The9

I think I'd probably laugh a bit and then say "nice to meet you". Based on the few times I've been "outed" IRL to people at matches who started mentioning SaintsWeb without knowing I was also a poster, people generally seem to be "oh really, that's you is it?" and then get on with it... sometimes after I've explained myself, admittedly. I have stopped introducing myself to teammates at IFC matches though.

Can't say it bothers me much, plenty of successful sides have played CBs at FB, including plenty of Man U teams and they don't appear to have much trouble with it. Silvestre, Wes Brown, Heinze all did both. Saints also had an all CB back 4 for a while in one match in League One when Martin and Seaborne filled the full back positions for a bit, though I accept that's not particularly relevant to the discussion only a few years later. Pochettino himself played in Argentinian sides with 4 CBs, though that was probably as much to do with Maradona being mental as anything. The only concern would be if we picked players there who weren't suited to the needs of the position, which for us with the FBs hanging around the halfway line at goal kicks are usually based more in attacking abilities and pace than defensive qualities (though obviously the FBs do need to be able to defend too).

Depends what it looks like afterwards. I don't think what's happened to the kit inspires any kind of faith in a chosen new design being an improvement and given the anti-history that seems to underpin some of the club's activities it wouldn't be that unexpected if it was be changed to something completely new and with no Southampton or historical relevance... like, say, a bear.

All I remember was that Lungs was left back, Granty was up front, and Cooper was in goal. I spent the last 80 minutes of the match telling Lung not to run up the pitch because every time he pushed up into the vacant LM position they played the ball into the LB hole he'd left and just crossed the ball from 10 yards nearer the goal, and the second half watching Coops go from energetic keeper making a string of awesome saves to crushed, haunted goalie who had given up all hope. I near perfected the art of the 80 yard hoof towards the corner flag to waste time in that match too, as I gave up attempting to pass to Steve around the 20 minute mark when it became clear we were unable to push either midfielder forward to support him. It comes to something when your tactics include "let them have the ball half way into our half out wide, and just defend the box for 90 minutes"

Good use of the non-copyrighted Saints logo.

We need quicker CBs and alternative tactics to all-out press against sides which WANT to play long direct balls and counterattack because our fullbacks start so far up the pitch when we have the ball - I think we showed we were able to start doing that up at Spurs, when we did some very different things to those we saw all season. Nearly worked too.

Nicola is in Austria, and apparently having broken his leg is not the most mobile at the moment.

I am amused to find that there's not even a mention of the friendly on the BBC website, which is carrying numerous articles and photos of their match from the weekend. Also quite pleased to note that Cristiano Ronaldo has now scored as many goals at Dean Court as I have, but he hasn't scored an overhead kick yet.

As they water the pitch more on dry days and the amount of rainfall hasn't been specified I think this may be more complicated than it first appears.

Only me! Now I DO not believe you wanted to say "Fast Show", you wanted to say "Harry Enfield's Television Programme".

Does it involve a beach and a bank holiday in the 1980s ?

I think 8th is pretty reasonable, though it does make me wonder why people say we'll definitely be better just because we haven't got such a difficult start. We've still got to play all the teams over the course of the season, and if we show any sign of challenging for anything we'll soon find we're facing prepared and well-briefed top 6 sides instead of unprepared squad rotation sides expecting to get the points without too much effort. Admittedly the learning process we had last year will not be anything like as widespread and we might be able to build some confidence early on, but even the last time around in the Prem we learned the hard way that if you don't constantly evolve and improve the side you go backwards, so I can see some merit in people saying "11th-14th" as well. Just because we've got a plan, it doesn't follow that we're going to achieve it. EVERYONE has got a plan. Looking at that list, Hull's signings look shrewd if not earthshattering, and they could be a sticker. I am hopeful Cardiff are this season's whipping boys, and Palace just don't have enough. So I'm going for Cardiff, Palace and Sunderland to go down, because Di Canio won't get away with yelling like a mental to top tier pros, some of whom won't even remember him at West Ham, for long before either he goes or they do.

This was a pic from the rematch of the 10-0 thrashing (also at Fleming Park), we only lost this one 8-1, we have a Skate in goal, FFS.

Yeah, when we played the team that had been in the Echo for finishing bottom of the bottom league in Southampton for the last few years (and had been training with Saints as a result), and then we lost to them in 2 of our first three matches, it didn't bode well for the rest of that season... ...though I was quite pleased with my stellar performance at centre back with 8 men for 90 minutes against the league leaders (The Bittern) in the game we (only) lost 10-0. The 4-2-1 worked quite well, but getting the fullbacks not to go forward to encourage them to hit long crosses instead of getting in behind us was the hardest bit. That other game where we fielded a chunky 13 year old, and his dad fell over in the first 30 seconds and had to go off, leaving us with 9 players including a 13 year old, that was a good one too - I was exhausted for about 4 days with the running I did in that match. Also, pretty sure my now-wife got to see Nick Illingsworth's nuts as a result of standing in a corridor outside the changing rooms that season. So, yeah, "it didn't work" was an understatement - but the ad hoc Fleming Park Sundays were good fun.

I haven't, as a lazy striker I am blameless for our crappy defensive errors. Mumble mumble something about not actually scoring in 4 matches.

The current Fulham badge is still far and away the worst one in modern football. It means absolutely nothing, gives you no information about the club or its region, totally lacks any iconography, barely even reflects the club's initials, and looks like it was created by an 8 year old with a spare 2 minutes. Even the boring current Stoke crest says "we wear stripes". The use of town and city crests is obviously in the past, partly due to the complexity of recreating the designs and partially due to copyright and merchandising issues, but it's nice to have a badge which shows a tie with the area and some of its history. The recent Bournemouth reworking is nice... if you like having a meaningless 1980s styled head and ball representing your club - but then again, at least it is an image fans recognise and already associate with the club, just a shame they chose that moment to stick with it.

Newport fans will be more than happy to have Bristol Rovers as a derby after years of the likes of Forest Green Rovers, the now-defunct Merthyr Tydfil, Gloucester City, Worcester City and the inauspicious early seasons with Swindon Supermarine and Almondsbury Picksons as their nearest rivals. Of course they also beat Cardiff City the last time the two played. How are we managing to have this thread without further discussion of the massive void Saints have rival-wise at the moment ? Fulham or Chelsea ?!

To quote another line from the OpenRights doc (which also contradicts many of my opinions by saying "kids will just get around the filtering anyway if they want to" but also says that equally applies to the new settings as well, thus rendering them useless)... It "is symptomatic of the policy conundrum he has placed himself into, by pandering to a demand from the Daily Mail that 'porn must be blocked' and only accessible through an 'opt in'." Do we REALLY want the Daily Mail readers to be responsible for driving public policy in the UK ?

But "it's all monitored" is not the same as "someone is checking it" or "I am therefore agreeing to state my preferences before being able to use it". As I've said above, the only issues around porn are in extreme cases, the sharing of illegal images and stopping access to kids. This only addresses one of those, and it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I already mentioned the non-sex offenders' register. Why don't we have one ? Because there's no benefit to making 99.99% of people have to adhere to something in order to manage the tiny minority.

It's got nothing to do with the practicalities, it's all about the level of state interference. Why is it necessary at all when what they're blocking isn't illegal ? It is merely an excuse to get another layer of goverment interference and control in an area of public life that doesn't require it, and it's entirely caused by a level of panic-driven flapping over nothing from the bored and easily offended parents of middle England. Regulating the kind of porn with links to child abuse and other crimes is understandable and acceptable. This does nothing to address the problem areas, and there's little evidence that access to "normal" porn in "normal" amounts causes any kind of issues. It's the extreme stuff to the extremes of society that are the problem, and those should be managed by exception, not as the norm. Apart from anything, for a Conservative (basic principles being free market economics, smaller public sector and minimal state spending and interference) it's a hell of a road to be going down. For the leader of a Liberal coalition, (basic principles limited government and similar low regulation) needing the support of Lib Dems for legislation, it's utterly bewildering.

See my previous post.

The improved controls around the internet regulation which says, for instance, "we must tell you when cookies are being recorded" is the side of the argument that the government should be coming down on, as it protects the private user against the kind of organisations that can exploit them. I have no problem at all using sites which want to capture some of my personal data and use it for ad targeting, I just want to know they're doing it and that that's all it's for. Saying "you are being monitored when you consciously choose to use sites where you may be monitored, and therefore you should have to tell everyone exactly what you are doing any time you use the internet" is the argument of an imbecile.

There's a difference between knowing someone might be keeping a record of what you've been doing in the event that you do something not law-abiding that warrants someone actually looking at that information (and having worked in the public sector I seriously doubt there's much benefit in keeping 99% of that data and that there are enough people to even monitor it for everyone anyway), and everyone permanently having to declare themselves of a certain type in order to be able to act in a legal manner anyway. The argument that you are only worried if you're doing something wrong is often misplaced, and here it is again. Except that looking at porn is legal, so why would I have to declare that I want to do that to anyone ? It's like a non-sex offenders' register. Shall we have one and make everyone sign up to it ? Why not ? If you don't sign up you must be up to something ?

What it is, is more nanny state politics, which I personally hate. As a responsible private human being, with some experience of living in a world where things weren't micro-managed and where learning how to avoid problems for yourself, rather than wanting someone else to do that for me, was an admirable skill. It's also the basis of evolution. If we protect all the weak and stupid we're just diluting the gene pool, and frankly, I quite like having the strong and intelligent around to improve things. As Batman/delldays has, on numerous occasions, argued against nanny state policies, I'm now going to ignore his pointless and endless contrarianism.