottish League and nor do they play rugby, so I'd say that was pretty certain.

Seems fairly obvious to me that 2013 top half West Brom without Lukaku were 2014 near-relegation West Brom, hence the lack of interest in the others. Yacob and Mulumbu were also a vital pairing for them, but their results went seriously off when either was paired with anyone else, which suggests neither was the kind of proven talent top sides pick up. How did we do without Lovren last season?

Unless we draw Liverpool in the FA Cup 3rd Round I doubt ITV's Andy Townsend will be covering many Saints matches next season...

Oh and of course endless mentions of Total Football, when we won't be playing Total Football. The 4-3-3 (even a narrow midfield 4-3-3 played in a completely different way to 1970s Holland) won't help getting rid of this lazy Dutch related piece of footballing shorthand.

Yeah, I was going to revive "Struggling Southampton" too. And we'll get the lie about 6-3 grey shirts when we play Man United on the box again too... (it was the 3-1 match). There will be endless lazy academy references, a load of stuff about how Saints fans will wish we'd kept x player and where could we have been now, some will still traipse out stuff about us being a selling club and needing the money, the South Coast "not being a hotbed of football", and many many more.

Saint Robbie continues to not understand the concept of a fire sale with facepalming results. Also, Wurzel is spot on with the transfer window stuff, except "FIFA" not "UEFA". Fifa recorded Lambert as a Saints player because their recognition of the transfer window is July 1st due to player contracts rolling over then. They also have a fecked up idea of what a close season is, all for legal purposes.

We don't know the detail of the deals, but seems pretty obvious why it costs more to buy.

It's not a charity.

The only things I don't like are the absence of any logo (for design balance and to meet expectations) and the minimal amount of black. Design wise I like it quite a lot. It doesn't look "cheap", it looks professional, if it didn't have any detailed design such as the lines in the stripes it might look "cheap". The use of the multistripe motif in the weave of the navy away is a nice feature too.

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?50857-Do-You-Like-the-new-kit-(2014-15-unbranded)#.U8t2MBlwbqA Last year's 19% liked (9% said they liked and would buy), this year's 87% liked, 44% said they liked and would buy. Tells you all you need to know about the relative popularity of the designs, especially given that Adidas themselves are "popular" and even that couldn't make last year's shirt likeable for the vast majority. Haven't got mine yet due to being in Preston at Worldnet 2014, but will definitely be trying them on. Also, Tractorsaint doesn't look like a 3XL in that pic, is he hiding some bulk round the front?

A view shared by not many, see the poll.

This one is his fault, he cancelled the Adidas contract and agreed the own brand deal.

It's because we aren't getting a kit deal handout from a brand, so they're making up the difference with the pricing. I'm just surprised it doesn't have the shirt sponsors all over it, or even a secondary sponsor.

Worth noting that of his 5 goals, 2 were against Fulham under Meulensteen, so probably shouldn't count.

That article said Caulker "had a superb season". He scored a mildly disproportionate number of goals in a side which got relegated, was utter toilet after Xmas except for basically one fluke at St Mary's, and also conceded shed loads of goals including to some terrible teams.

Strange that, cos most "proper" businessmen see football for the terrible business it is and also see little benefit in signing up with any clubs other than the massive global brands because they just don't get their money's worth. Even Spurs and Liverpool are sponsored by utter nobodies.