The9

Only has a small Wolf's winkle though.

Maybe if he grows his hair ?

There is a gaping hole up front, since when did Prem sides manage with only 3 strikers (even considering the shift away from 4-4-2 to x-x-1 you still need players to cover different types of opposition and in case of injuries). CB and full back competition is important too, I wonder if Chambers or Stephens can step up ?

Oh, and in an unprecedented turn of events, the Lung has formally declared himself unavailable BEFORE the event actually begins. This is some kind of breakthrough in Lung/Reality relations. .

He can fight Kev for free travel.

We don't do White Stripes.

Words barely fit the tune and the possibility of 8 of the lines in completely the wrong order, yeah, this is going to happen. We could barely get "the Pompey family" sung because people couldn't work out that none of "father", "mother" "brother" or "another" rhymed with "sister".

The flipside of this of course is that we're actually not very good with the ball, I seem to recall whoscored had us as an outlier and there was a lot of "what if" regarding how many shots we had and how few goals. There's got to be some cause and effect there from playing your main striker mostly outside the box as well as pressing and trying to quickly capitalise on transitions - it could also just mean that we have a lot of pinball instances from breaking up play where no-one has control for a few moments and possession switches back and forth until there's space and time to utilise.

Worth noting that the Villa home match where we pummelled them 4-1 is up there with any of Pochettino's stats, and the red wave at the start is (again) due to the opposition being some of the best sides in the division, not necessarily any tactical failings. We also benefitted from playing Man U, Chelsea and City when Pochettino was still new and people didn't know his style (as best evidenced second half at Old Trafford). Only three of the first 11 (mostly difficult) matches and 15 of the last 16 (theoretically easier), anyone would think there was some kind of correlation with the standard of opposition as well...

Just for the record that shirt is from their last Prem season, '09/10... surprised he's giving it away seeing as it's probably the last one most of their "fans" saw them wear. Can't say I'm bothered, I'm just bewildered at how obsessed they are, and insistent on clinging to a rivalry that's basically nothing to us again now, amused that they're still desperate enough to take our money whilst slating the people paying them, and amused by how stupid they are to 1) reveal it now and 2) broadcast it when they're probably still employed there.

Yeah, come on people, this weekend's an annual highlight, plus we've not been to Preston for it before so it'll be all new to us as well...

£25k x 53 = £1,325,000 - that would depend on his tax rate of course. Either way, if he's signed a 5 year contract he's set up for life anyway, even if he gets a career-ending injury in a few weeks' time. And let's face it, £25k a week is only going to be his starting wage, if we start achieving things we'll need to give him plenty more than that to stay.

They have about 9000 home fans, that's hardly "almost none", if they all decide to come by car and park at Asda. http://www.mkdsa.co.uk/index.php/1039-mk-dons-support-increases-home-and-away

A cunning plan to whisk him out of the country just in case...

That's what we'll end up with, I seem to recall the Northam numpties were a bit obsessed with Kenwyne's penis as well.

I would assume the Man U fan who said we "could improve on Boruc" wasn't at Old Trafford when we played them last season ?

Oops, I've been "Billy Sharped". Ok, make that "until we sell him to someone else without him kicking a ball". In my defence I don't think many of us thought he'd get sold after 6 months without even kicking a ball for the first team AND I've never actually said I thought he was going to.

FWIW when Sky Sports News were discussing it earlier they had some football finance bloke on (a Fulham fan "for the last 20 years" but clearly at least 60) and he said the reason the asking price is £200m is because other than Man U with their Glazer debt, Fulham is the Prem club with the highest amount secured against it, and the £200m would cover the cost of all of those loans, debts and guarantees. i.e. Mr. Fayed wants to sell up and get someone else to cover the cost of all of Fulham's debt too. It wouldn't just be Mo' money.

Oh yeah, and for the massively pedantic (ie. me and MLG), the answer is yes. There is an African Cup of Nations this year because there's already been one in 2013.

You also didn't seem to be aware of other bits of the internet you could use which would help you find out for yourself. As for "there is a world cup next year so there wont be an african cup" comment, there was an ACoN in 2010, 2006, 2002, 1998, 1994, 1990, 1986, 1982, 1978, 1974, 1970 and 1962. That's every World Cup year except one since the ACoN began, so even though you are right because they shifted the competition to odd-numbered years this year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/africa/8685251.stm), you wouldn't have known that from past experience of World Cups, because until now it has almost always coincided with a World Cup year.

Why have you assumed that people base their assumptions on mainstream media ? The vast majority of people I see online in my friends feed on Facebook seem to base their opinions on absolutely nothing at all, and my personal interaction with "mainstream media" stretches as far as occasionally clicking a link I find interesting. I never watch the news, listen to the news, read the news or otherwise seek out the news. You're completely right about individualism and self-absorption, I like football so I watch, discuss, play or simulate playing football basically all of my free time. It's not a higher state, but I do know a lot about football... and tv programmes my wife likes. My "muslim" experiences are based on basically nothing apart from a few conversations and long-forgotten religious education classes, but I can still work out for myself that there are millions of muslims out there, as well as some other mysterious lots who aren't muslims but are also not white caucasian anglo-saxon types, and the massive majority are NOT blowing stuff up and being aggressive towards the west, why can't some other people figure this out ? Is it because they've already decided they don't want to know by the age of 8, or because their poorly-educated parents have decided that learning things isn't important ?

It's not just the current one, but the ones responsible for educating the last 25 years' worth I'm worried about. Not just regarding politics and the impact of these events on their lives, but just the ability to compose rational thought processes based on evidence generally.

That's Office FOR National Statistics. A former employer of mine. You can also antagonise me by referring to "Registry Offices" rather than "Register Offices", as the General Register Office was also once an employer when it used to be within the remit of ONS.

Honestly, I can only say I'd have been clueless on number 9, because it took time to think about and the terms seem fairly vague. Though admittedly actually putting a figure on some of those isn't the easiest thing to do in the first place, the source of the other misconceptions is glaringly obvious to anyone who takes the time to listen to any of the racist anti-immigration, anti-muslim, anti-beard, anti-benefit cheat, ant-thing they're scared of, anti-"baddie", utter drivel that idiots spout.

I have now seen two people in real life wearing the shirt. One in the Bridge at Woolston on Friday (why would you do that on a non-match day ?!) and the other one in Bevois Valley around 7pm last night. The latter had a non-Prem numbering thing on the back with the number 85, so either he had a far greater appreciation of the last time Saints started playing in a pure red shirt with no stripes of any sort (pinstripes included) than I was giving him credit for, or he was 28 years old (probably more likely). I don't even get why he'd stick random non-"official" style numbers on it, you can get the real ones off eBay just as cheap as any other numbers... I'd say he'd "ruined the shirt" but I think it's broken already, more for the use of too much red and not enough stripe than the incredibly naff gold. I wonder when our batch of "ordered last minute to replace the black/gold ones when Lotus pulled out" black/silver shirts will turn up ?