The9

FWIW, I regard Inbetweeners, Gavin and Stacey and Outnumbered as pretty much the only 3 British terrestrial comedies worth watching in the past... what, 8 years ? And I haven't been amused by Only Fools and Horses since Uncle Albert replaced Grandad. Does Episodes count as British ? That's funny in places too. I may have forgotten some, but I haven't seen them listed. Oh, yeah, Trollied is pretty funny, as was Moone Boy, both on Sky One. The first episode of this season of PhoneShop was pretty funny too, not sure why I was watching it, but the rest of it has been... the usual.

I'd be more inclined to say his pass percentage was lower because he hits a few long diagonal balls (which he was also doing against Real Sociedad) which are higher risk, and his strengths are in closing down and regaining the ball rather than necessarily distributing it. He also runs well with the ball and has a great shot, which are all areas we're a bit lacking in.

Interesting to note that though "Scottish Football Is Rubbish" (FACT, FFS etc), we have three recent former Celtic players and an ex-Rangers player in and around our first team squad. So either they got really good on leaving, or maybe there are actually some potentially pretty decent players up there waiting to get picked off.

Except 80% of passes completed is not good, it's pretty average, slightly below average I'd be guessing. http://www.eplindex.com/27870/epl-passing-accuracy-consistency-12-13s-best-worst-performers.html That's the kind of percentage top Prem players are averaging in the final third, not in an area where you get plenty of unpressured passes sideways and backwards, have twice as many options to pass to in the first place, and are sometimes only being closed down by ineffective attackers.

Especially without Fox in the team and Richardson haring up the wing to cross for Lambert.

Indeed, but Lovren loves a hoof nevertheless.

No-one can tell me Lovren doesn't love a hoof. My favourite stat is from FourFourTwo this month - it says that in 2011/12 Stewart Downing had the most successful passes without an assist and in 2012/13 it was Matt Jarvis. Both of them were wingers crossing for Andy Carroll.

They looked good going forward last season, but they were still terrible overall. Hell, we looked good going forward the season we went down too... There are probably at least 3 worse sides though. Stoke fans will long for Pulis by Xmas. I don't think West Brom will go down, they're too solid defensively and just need to get Vydra up to speed.

His recent free-kicks have been pretty offensive, yes.

Let's hope we don't kick off.

The best bit about being a striker is that you can just plant yourself in any team and you already know 75% of your job. If we just want to play him up front in the middle he'll already know 90% of what's expected. The nuances about rotating the front three, the specific runs to make in various set situations, who he should pick up at corners or defending throw ins and stuff like that can all come with a few more training sessions.

I still have a lot of doubts on Villa. I was convinced they were going down last year but their run in was against all of the teams in the bottom 6 - they won them, but that just means they're just about better than the worst sides most of the time. The Arsenal result was mostly down to Arsenal's incompetence and injury crisis. Still, we'll see, they've added a bit more experience to the kids who were out of their depth for 90% of last season now.

Oh, and Arsenal have lost ONE MATCH and have an injury crisis. They were dire for most of August/September a season or two ago and still finished top 4. Still have to laugh at the stupidity of them bidding for Cabaye the day Newcastle played one of their title rivals though, could it really not have waited until today so he could have played at the Etihad ?

The bookies have us as 7th favourite to finish in the top 10 (actually 3rd favourite, they're not offering odds on Man C, Man U or Chelsea), but only joint 9th in title winning odds. I would suggest this is because LOTS of Saints fans have had a punt on us coming top half, shortening our odds, but hardly anyone is daft enough to think we're going to win it, giving a more accurate representation of our actual odds.

Not a surprise for me, given the subject matter.

It's nice to see our cloning machine for blonde midgets is diversifying into midgets of other appearances anyway.

A quick Google says "Omar Rowe isn't quite a Saints academy product. He only joined the U16 at the end of 2010-11 after release from West Ham" as posted by someone on Not606.

It's taken them 285 games and 38 goals to realise "Osman isn't very good" though. Maybe the fact he's now 32 is more of a factor ?

Barkley was known as a potentially huge talent 2 years ago, some at Everton were talking about him like a new Rooney - and he was sent on loan to two Championship clubs with a view to becoming an integral part of the side this season. You don't farm out 17 year olds to Championship clubs unless you think they're going to be special. He's only 19 now and Moyes clearly got it right.

My thinking generally is that since the start of the Prem there's been a "better" level of player grafted onto the top of English football. Once the likes of Bergkamp and Klinsmann came over, the sheer number of top quality players went up, and "local" players who would have once had 2 or 3 seasons to improve now just get replaced by cheap imports who already have the experience. This impacts on the national side because there are fewer players at the top level to choose from. The media spotlight on the England manager means picking from the Championship or lower (as was regularly the case) is MUCH less likely to happen, which is also added to by the fact that scouting is now far more wide-reaching and anyone showing promise at a very early age is already known and siphoned up by the top clubs - who can only pick 11 people at a time. So you have fewer players getting top level experience to begin with, plus many live in a bubble in which their nation is not as important as their wallet, there's also a whole tier of potential being lost in top club reserves, and many more playing at lower levels who aren't surrounded by the conditions to improve, and a manager who can't risk picking unfashionable players or he's got the papers hammering him.

I'd imagine the argument is that the depth of quality is impacted because the higher overall standard of the league compared to when it was mostly Brits means that there are fewer opportunities for kids to get starts, which means they don't develop as well as they would if they were playing regularly. Some, the very very top ones, will become better for playing alongside a better standard of player, but most just won't get the opportunity to play. There are assumptions there that 1) having better players in the same team does help with young player development and 2) that the standard overall IS better than it was in, say, 1993, but I think they're reasonable, and that it is much tougher for a "normal standard" young player with potential to get into the first team regularly than it was back then. Saints are the exception to this, but even with us being prepared to try Shaw and JWP, it's still taken an injury to Clyne for Chambers to get a run.

It's certainly a story about Gareth Bale, not sure that's the sort of thing the club would put in the public domain about an existing player though, is it ?

It's the Rupert Lowe Way.

Possibly, it's definitely a tighter fit in the same size.

We have the same restrictive distribution deal in place as we did under Lowe with the Saints Apparel branded shirts, and the 5-year Umbro deal. Obviously Cortese (like Lowe) thinks there's more money to be made from keeping the price high and all the profits, rather than diluting the amount you can get per item by allowing others to buy from the distributor and set the price themselves. The likes of Man U have managed to stop the likes of Tesco reselling their shirts for £20 now too, makes you wonder what clauses they have in their distribution contracts to keep the price high. The loss of JJB and therefore any competitor to SportsDirect is also keeping shirt prices higher than they were, you can't get many £10 shirts on sale from SportsDirect any more. The only time I've seen ANY Saints kit through a national distributor in the past 15 years was when SportsDirect.com somehow flogged off a load of the black away anniversary shorts and socks (they actually had some in the West Quay store for a short while too) at the end of the L1 promotion season, and I'm guessing that was because they had so much of it left. Since then, unfortunately for the customer, Saints' policy seems to be to NEVER reduce the price, even when the supplier no longer exists and it's just dead stock. I assume the leftover kit now goes to Saints Foundation, though that's just a guess.