The9

Our tactics had little to do with it, they were fundamentally sound. The lack of depth in the squad in some critical matches and the overall lack of a striker who was able to create his own chances was the reason we didn't do better. Teams could park the bus knowing that we usually didn't score from range and that we weren't often going to run through them. That Rodriguez was able to until his injury was one of the massive upsides and the reason he was top scorer. That Lallana did it a couple of times was a bonus, but the glaring lack of someone with top level finishing ability as soon as Osvaldo was exiled was the biggest problem. Our possession wasn't propaganda, it was often in dangerous positions, but we often just didn't have the pace of foot or mind to unlock defences. Shaw's crappy final ball was part of it too, though once Rodriguez was gone his attacking threat improved.

So what you're saying is that playing into the holes left by playing your full backs 20 yards up the pitch is the obvious (and I do mean bleeding obvious) way to counter a team playing 4-2-3-1? Like everyone did against us in 2012/13 under Pochettino? Well THIS is a revelation...

Given that 3 of those players just did and another one is playing for next season's relegation favourites, that's a pretty confident assertion.

I think the majority of us hoped that we had a squad of players who appreciated what they could achieve at Saints with a few additions. Apparently not, though. We were doing so well until Boruc's Cruyff turn, it was all downhill from there as the injuries suddenly kicked in and we had to rely on a weak bench and the likes of Yoshida in important matches. Even so, 8th for a team which could have been sleep-walking for the last 3 months was pretty impressive. I don't know what we'd have had to do to keep them, though. Agents are pitching us as this elite player-factory for CL clubs.

Except that occasion when we sold the only player anyone would have been interested in at the time.

If you are a complete mentalist who ignores reality, this is absolutely true. I'm still waiting for Jack Cork to join Reading, Sam Gallagher to go on loan to Gillingham, and us signing Jordan Mutch, Danny Ings and Axel Witsel, to quote a few off the top of my head.

I wonder how much it would take to extract Joel Campbell from Arsenal? Incredible workrate, might not be out of the question if Wenger has the same attitude to him that Mourinho has to Lukaku... and his value is declining by the second at the moment but HCDAJFU...

Given that Monaco paid €40m for him a year ago and also bought Falcao at the same time, I suspect they're not going to be selling.

It IS crazy, but you have forgotten we've also lost Guly. We need a couple of midfielders to replace Guly and Lallana, plus maybe another one to replace Schneiderlin. So 2... at the moment. I'm hopeful that we'll bring Sims through to replace Lallana, but it's a big leap and he'll need an experienced left back behind him.

He's right, y'know. Some teams in south america have had Umbro kit all the way through, God knows what the complexities of the legal agreements there were, but basically what happened was: Nike bought Umbro, continued to run them as a separate brand in 2010/11 with new deals, then in 2011 all but announced they were killing the Umbro brand off, took all their good contracts (Man City and England being the most obvious), in the meantime they carried on supplying "Umbro" kit to contractually obligated teams in 2012, before cancelling all the Umbro deals in Europe and then selling the Umbro name to Iconix (a marketing company) at the end of 2012. Most umbro teams went to adidas kit, some went with Nike (Everton) but it depended on years left on their deal (Saints' deal with Umbro was already over anyway at the end of 2012/13) and it was basically a free-for-all. There were no umbro shirts in the Prem in 2013/14, but some countries (eg Canada and Peru) and south American clubs kept the branding so maybe the Americas Umbro is completely separate company? Iconix presumably then got someone to make kit to put an umbro logo on and in early 2014 more forthcoming shirts pitched up, including Everton's. FWIW I don't like the logo on the sleeve much, but the rest of it seems nice.

A headline I've been waiting years to see, good to see the club investing in youth. I'm 41.

Before we sold anyone we needed: GK x1+ (possibly 2; Davis and Gazzaniga not up to it) LB x1+ (no cover for Shaw) CB x1+ (as Hooiveld and Yoshida aren't up to it) DM/CM/LM/RM x1+ (someone to replace Guly, and with Rodriguez injured) ST x1+ (to replace Osvaldo and maybe Forte/Barnard/Mayuka/Sharp/whatever). Since then we've sold a LB, an AM (soon), and a ST. So by my reckoning we need 1-2 GK 1-2 LB 1-2 CB (plus a Lovren replacement if he goes) 2 MID 2-3 STR Some of them may come from the academy, but I'm not sure (maybe Sims apart) we've got anyone else ready to step up yet. I genuinely don't understand the assumptions about Targett being ready.

I can't believe we've got to post #20 without a picture of the sash kit blokes with their sad faces holding up their ST.

Badge issues with "not having a badge on it" and the "badge is wrong colour" as suggested by JohnnyOldBoy are two very different things. That actually amuses me, given that I bought a load of non-Saints branded adidas kit last season in the same styles as the club was using. I don't know whether the supplier would usually provide personalised fitted kit, so not sure how much of a big deal that is - i.e. whether the supplier is expected to do that or whether that's just another one of those excessive detail Cortese things which was never expected as part of the deal. Not sure what "don't jump the gun" is about. I haven't got anything to be jumping the gun with, no timescale other than 19th July and no opinion about a kit I haven't seen and have no idea about other than having a "Veho" logo and a Saints badge on it.

Sky Sports News just ran an interview clip with Jay Rod previewed by "his Southampton teammate Jay Rodriguez is backing him to succeed at United". Entire soundbite clip, verbatim: "For me it's been brilliant playing with him, he's learned a lot, and he's willing to learn, you know? I don't think he realises how good he is, I've said that before and it's... I think it's a good thing that he's a level-headed lad, and he's an unbelievable talent I think". Absolutely no mention of Manchester United from Rodriguez whatsoever.

Sky Sports News now reporting the deal is complete, "in excess of £30m" and five year deal.

Is it? So is the issue not that "Cortese cancelled the adidas kit and didn't leave us enough lead time to resolve it" but actually because "Cortese cancelled the adidas kit AND kicked off a deal with another supplier which we then couldn't get out of in time"?

Nonsense - our FA Cup Final season sold piles of shirts (home and away) and they were "indy". There's no humiliation either, it was Saints that cancelled the contract, after all, and we're already negotiating with the same supplier for 2015. Er, what? The same colour badges were clearly a design concept and deliberate - and there was no other "wrong badge" situation. A matter of opinion, but the club had to approve it, and would have had a selection of designs to pick from. It was also pretty obvious from the West Brom home and away shirts (which looked fantastic) being the same style shirt but with stripes, and the Sunderland and Stoke ones being different styles in the same colours as Saints, that adidas had set aside the West Brom style shirt in our colours had we wanted it. I make it about 6 months' notice by now. As discussed at length above, most kit "brands" are literally just sticking their logo on already available kit, the exact same stuff as a "no logo" shirt would have. I've seen Sondico and Vandanel use the exact same shirt styles in the past 2 seasons, for instance. I'm sure that Cortese thought the same, we still ended up with the same sponsor last season as previously despite the original deal being cancelled AND a lengthy attempt at attracting other companies through an advertising campaign to businesses. We're getting the sponsors who are interested, and the deals we accept. Hummel at least make their own designs, but (as with Admiral actually) in the UK, their profile is that they're just a teamwear company, selling to parks teams. Plus we'd then be committed to adopting their training range, etc which might actually be of worst quality than some independently sourced gear, or maybe if they don't have any, they'd be supplying the same stuff we could get elsewhere, but with a mark-up. And they may very well not be able to supply in the volumes we need for club and replicas. At least this way the club has a little more control of price and supply. An example from 23 years ago, and hardly an issue if you didn't boil the thing, I still have one pf the blue flame Admiral kits and it's fine. So now you've decided they make poor quality shirts, do you want us to have a small parks supplier like hummel or Admiral or not? The Umbro contract finished after the planned 5 years, it had nothing to do with them being sold whatsoever.

I've played the logo game, but not as a 10 year old - so I don't know what their perspective on what's good and bad is, or whether that influences the likelihood of them wanting a shirt (or indeed getting one)! The question was about whether the age of kids affected their brand perception and made them more or less likely to want a Saints shirt, I guess. Personally I think we'd shift FAR more "no brand" striped home shirts than adidas plain red ones because our "stripe" branding is more relevant than adidas' when it comes to Saints kit. I think it's especially true at the moment as we haven't had stripes for a while, and the previous kit is widely unpopular. Obviously if the shirt is tangibly cheap-looking or a bad design that will also affect sales. I do think, however, that last season's training kit was very nice, and we'd struggle to match the sales of that stuff with a no-name label.

And DaMarcus Beasley working on, I dunno... player nutrition. I am shocked that there are people who are not au fait with Javi our Spanish Saints superfan and his online history.

Strange that, because (excluding a sub appearance in the FA Cup in Jan 2012) his full debut was up at Stevenage, and he was crap defensively in it. To the extent that some stories about how he was "ill" circulated a few days after. Admittedly this was alongside Seaborne, Richardson at CB and Butterfield at RB, but he looked alright going forward and all over the place with his decision-making at the back. Certainly not "class" any time around his debut.

I think your use of "fire sale" and flawed logic to support the term (selling 5 players for very good money is not a fire sale, selling them at bargain prices is) takes you from interesting OP to borderline trolling tbh.

Kids are funny. Some brand awareness then, but definitely not the issue some of us might have thought amongst the younger fans - but half of them probably don't even know we (used to?) wear stripes. Anyone out there got a 10 yo and/or 13 yo to foist this on them? Sample size is not huge, admittedly.

Yeah, the "as long as the team qualifies" refers to QF/SF/Final or 3rd/4th Place match, then "subsequent official matches" means Uruguay internationals. If they're not out trying to arrange 8 friendlies for the "senior side" in July they're not the cynical cheats I think they are.

Clarification is as assumed, 9 Uruguay matches and 4 months all football.