The9

Already had this discussion. Derby is not similar, is split all the way around the stands and has one stand much bigger than the others and a sloping roof. Leicester is similar, but it's completely blue... Darlington is quite similar, but isn't a football ground any more anyway and is half the size. Middlesbrough looks like Derby but not St Mary's, and Doncaster looks like Darlington.

Stoke's ground is horrible, as are any grounds with open corners. And I've been there in the Stoke end, supporting Stoke (it was against Brighton when we were both in L1).

I've been on the other end of it with Cardiff City shirts suddenly appearing in the Newport sports store I worked in in the early 90s back when Newport had gone bust and Cardiff were a terrible lower league side. It would REALLY annoy the locals, it wasn't just me moving them to the back of the rail back then.

It has one of the best locations with plenty of transport links, has good views from any seat, nothing miles away from the pitch or obstructed, no really cramped concourses or excessive queues for the loo (could do with better staff and queueing arrangements for food in some areas though), has corporate facilities to support modern revenue generation, away fans are close but not invasive, and whilst we're in the Prem it isn't too small or too big... yet. There are plenty of others that don't offer that.

St Mary's would only be better for me if it was nearer my house (but not near enough to affect the traffic) . Love the location, love the clear views in the bowl compared to older grounds, and its uniqueness - it looks a BIT like some other grounds, but you don't hear complaints about the dozens of photofit Archibald Leitch stands that used to be at older grounds, do you ? It's a popular design because it's a good design. Having said that, would be nice if we could customise it a bit more with banners, etc. It doesn't hurt distinctive grounds, nothing wrong with bannering up some that might benefit from more character.

One of the things which makes St Mary's different is the large concrete blocking painted red in the middle of the Chapel as well, it's very distinctive.

Riverside was built as a U with a large standalone grandstand and only filled two corners in after a season or two, a completely different build and process (which thanks to the same construction company just makes it look like Derby - but not St Mary's). Saints also can't be held responsible for Leicester choosing to have a similar design AFTER we built St Mary's. Pride Park has a large corporate area on one side and that's why that stand is bigger, and the colour schemes do a lot for the "differences" between the grounds anyway. Due to that I'd say Doncaster's stadium is probably most like St Mary's, just with the back 20 rows missing. Though the smaller stand does mean the cantilever supports aren't visible.

Ah, but I also saw Pulis in the reserves, and whilst he was slow, failed to read anything, or mark anything and even the 17 year olds in the team knew not to pass to him... actually, he looked like a game of FIFA where the coding has gone awry and all the player does is shadow the ball from 10 yards away... at least I saw him control the ball a couple of times. Pulis played right back one time. Looked awful, and Jamie Hatch got his place back the match after - that's Jamie Hatch who was released and then signed for footballing giants Tiverton and Weymouth.

...alongside Chris Makin !

Absolutely without question it was Zoltan Liptak, who was barely able to stand up with the ball at his feet, and once managed to dribble to the halfway line by constantly miscontrolling the ball ahead of himself, before slicing it off the pitch. Compared to him, Ollie Lancashire and Alan Bennett were 1970s Italian international standard defenders. Even Jordan Robertson and Ryan Smith looked talented compared to Liptak. The only one running him close was Pulis, and even that one-paced, flairless, unanticipative passenger of a "player" was better than Liptak, because Pulis could actually control a ball. O'Halloran is also a good shout, now at Nuneaton, but at least he was only a one month loan and might have improved, Liptak was meant to be an established Hungarian international, and he could not even kick a football without falling over.

Ah, interesting. That's as close as I've seen to any kind of "brand" news, the next question being whether the kit will be stripes, and then if it will be sold in stores outside Southampton...

FSC, which has gone downhill in the past 2 years, football-shirts.co.uk, which was good in 2012 but has also gone a bit to seed, and recently Todos Camisetas, once it became clear that all the former two were doing for a while was nicking all of their leaks. I occasionally pop into Design Football, SoccerBible, Historical Football kits, and Classic Kits too, amongst others. Don't bother with the forums though, I'm not interested in fantasy kits, just actual designs and anything on those pitches up on the main pages soon enough. Bit of a palaver with the 2 different leaked Chelsea kits this season !

Saints v Saints sounds like a great idea, we could do with a bigger squad and it would help with maybe being able to play more IFC games next season and possibly with the ongoing Worldnet numbers issue we get every year, when people drop out of that tournament. Have we still got 2 sets of non-clashing kit ? In case you haven't guessed, I'm in.

That would take them winning at least one League Cup tie in August, or getting to the 3rd round of the FA Cup, so unless it happens in the League Cup when they're probably going to have a flung-together side of frees, wannabes and rejects, I can't see it. For the record it would be hilarious if we put a reserve side out and still stuffed them. But they have to actually get taken over in the next 10 days first.

It's a different situation, but I can't logically see the FL allowing a -10 punishment to have no effect when they have specifically created to discourage other teams from not paying CVAs as the Skates have, and they can't even get in the League at all unless they're taken over by the end of the season and agree whatever terms the FL give them for coming out of administration - which the FL have already said will be (at least) -10, tight financial restrictions and transfer controls.

To be fair, they haven't played all season, so it was inevitable.

Using them sticking around, when in many cases no-one wants to pay what they're currently getting, as evidence of our ability to keep players isn't relevant to the case that we're good at holding on to players people actually DO want. Our ability to keep the likes of Lallana, Shaw, Schneiderlin etc is what will determine our "selling" status, not if we can hang on to Lee Barnard and Johnno Quick by paying them Prem reserve money ahead of teams prepared to give them League One wages. Chaplow's out of contract in the summer anyway, I think, and guaranteed to be released unless we keep him week to week until he's recovered from injury, which would be a nice gesture but probably not in the club's mindset any more.

Does it not just prove that we're paying too much for players who don't want to leave and take a pay cut ?

Especially as Cork is a bloody awful right back.

On here or kit sites ?

Not "officially", but I have heard minor things from people I know know, via other people. Where's the adidas news coming from then ? They and Nike are notoriously bad at stopping leaked pics and I'm surprised we haven't seen one yet if it's either of those.

The staff do occasionally get a sniff, I found out we were keeping the yellow shirt via a friend of a member of staff in the summer after a Facebook discussion about us playing a preseason friendly in yellow with otherwise strangely redundant blue Premier League numbers on the back. But I haven't heard ANYTHING about this kit, though the online rumour is adidas, and the Nike rumour as just as likely to be from a random person assuming we'll move to Nike from Umbro like England and Man City, when our Umbro contract will have ended so there's nothing to "convert to Nike", and Nike don't own Umbro any more anyway. Still waiting to hear or see anything tangible, and as ever slightly bewildered as to why the club doesn't at least announce the new supplier to kick off a bit of buzz, which plenty of other sides have done when still under contract to other manufacturers.

Yes, you can't have numbers on a striped back in Europe, it has to be a plain panel. However, that won't have any effect given that the deal and shirt choice were probably in the bag about 3 months ago if not before, we'd just bring out a Euro shirt with a plain back if we needed to.

Same number of syllables as Morgan Schneiderlin who isn't struggling for songs.

Who's ahead of him for Belgium ? Kompany and Fellaini ?