The9

Neither were there yesterday, for some reason I decided to look at the squad profiles and was noting missing numbers, of which 7 was one. 20 is now another.

Hmmm, difficult one - but I don't think the website is actively ignoring tradition quite so annoyingly... Still failing to resolve host for me on the laptop.

Spot on. The misuse of the phrase "fire sale" in particular makes certain people look like complete morons, if the rest of their "I refuse to see anything other than the worst possible scenario" hasn't already done so. You missed "panicked Lowe references when people talk about improving the squad" though - even though improving the squad is essential and can only be done by adding better players as opposed to just more players, which ended up being Lowe's downfall due to the kind of necessary financial prudence that hasn't exactly characterised the Liebherr Era. Personally I hope we sign Neil McCann and Mikael Nilsson.

I think he could still be an excellent striker somewhere, I'm just not sure we wouldn't be better off shipping him out and buying someone of equivalent or slightly lesser ability and without the attitude problems who won't already have an issue with a lot of the squad. The team ethic and contribution to our success can't be underestimated, committed players who play for each other are usually more successful than an equivalent team of individuals, and he's definitely one of those.

Mobile site is also down, so either a cross-platform update or someone's pulled out a cable to a data centre...

They're probably upgrading to the new template, adding the new graphics, etc. Unless they launch a kit they're going to have to go with some generic St Mary's or Staplewood backdrops for a while...

There aren't many "don't cares" on here, though I agree with the principle that its strange to post about not being bothered about things you are not bothered by. Also, I very much doubt that the bigger margins on the kit will be offset by the training wear. Firstly because the club doesn't have anyone doing distribution across the country anyway, and unless they start now, that's not an additional cost. Also, last year's shirts didn't sell very well, and they're much more likely to make more money shifting more shirts than they are going to lose from training wear. You've also assumed that the training wear will be poor quality and will sell far less due to that, when it may not be true. Compared to the home shirt, last year's training wear was nice, and the first I'd bought in years, but I also only bought maybe two Umbro training items in 5 years, and loads more of the own brand stuff before that, which for the record was of an equivalent standard and quality to anything either Umbro or adidas produced. You can also hardly be concerned that only "die-hard" kit buyers will buy the new shirt, when a lot of the "die-hard" kit buyers didn't even buy last year's because of the crap design DESPITE the introduction of a popular brand. If it's stripes and vaguely decent it'll still shift more than last year's. You don't maximise profit by producing something only 20% of interested people actually like.

I'm only going off the various stories that have gone around to built up this picture. I also get the idea he can be incredibly mean-spirited and petty over even minor things, and have some concerns about what we're getting lumbered with this season as a result.

You mean by, say, closing the Megastore and West Quay shop today, and keeping the Megastore closed for another 2 weeks or so? I think that will probably cover it.

That sounds pretty unlikely, given that he's meant to have told them he wanted to leave before the end of the season.

Having just come around to the idea of Koeman as an appointment having seen the pics of him managing the likes of Zlatan, I'm now attempting to wrap my head around the appointment of Sammy Lee, who at best comes across as an enthusiastic idiot. Oh well, he might be brilliant, who knows?

Every shirt would be like that if they forgot to put the elastic bit in the collar like they did with the central badge "Theo shirt".

Nope, looks like either the current Patrick brand was used under license by JJB until 2008, or Whelan shifted the brand onto Cortina having improved it's profile by having Wigan wear their shirts circa 2007. So, not owned by Ashley as part of the subsequent JJB purchase by Sports Direct (despite them both selling Patrick teamwear) and a fair point that they would greatly benefit from some Prem exposure. They do currently make some crappo quality stuff though.

Just did a little Google, in Europe Patrick is owned by the Cortina group, they supply a couple of clubs with some very generic looking stuff. I'll have a delve to see if theres anything about UK licensing or ownership, or whether it's all part of the old intersport group that Ashley assimilated.

Well, I'm sure that Patrick was owned by JJB Sports and before that Dave Whelan until SportsDirect bought them out, and SportsDirect were still doing Patrick teamwear last season. It is possible that Ashley flogged the name to someone else when I wasn't looking though, they seem to have shifted to the same styles with Sondico on everything in the past year or so, just like JJB used to cycle through brands (Champion, JJB, Patrick).

Don't get me wrong, I used to work in sports retail, I know the kind of mark ups and the often rubbish material. I'm just pointing out how crappy it looks without the design bits that people like to complain about. Something else just occurred to me about the design, that Heart and Home logo thing sort of had stripes on it, what if the design is those "sort of stripes"? That would be in line with the previous comments about the Pony tick style, as they weren't full stripes either. It would be pretty ugly on the front of a red shirt. Anyway, we'll know pretty soon.

I can't even understand what point you're trying to make here. Cortese "failed to do nothing since November"? So he did something? We know he did, I know he did, I just told *you* that (repeated from information in the thread). He cancelled the Adidas deal, because he's stroppy, and kicked off the own brand stuff, because he's an egomaniac whose eye for detail only extends to the thing directly in his mind st that precise second, and judging by other projects, he'd rather spend money than time on quality and prefers endless iterations at cost until he gets bored, rather than "wasting" his time defining his requirements properly in the first place. There's also the question about whether this is his parting gift, knowing he was leaving and still had the ability to leave a legacy by sodding up the lead times, because the one thing that I don't think is in doubt, is that he'd really love to do that. Anyway, sounds like it's still red, it has now been confirmed as own brand (to the surprise of no-one on here for the last few months) and there's not much point doing mock ups if he haven't got a clue what it'll look like. "A V with stripes under it" has been mentioned but it seems only maybe one or two people have seen it, and one of them is smug enough about it that I'd really rather not hear from them at all. By the way, some ice hockey shirts are awesome, but they don't often come in stripes nowadays.

Seeing as they're owned by Mike Ashley who already owns his own Premier League club, I somehow doubt this is the case.

Not sure what point I'm making here, but doesn't it look cheap and crappy without the branding? I mean ANY branding, Puma, Arsenal or Emirates. It literally is just an ugly polyester blend t-shirt for £50. Yikes.

Bore off, we all already know what you think. Hundreds of times.

All assuming we haven't already lined up replacements of course. I mean it's not like Man U have had a player lined up for 3 weeks with formalities to conclude and we could be doing the same...

Yeah, except it was your mate "please come back Mr" Cortese who brokered the amateurish deal. Ps has anyone else mentioned that you sound like an hysterical ar5e?

Not really, if the outgoing chairman kicked off a deal with a new supplier, which apparently he did. That takes the lead time down from "Adidas deal cancelled months ago" to "would have then had to cancel another deal and get a new supplier in place in a shorter time scale", not to mention the cost and risk to reputation.

The chances of us selling fewer shirts than last year will be down to design and quality because there will be no sales to brand fans. Had last year's Adidas shirts been striped they would have broken a load of sales records, but because they were plain red and Saints fans mostly hated the design (source, this site and Echo polls) we've still got loads left.

Yep, loved it, didn't care who else had a similar style. It was as good as the home shirt was cack.