The9

I'd have watched anyway, it's England v Scotland, but I'm a lot more interested in how Lambert does than any of the other players.

There was a very confused, very camp man at the bar in Legends Bar when I was in NY watching Saints stuff Reading last season who just could not get his head around the concept that THIS Southampton wasn't on Long Island. I believe the reason he was in the bar in the first place was because it was open at 7am (for the match).

They've missed a trick with the location of Chelsea...

I'd like to see some of the B-anter around the time of the SaintsForever v SaintsFun match, probably about April 2004-ish... that front page pic of Phil the goalie always made me laugh, you bitter bastards.

True, those black shorts with the white line on the back for one, but they were training kit the team had been wearing - just as you say, not Saints branded.

I did hear a rumour on Saturday from someone who knows one of the regular Megastore staff that adidas had been rubbish at supplying all but 2 of their teams this season (they have 9 in the Prem), but that doesn't tally with the little investigation I did into which clubs had home/away/training kit for sale online before we launched the away kit. Only Fulham came out of it looking worse than Saints, anyway.

I didn't say it was definitely happening, I have no idea. Someone on the kit thread seemed pretty sure though - but isn't there something in the old Clinton's where they said it would be already ?

No particular reason they wouldn't already be out on loan, I would imagine they're sticking around for the League Cup match first, that's what happened last season, Hammond, Lee, Chaplow, Seaborne, Richardson, Hoskins, Reeves and Sharp all featured against Stevenage.

It would be better for their careers in the longer term, not sure whether there might be shorter term gains to training around Prem players of a higher quality, but there's no guarantee they'll even get to do that, is there ?

I've been in the Megastore a couple of times recently, they don't have any keeper's shirts in there at the moment - or at least they didn't have on Saturday. Still no training kit yet either... anyone would think they were desperate to shift the stuff they've already got first or something.

Because the people in charge of running football teams don't usually react the same way as fans, thankfully.

Can't say it bothered me, we're not the target audience. Flannigan played, and Shaw is hardly "missing" from the U21s when he's been in the starting side for 12 months. Their point was that (Wisdom aside), they were missing players. They did also say Saints were missing a few but I wouldn't expect them to know as much about Saints as Liverpool. Also, Mark Wright knows who's paying his wages and did exactly the same one-eyed thing for last season's Staplewood game.

Pretty much agree with that.

They'd take your arms off for fluid, open and busy creative play compared to the turgid dullness they're currently serving up.

Frightening to see this performance by Stephens after the superb game he had early in his time against Man U.

You can see what football without experienced, composed heads look like though. Loads of enthusiasm, some poor decision-making and a fair bit of loss of concentration, all a bit TOO fluid and busy.

Weird hip-flexor/thigh type injury for Sinclair having fallen over hard onto it, that.

If I remember rightly, there was a story going around that Phillps was also played up front all week with the firsts in training before the fateful Man U Prem relegation match, with Redknapp then choosing to go with Camara and Ormerod on the day. Phillips got on with 20 minutes left and Saints already 2-1 down, we got relegated, and under those circumstances, as well as Redknapp's Crouch-love, you can also understand him wanting to leave and feeling like it wasn't right.

Thanks to the wonders of time-shift technology I'm now back live, and we've already had one hit our post and keeper made a good save all of 30 seconds into the second half.

I actually thought Turnbull was having a very good game - knocking it about well, looking composed, one good run forward. Not sure the pen was a foul, never mind in the box, and the one where the ball came over the top Turnbull was pushed by both Liverpool's number 7 and then number 9 as he was about to clear, and the keeper should never have come that far and not got something. Thought Stephens has looked a bit... scared though.

Thought Britt's positioning was suspect for their first goal too, went back too far and lost his bearings - Stephens at fault though. I'm on delay, we're 13 mins in and still getting tonked at the moment Ah, there it is. 1-1.

I think it was, I was in the upper tier too. We were 4-3-3 I think. A Niemi, P Telfer, C Lundekvam, D Higginbotham, G Le Saux, D Prutton, Y Folly, R Delap, M Pahars (A Svensson, 84), J Beattie yellow card (F Hall, 89), K Phillips

"WOW!" is also my response to reading that load of drivel. It literally adds nothing to the thread. Yes, you would write off a 15% sell on clause for a player who was barely making the Spurs first team at the time to try and get the club out of an admin situation which became urgent due to others' imprudence and gambling. If anything Lowe came back too late. I'm no Lowe fan but that's just a load of crap, as is the £100m figure, trumped up to make the amount written off look larger, the allegations of low contract offers when none of our sales were players going out of contract, and the use of the word "we're" where you might possibly mean "we'll".

Chez, that Man City match was under Sturrock at the end of 2003/4 - we won 3-1 at the City of Manchester Stadium, Pahars and Phillips both played very well with our more direct wing-based style.

Correct, 10 gone plus 6 more who may as well not be here as they're clearly not in plans.