The9

As Vandanel ARE Sondico, so this is no massive surprise. In fact the only shock to me is that Torquay's kit vote for their new Sondico kit (which came around at the end of last season before the Skates had even been taken over) didn't contain that template as an option : Still waiting to see whether the mighty Chelmsford City end up with the same "unique" shirt but in maroon... besides, of course it's bespoke, it's got their badge on it. Other Vandanel 2012/13 teams you may wish to keep a look out for are : Yeovil, Port Vale, Annan Athletic, Gillingham, Gateshead, Drogheda, Rhyl, and Bishop's Stortford. Quick bit of research : Drogheda are now wearing Nike, and Gillingham's kits aren't the same style.

We came second 3/4 of the time ?

I can assure you a full pitch pressing game would not have left us conceding any fewer late goals...

Bloody typical, our second and third opponents' group match gets on Sky Sports News !!! Hopefully this will work... If not, here's the location, accompanied by an unnecessary Coldplay remix : [video=youtube;0e-Umx3DggI] First pitch shown was where we played this morning, second pitch (behind the closed gate) was the massive pitch we played our opening game on yesterday.

A mighty performance from the 11 of us that turned up, losing 2-0 to Darlington (who eventually lost the Plate final on pens) on the biggest pitch I've ever seen in my life in 30 degree heat, losing 3-0 to Man City (who we stuffed first half), and then conceding in the last minute and only drawing 1-1 with Ipswich to prop up the group on Saturday. Top two into the cup, bottom two into the plate. Sunday morning's Plate first round saw us drawn against Troon (they have a Scottish Junior side apparently), and after taking the lead in the second half, we again conceded a late equaliser, this time direct from a corner, and when 10 minutes' worth of Golden Goal failed to see a goal, it went to pens. Eighteen pens. And we lost 8-7, having stuck a pen to win it at 6-6 into a tree across a road behind the goal. Still, got home just after 5 today, found a nice Chinese buffet and decent bars in Preston, and played on some excellent pitches, well done Steve Grant (yes, that one) for co-organising it.

Improve Chelsea - possible title winners after recent league underachievement Arsenal - potential title challenge with instability at the other top clubs Villa - showed improvement late on last season and likely to do a bit better Saints - you've got to think we'd build on last season with the new signings so far and experience Regress Everton - difficult to see them keeping their best players with Moyes circling Fulham - don't seem to have added quality and been treading mid-table water for a long time Man Utd - too much instability at the moment, won't drop far, but enough. Stoke - Hughes is rubbish and not the man to turn them into an exciting team, unrest, transition and problems, could go down. Sunderland - will be hilarious and probably rubbish, Di Canio probably won't make the end of the season. West Brom - Lukaku will be a big loss, Anelka unlikely to feature as much Same Liverpool - can't see Rodgers taking them much further, will still be top half but not contenders Man City - in and around the top 3 with their squad Newcastle - ridiculous and will remain so. Norwich - mid to lower table, much of a muchness. Swansea - difficult to know, could push on or might suffer from all the newcomers, could even it out Spurs - Will be top 6 but not much else... unless Bale gets injured. West Ham - same style, same players, same result.

I think he could have scored a few goals for us last season in the Prem. Worse players have. Other than that, the one thing last season showed was that players who did well for us in 2011/12 in a good team didn't do as well in 2012/13 when distributed amongst inferior teams. Sharp was perfectly suited to our game in 2011/12 but we changed that pretty significantly over the course of last season and the manager doesn't have any loyalty to any of the players who weren't around last season. Forren wasn't "clearly" anything until we sold him.

The rhinos are fcking sht. Berlin had bears (oh the irony) in 2006, even bloody Newport, that trailblazer of culture, had dragons about 2 years ago. And of course, there were the Painted Cow Saints fans back in the the Saints Forever days, so we're kinda spoofing ourselves 10 years ago anyway, right ? As I was saying, utter pointless populist shart for the interminably dull. And I say that as someone who just added the 11th tier of Welsh football to FM13.

Did he in the friendly ? Haven't seen a pic/vid of that. It's too much coincidence that a large number of players are wearing their previous numbers though.

I am in no position to criticise on that front, and MLG had nothing to do with the choice of numbers last season.

Also just seen the big splash pic on the OS, whilst Fonte 6, Davis 8, Rodriguez 9, Fox 13... are not unexpected, it seems Turnbull (assuming that's him with the beard) has 5 and Ward-Prowse 10, so... maybe just filling up the shirt numbers at the moment.

I've also just noticed there are feasible squad numbers on their shorts - Lovren 16 (was a CB number last year), Jack Stephens 24 (hmm, that was Mayuka's number but I did suggest Pochettino wouldn't be as anally retentive as Adkins on the numbers...).

Can I just point out that He Of Whom I Do Not Speak "stands at over (actually just under) 6 foot 3", shouldn't be too difficult to work out the back row from Lovren and Other Bloke's heights.

Tch, inconsiderate. Can you go to Havant & Waterlooville v Newport County on my behalf ?

Hey Turks, we need a string pulling midfield passer, you're in the general vicinity (kind of). Come to Preston for the lolz and run the match with your silky skills. Bring the mascot. We will all pretend you were someone else for the purposes of m-boarding...

Oh, that "everyone" again. Funny how there's never a consensus at the time though, isn't it ? Last season his fitness was noticeably not a patch on when he was "Saints fit" and Forest were rotating people in and out almost randomly. They were also not as good a side as Saints were - this is about how Sharp might have done in a team that just finished in the top 2 of the Championship, not how he did in a team that weren't as good as that. Player does worse in worse team unshocker. Come to think of it, our treatment of Forren had some similarities with that of Sharp, at least for the first couple of months.

Billy Jones of West Brom begs to differ.

How about black ? They could all wear black boots. That would be MENTAL !

...well, I say that... I have now. I may as well show the prices of stuff too (Short Sleeve Shirt, Long Sleeve Shirt, Shorts, Socks) Saints Home £50 (£??), £25, £10 (LS Home, Away, Training kit not available yet) Chelsea Home and Away £50 (£55), £20, £12. Training kit on sale. Fulham Home £50 (£55), £25, £12. Away kit not unveiled yet. Training kit on sale. Hull Home and Away £40 (£43), £19, £8. Training kit not available yet - last season's on sale. They also do a Full Home kit for £60 in Adult sizes. Stoke Home and Away, £45 (£50), £22, £9 Training kit on sale. Swansea Home [Pre-order, available this week] and Away £45 (£??), £20, £12. Training kit on sale. West Brom Home and Away £45 (£??), £25, £12. Training kit not available yet - last season's on sale. West Ham Home £50 (£55), £20, £12 - away same prices but on pre-sale. Training kit on sale. So we've got the most expensive shirts (you can buy a full Hull home kit for £5 more than the likely price of a long-sleeved Saints home), the most expensive shorts, the third cheapest socks (but still more expensive than identical socks in the Stoke shop), and we're one of 3 teams who don't have 13/14 training kit on sale, and the only ones who aren't selling ANY training kit, as well as being the only team alongside Fulham who haven't started selling a second shirt yet. Useless.

We're normally pretty incompetent at this stuff in comparison to pretty much everyone, but I'm fairly certain that the last-minute sponsor change is the reason why only the home kit is currently in the shops - and we're almost certainly the only Prem club in adidas kit not already selling training shirts - though there are 9 adidas teams in the Prem this season and I can't say I've checked them all...

Well yeah, but from a design perspective I actually prefer our home template (or our away template like Estudiantes' shirt) but with stripes. The only single good thing about us not having stripes is that the badge isn't weirdly low down near the sponsor, like it is on all of the other shirts. I've now seen 3 of them in the wild, in 2 weeks. Have to laugh, I note they haven't tried to claim it's a best seller this season.

Errrrm... that was 71,002 posts ago.

Ignoring the Hull away kit... Adidas had clearly set aside the style above for us in red and white, because Stoke and Sunderland have got pretty rubbish stripe templates.

It is utter dross, appalling design, the same basic shirt as two other UK teams, with terrible mismatched design ideas all over the place and is without question the single worst "Saints shirt" ever. Even the bits it does have look terribly tacky, the gold is SO naff and fails to show any of the elements in that colour properly as well - it would have looked about 20% better just using white for the badge, logo and sponsors. The home shirt is by far the worst design of any of the pieces of training kit or the away kit that have emerged so far, it is truly terrible. It doesn't have to be registered with the PL until about 3 weeks before the season starts... but hey, we're selling it. Which is more than you can say for the training kit and away kit... Whoever said the socks are the best bit is absolutely right, and Stoke are selling identical ones a quid cheaper.

Nah, we either finish in the top 2 and go into the Cup then lose in the first knockout round against someone half decent, or we come 3rd out of 4 in the group and win at least one knockout in the Plate competition. We're used to the injuries (especially me) !