The9

Pretty sure the people doing all of those things would come to the "sounds as if" conclusion as well though. Everyone's waiting on Gaston's great leap forward - and it won't be happening this week with a round trip to play against Japan, that's for sure.

Ooh, are we in a "don't feed the Trollkeeper" situation now ? If he's actually reading this...

Even so, if the deal was "you take this crap bloke off us or we don't agree to give you the Bale money up front", we'd probably still have done it.

His comments are recorded above word for word as reported when he left. There is literally nothing else to suggest he said anything else. What's over the top has been the reaction.

Thanks Bear, your support is always appreciated. I had assumed you had mentioned it somewhere on your probably virus-ridden blog.

Also on Virgin Media Channel 544

Back in the days when staff used to bring hilarious virus-ridden .exes off the newly-discovered internet into work on floppy disks, I forwarded an avi my girlfriend had sent me (of a snowman growing a snow-boner and falling over when a snow-lady went past) to one of my colleagues. Obviously as I was a good boyfriend, I edited the history so the girlfriend's name was removed. My colleague forwarded it (with message history), to 2 people. They f/wd it to a few each, those people sent it to some others, and so on. Anyway, long story short, at some point someone sent it to the wrong Andy White, not the rugby bloke in our office, but the head of IT. And 6 layers of f/wds and around 100 people after I'd sent it to one person, my name was still on the bottom of it. Weirdly I got a job in the IT department not long after that, I think they appreciated my history tidying.

Of course the strange thing is in the WBA "opposition view" thread, there's not a single person who hasn't said "we need a striker", which suggests that the people prepared to think about it and put their opinions into a structured sentence rather than just knee-jerk react on a post-by-post basis actually agree that we do need someone else to come in up front.

Just the one, woolly style, red and white with "SAINTS" in black and the logo on a black background at each end. The wife has one of the pink ones. Oh, and I have a Steaua Bucharest one from their European Cup Final that a local in 2003 was more than happy to exchange for a delightedly received $5 ($2 was the going rate but he looked like he needed it a lot more than I did). I have owned around 4 Newport County/AFC scarves, which suggests to me scarves were more of a younger thing by the 90s, as I followed them as a kid. Don't see many of them in the UK now outside of Liverpool and Celtic matches. EDIT : I think Colin and I may have the same scarf.

Obviously it will depend on interest, but most of the 6 out of favour are likely to also be out of contract in the summer, so I think it will be more likely that they'll be with us (albeit probably on loan somewhere) until January, then we'll start seeing people leave as they'll want to get new deals in place - though the club hasn't shown much inclination to shift people on and pick up a token sum for them by cashing in pre-Bosman previously - maybe it's linked to the FFP turnover/wage cap somehow.

We've had all summer and everyone else is in the same boat, it's only injuries that will mess it up.

Would be interesting to see if our Norway/Sweden era ever threw up more at one time... 2004 must be a close thing... Niemi, Claus, Killer, Anders, Mikael Fking Nilsson, Van Damme, McCann, Beattie ? That's still only 8, any others ? Arron Davies with Wales U21s at the same time, did we ever have Pahars, Delgado, Chala, Bleidelis overlapping that lot ? Pahars played at Euro 2004 for Latvia and he was still with us then. Bridge was around til '04 too but obviously left before Van Damme joined. And then there's Jacobsson and Quashie in '04/'05 too...

We are mostly in agreement, which I would take as a sign that you should just wait a season and do the "I told you so" later. At this point no-one is debating the merits of what he provides so much as just having a pop at anyone who thinks there's a better way. He's already had one astonishingly successful season considering expectations, it is a lot to ask him to maintain that level when he's no longer a surprise and playing in a system opponents are already familiar with now. Much as Lambert has done for Saints, we can't keep relying on him at his age and hoping he doesn't get injured, either - all the sports science in the world isn't going to give him the recovery rate of a teenager when he does finally get a knock. The current system now suits him for scoring goals because he's usually already high up the pitch and near the goal when we win the ball, but it expects more work than he can deliver in terms of pressing - it would be very interesting to see what it would look like with him in the hole and someone else who can hold a ball and run in behind playing up top. You may note this means I'm starting to write off Ramirez after a year of hoping he'd come good... Then again, my Fantasy Football record shows I'm always a year ahead of the curve on this stuff (or "too quick to write older players off/to expect youth to be ready" if you want to look at it another way) and here's both of them in one post. Decided to break cover... tin hat on.

I have to say that I think if Lambert was Carroll's age, Carroll wouldn't be getting a look in for England. It's totally down to the fact he's played 14 of his 15 seasons outside the top flight and how he's been pigeonholed by Hodgson, who' s even said he first encountered him as a Bristol Rovers player who they considered (and overlooked) signing for Fulham after an FA Cup tie in 2008. He's always going to be "some lower League bloke" to Woy, unless he gets the chance to prove otherwise this week - he's never going to get a better chance with Scotland missing two first choice CBs (though he could have done with Fox in their team ).

...and then shortly after on the floor !

There was one off the pitch to the right wing which was just rubbish, but a lot of the time he seems to do the same things over and over, gets the ball, rolls into the challenge moving the ball away (usually) from the defender, then takes one touch, and adding pace to the slowly running ball, plays a high-paced pass into the defensive line which rarely, if ever, gets controlled by the target. If I was being mean-spirited I'd say he reminded me of Guly, who also likes to nudge the rolling ball ahead around defenders he has his back to and then strike a pacy pass with the next touch - but at the moment Guly has more workrate off the ball, more accuracy with his passing, more variety in possession, and doesn't seem on the periphery of the game, and is being rewarded with more appearances than we might have expected. Gaston, for all his quality and potential, is just looking like a kid making his first appearance every time he goes out there, not confident in the basics and never quite seems sure of the right time to do the things he knows he can do. Still hopeful something might click and that his summer and this week's travel won't set him back again, but we're a year on and he's no nearer being the star we thought he could be.

It was a weirdly flat second half which sometimes tailed off due to the subs and sometimes spiked in interest due to the subs. As I mentioned above, there seemed to be a lot of kids there with families, which makes me think that a lot of people decided that basically "half price" was going to be as good as it got for a vaguely competitive looking friendly, and they did seem to have engaged a lot of children who haven't necessarily been before. Of course buying the kit aside, the secret then is to get them coming along regularly, which is no easy task at upwards of £30 a match for the adult that's bringing them plus their costs on top.

Ha, just found this from February, I note the top 8 in the "red zone" on my predictor ranking have all left, as have De Ridder (rated at #19 overall), and the big shock being Forren, who I don't think anyone thought would leave and was ranked 5th safest, what with having a nice long contract and only just having signed ! It does show how keen we are to hang onto the younger players though, 9th-13th are all kids who might have been shipped out, and none of them have gone. Chambers has since signed a new deal, and you have to think that all the loanees from last season are now up in the red zone - I might have to see if I've still got the spreadsheet and plug some new figures in Overall though, at the moment, "15" haven't left, only 10 so far. But Sharp, Barnard, Hammond, Lee, Forte and Martin are still here...

That, at least, is vaguely worthy of criticism.

Phillips saying "I said a couple of things" is the nearest anyone's ever come to finding any evidence of anything problematic that he actually said - I post those comments above basically every time this argument comes around, as there is literally NOTHING online other than the phrases above, and he's not even been critical of the club in that. Won't stop some people though, they'll still be trotting out the completely untrue stuff about Puncheon in jeans in 10 years too.

Kelvin was completely to blame for the near post goal, he actually fell to his right away from the post, and the ball went in off his left elbow and the post. It was a great through ball that gave Fox no chance, because he was on the outside of the striker (which is probably where a left back would expect to be) and there was no pressure on the ball. Chambers lacked a challenge for their second, having done well to get back and go shoulder to shoulder with Vela(?) he should have had at least a foot out to block the shot. It was pretty much the only time he looked out of his depth, but how many times did that kind of thing happen to Fox last season ? The first goal should have been whacked clear by Schneiderlin but he pulled out of it for some reason (like Lovren did against Besiktas).

From what I could tell from the Lambert incident he had arms locked with the defender as they were running, and there was a suggestion that the defender threw an elbow at him as they unlocked, then there was a brief altercation with shoving and the defender coming in late actually does a headbutt gesture to imply that Lambert attempted to nut the Sociedad player (which he definitely didn't). Bunch of handbags, but SOMETHING happened to spark Lambert off. The Brighton incident mentioned was an absolutely travesty of playacting by El Abd and an appalling decision as Lambert was trying to get free after El Abd dragged him to the ground and then pulled him back as he tried to get up. Nothing resembling "previous", he was remarkably restrained considering.

The PFA has some pretty strict rules about telling people you're offering them contracts, it also explictly stated he was offered a deal on Gillingham's site, so I'm about 95% certain that the offer was on the table, he just didn't take it. No guarantee it wasn't a very low offer of course. I'm not holding my breath re: MLG's money research to be honest, I don't think he knows any more than most of us on here about club finances.

From a business stance cashing in on Bale to get any money we could in immediately to try and stave off administration, and getting a cheap back up keeper at a time when Kelvin was half way out of the door to West Ham and Bart would have been our starter (assuming he wasn't between contracts) was a pretty decent idea. It's only the subsequent uselessness of the "player" we got, and the unparalleled success of the player we cashed in the sell-on clause for that makes it look like an awful deal... in hindsight.

You always turn down the first offer, right ? For the record, I'd take both their arms off.