The9

Well let's have a look... 20 seasons of reigning Prem title holders, and on 7 of those occasions they've started against a promoted side. That would be 35% of the time, above the "norm" for purely random fixtures (the chances of any one (non-promoted) Prem side playing a promoted team in their opening match is 3/19 which is around a 16% chance) but not by any stretch an actual "rule" happening 100% of the time. I've ignored the years when the Prem had 22 clubs in this calculation. It's more likely that it's in the Prem's interests not to "waste" a big top side clash on the opening day when there's already a lot of interest in the fixtures, and the process isn't random, I'd say that narrows the likely opponent pool down to around 13 "non-big" clubs, making the chances around 3/13, which is around 23%. So actually there should be around a 1/4 chance of the champions playing a promoted side, in practice it's about 1/3. 2012 Man City v Saints (yes - promoted team) 2011 Man U @ West Brom (no) 2010 Chelsea v West Brom (yes) 2009 Man U v Birmingham City (yes) 2008 Man U v Newcastle (no) 2007 Man U v Reading (no) 2006 Chelsea v Man City (no) 2005 Chelsea @ Wigan (yes) 2004 Arsenal @ Everton (no) 2003 Man U v Bolton (no) 2002 Arsenal v Birmingham (yes) 2001 Man U v Fulham (yes) 2000 Man U v Newcastle (no) 1999 Man U @ Everton (no) 1998 Arsenal v Forest (yes) 1997 Man U @ Spurs (no) 1996 Man U @ Wimbledon (no) 1995 Blackburn v QPR (no) 1994 Man U v QPR (no) 1993 Man U @ Norwich (no) PS, that kind of poorly-informed statement-as-argument reminds me of another poster, thedelldays - you're not by any chance related, are you ?

So... you want a sash kit which is based on the club's heritage, but get fed up with people and going on about heritage and wanting stripes, but agree that this year's non-striped kit is disturbing and people who bought it are selling out the club's tradition, and the last good kit was striped. I think I followed that quite well.

Not 100.

It's a "no" from me. He'd JUST made it onto my ignore list too.

Biggest crowds, many of whom are incredibly deluded, so safe to say their odds are shorter due to that for starters - how were they odds-wise for League One last season, I seem to recall pretty short odds considering the pending -10 ?

Pretty sure from what's been said previously that the aap3 sponsor could be changing, and that's been on all (but one) of the mock-ups so far.

Yeah, knowing when to leave it is not in MLG's skillset. WE GET IT, point made (numerous times) ! So, I've just had a check back through and no, SO16_Saint was not the one who said anything about the design - other than it not being signed off by 15 May and that there WILL be a change in sponsor for the new kit (not next year as originally contracted)... and casually dropping a pic of the Red Bull kits into this thread. Actually saintquin I think it was said "It will be solid red with something that looks like arrows under the arm. The away kit will be the same but black" in post 393 and Tom28 said "Looks like the cat is out the bag anyway... Adidas Solid Red home kit. Black and Gold away kit.". Saintquin has 60 posts across years, though last summer did ask why the kit was being replaced after one season, so... hmmmm...

No, you are wrong there. To me "100% wrong" means everything about the shirt is wrong. So it's not red, or made by adidas ? I'd have to check back through, but it might have been SO16 who said it was in the first place...

Mm, but being "slightly out" is not the same as "100% incorrect", is it ? They're only intended to be best guesses based on the following information : 1) adidas 2) mainly red 3) aap3 sponsor 4) white "arrows" There are a few logic jumps - but as there are only 3 adidas templates in use (two of which have "arrow" shaped pieces underarm), and that rumour seems fairly solid, it can't be far off... or can it ?

They wouldn't be able to use the logo that size in the Prem, hence my linking of the (smaller logo) Leipzig kit.

It's not difficult, just take every other Red Bulls FC badge and replace the location with "Southampton" or "Saints".

Not even the right manufacturer ?

I would say that Red Bull aren't known for their "fitting in with existing corporate branding" very well, as the generic white/red kits and sponsor branding of the kit, team name and badge for all other clubs show, so I can't see this happening this season when there are already advanced rumours about our colourschemes and even kit details doing the rounds. Might be a possibility for 2014 though, when the sponsorship runs out anyway. I wouldn't give a toss if it was just their logo on a red and white striped shirt and a navy away kit, but that wouldn't be in line with their usual tactics.

No, that's the one thing it isn't. It's either true or it isn't. It isn't true at the moment, so it's just misleading, and if it becomes true it isn't misleading. It's never potentially misleading. It's potentially NOT misleading if we do become sponsored by them, or just misleading. At the moment, it needs a question mark.

To be fair, none of them play in red as is rumoured for our next shirt. Leipzig do have a smaller logo than the others though (2012/13 kit) :

Yeah, I'm not going to start running around panicking about this one until there's something more tangible than a few random rumours, this one did the rounds about 4 years ago too.

So had you heard anything about this in amongst the kit rumours ?

Old template, and the advert size wouldn't be allowed by Premier League rules. But other than that...

Hey, on the bright side, at least their corporate colours aren't blue... Oh.

Nope, but at least it gives us something to flap about other than just the kit probably being sh01te, we can lose the entire identity of the club - if there's anything whatsoever in the rumour, of course.

Purely conjecture at the moment, but if that's the case, we couldn't have a worse sponsor. Red Bull Saints here we come...

I love that Flamengo shirt, but would just be vaguely annoyed if Saints wore it (or a red/white version) for a home kit. Stripes please, it's not a difficult thing to do.

Nice spot - the fact that's a straight up template is what makes me think we'll have red panels not white on the sleeves if we have that style.

It's almost certainly one of the worst striped efforts, but at least it's stripes. FWIW it will definitely change one year after not two, all adidas kit deals change all shirts every season nowadays, plus the sponsorship deal runs out at the end of 2013/14 as well. It wouldn't be dull if we had red and white stripes every single season, there is an infinite amount of tweaking, adidas change all their templates annually anyway, and it didn't seem to be a problem from 1989-2010 when we changed purely striped shirt styles eleven times without suffering from kits looking too similar (and in the couple of years before that we had the arguably striped Denmark-style hummel too).

I think the Pony tick kit is awful, but at least it makes an effort at stripes, unlike this and (apparently) next year's.