The9

It's the latest the thread has been started in the past 5 years.

Yeah, much better we'd gone out and lost 6-1 to them again like in the League a few weeks before. That would have been SO much better. :/

Ha, I waited until there was actually some news, as discussed above. I don't think there will be much point absorbing this into the actual kit thread either, as nothing here is about actual kit or possible designs. FWIW I haven't started all the kit threads and I'm not precious about it.

I think he's done more than we'd have expected him to have, in the time he's been on the pitch when not injured.

Redmond is Lallana for keeping the ball in attacking positions and Mane for running with the ball and opening up space for others. Both essential but not necessarily evident in goal or assist stats.

All I'm going to say is that we clearly and observably do not have easier fixtures than Everton. Oh and "our game in hand" is against either Man U or Arsenal, depending on when they're rescheduled for.

Interesting to see how weird the stripes look with the asymmetrical Virgin Media logo - probably why the home shirt this season has the big white area, to distract from the clunky logo making the stripes look uneven or off-centre.

If someone can just flag up the first time these appear on Twitter as a leak rather than something I chucked together in twenty minutes to make this thread more interesting, that'll be great, thanks. I call this one "One Step Beyond". FWIW I'm using .psd files from the Slovakian FC'12 Football Manager template (Megapack of brand "templates" here): http://fmslovakia.com/downloads/kitpacks/fc12-templates-megapack/). They did me a Saints 3rd psd 'specially and I've used that as the base, mixed with the collar from one of the Admiral shirts, and Macron 1 (old Villa kit) with a slight overlap for the black piping and the middle white "stripe". Works a lot better in PSP than Paint.net due to the layers.

Fair enough. I like the more original feel with the piping, also the size of the white area is narrower and more faithful to the original. I've also just done one with the multi-stripe effect from an old Spurs/AZ shirt in the middle of the white panel and that looks interesting (the club has also been using a 5-stripe design cue in a lot of marketing and on this season's kit, so it's kind of a shout out to that too) - but for some reason I can't upload another pic directly at the moment.

Also, I bet you like the third one better now... I doubt UA will give us a "wing collar", they tend only to make them with round or v necks as it's the modern way - but they do make them sometimes.

Euw, I can take the originals back offline you know!

And they'll tell you they want a shirt that'll sell loads which means it has to change enough every season to encourage people to buy the new one, and that no-one buys yellow away kits.

Showing my working here.

Oh well, may as well get into some fantasy stuff...

I'm aware of all the permutations, can't see all that happening AND us picking up enough points with the games we've got left. Will be difficult to overhaul West Brom even though we're only 7 behind with a game in hand, but they have a similar number of difficult games to us left. We've got to play Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool away, Man U, Man City and Arsenal at home which will be tough to get points from. West Brom away will probably be the key in all of it though. 8th place six-pointer, which will be happening after we've played the previous Wednesday and they have an extra day's recovery. So that's 1st, 2nd, 4th and 8th away; 3rd, 5th, 6th and 9th at home. I can see us getting 6 or 7 wins from the remaining games (Bournemouth (14th), Palace (17th), Hull (19th), Stoke (9th) home, Boro (18th) away, plus one or two wins from the games against the top 8 sides above). Chuck in a draw or two and that'll give us about 60 points (we're on 33). In the past seasons (counting backwards) 60 points would finish: 8th, 7th (us, on 60pts), 8th (we were 8th on 56), 8th, 7th - so I guess it's not out of the question, but we've got to find 27 points from 12 matches having only got 33 from 26 so far, so it'll be a significant hike in performances.

Had a bit of a rake around, here are a couple of other 2017 UA kits, Grulla Morioka (no, me neither, Japanese apparently) seem to have a new design - with different shaped armpit panels, different collar and the UA logo on the shoulder. Also Omiya Ardija (also J-League) have a new shirt for 2017, but you'll probably recognise this one, it definitely isn't a new style:

I'm fairly sure we're all aware of Redknapp's questionable purchasing of reserve-level players via Willie McKay... and the Crouch transfer is a matter of court record here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16831118 Also "profits from transfers" here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16677743 Apologies for the video/pic of Redknapp at the top of the article...

"Ditched" as in "had him hang around as third or fourth choice" maybe. He's still not a player I'd build a top half side around. I'm interested to see if we're sparing with Caceres because if we've seen enough of him to know he can do the business, and we can devalue him in the next 6 months to the point where we can afford to offer him a permanent deal. Then again, that could be a bit fanciful. I'd see if there were any takers for Rodriguez and Austin at a profit, we'll lose Martina assuming Pied recovers fitness - or Martina might get another year if not. Hojbjerg and to a lesser extent Clasie are cover who are good enough for a top half Prem side on their day and have an upside, Reed is getting to the point where he needs options elsewhere to give him development we're not seeing. Isgrove is so far off the radar he'll be released, as will whichever keepers we've only signed as cover - Gazzaniga looks likely to leave. Depends on whose contracts are up though.

Can't see anyone wanting to sign a player who's been injured for 6 months and hasn't proven he can still compete at that level. Plus he's got 5 years left on his contract and that means he'd cost a buyer enough money over the "normal" rate that they're not going to gamble on someone who might not be at those levels. Now keeping him at Xmas when we're challenging the top 4, there's the issue.

So basically you're saying sacrifice the Europa League? Because few of our midweek games were Premier League fixtures. Regarding the League games that were part of that run of fixtures - it depends who you're playing against. Personally I think the rotation policy was spot on, the tactics to preserve players were inspired, and we played to come a goal better than third place in the Europa League and do just enough to get through and missed that by the width of a post in injury time of the last game. Same with the League Cup - weakened teams until we had to go for it and dominated the final without winning. Basically two post widths away from winning a Cup and getting to the knockout stages of the Europa League which was my benchmark for an excellent season. Frankly anything other than a complex solution based on balancing a match-by-match approach against overall recovery needs is oversimplifying it, and we very nearly got it spot on. As I said back in December, you'll see what this team can do when they're not playing every 3/4 days. Annoyingly the Man U and Arsenal postponements (and likely loss of the Chelsea game too) means we're about to go months barely playing and then cramming in a load of midweek games at the end again, all against sides with bigger and better squads than us, which is bloody ridiculous. Quite looking forward to us having a tilt at the title next season if we can get the right CB combination, not likely to get into Europe from 11 points behind Everton and so no midweek worries next season.

Nothing in the thread because there's no news, which isn't really a surprise when you consider: 1) We will be into the second year of a 7 year Under Armour deal - no speculation 2) We will be into the second year of a 3 year Virgin Media shirt sponsorship deal - no speculation 3) None of the 2017/18 shirts leaked so far are made by UA 4) None of the leagues with "one brand" deals have a deal with UA either (eg MLS adidas, Chinese league Nike). 5) The one club that usually gets a shirt leak who were wearing UA (Spurs) will be switching to Nike. Fluminense joining UA is about the only shirt news for the last 9 months or so, and it's hardly a big deal. Would be nice if we could get this season's white shirt made for next season though...

I'm not really after them being consistently wrong, tbh.

Anyone would think we didn't have to play a match every 3/4 days now and the players weren't trying to conserve energy in those matches.

Since the EFL website was revamped the original link has gone, but here's a wayback machine link to the conditions of their continued existence from July 2012... which was nearly a full season before the Trust took over the club https://web.archive.org/web/20120715062512/http://www.football-league.co.uk/footballleaguenews/20120712/league-board-makes-membership-offer-to-portsmouth_2293334_2847729 The Board of The Football League has agreed to make an offer of membership to the eventual purchaser of Portsmouth Football Club. The offer is subject to the successful bidder accepting a number of conditions that seek to ensure the sporting integrity of league football and the financial viability of the Club going forward. The Football League Board has absolute discretion as to whether to admit any new company as a member of The League. In doing so, it has to strike a balance between giving a club another chance and the effect this has on sporting competition between clubs. Through its Insolvency Policy, The League aims to secure the continuation of the club in its local community. In seeking to achieve this it requires that: a) all football debts have been settled in full (although these may be compromised by mutual agreement). b) creditors have been given the opportunity to indicate their satisfaction (or otherwise) at the proposed arrangements (normally through the acceptance of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA)). In Portsmouth's previous administration, a significant amount of unsecured debt was compromised in a CVA approved by creditors in June 2010, with an anticipated outcome of twenty pence in the pound. In the event, these creditors had not had their claims settled prior to the Club's further administration in February 2012. Under the new CVA these claims would be further compromised to less than one penny in the pound without creditors having the opportunity to indicate whether they find this acceptable. This is because the claims rest in the liquidation of the previous company and the liquidator of that company has voted to accept the terms of the new CVA. Therefore, the Board were faced with the prospect of numerous unsecured creditors receiving less than one penny in the pound, without having the opportunity to indicate their satisfaction (or otherwise) in the normal way. In the Board's view, these arrangements do not respect a key principle of The Football League's Insolvency Policy (as described above in b). Therefore, as a condition of membership, any new company established to apply for ownership of Portsmouth Football Club's share in The Football League will be required to: 1. Accept a deduction of 10 points in the 2012/13 season; 2. Agree that only a limited proportion of the secured debt from the previous club can be carried forward into the new company as secured debt. 3. Pay all football creditors in full, unless mutually acceptable compromise agreements are put in place. 4. Agree to a range of other restrictions on playing budgets, future borrowing and loan repayments for the next 5 seasons. It will now be for the administrator to seek to finalise arrangements for the sale of the club with interested parties. The Board will consider the application for transfer of membership once the administrator has selected the final purchaser.

Not true, they were in League One when formed, only to get relegated within a matter of weeks. EDIT - they actually got relegated a day or two before the takeover, but still had L1 matches left. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/22098749 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2311917/Portsmouth-exit-administration-fan-takeover.html (look at the comments for some quality Portsmyths and finger pointing at the fit and proper test - ignoring the choice of any of the owners to fail to pay off any of the CVA).