The9

Well, he definitely said he was "fast" at least once when we were in League One, but didn't we have a lengthy discussion about how useful pure pace with no accompanying skill is ? I don't recall him saying that much positive other than that he was "Johnno quick", and it all has to be viewed through the prism of "good for League One" anyway.

Notsomuch in this specific thread. There are plenty of others for that.

It still makes for an interesting article based on permanent signings, though some of the worst were loans too.

Strange, I thought we looked utter dross against the Premier League Seasoned Wigan, who kept the ball and killed the game at 1-0 up. They've forgotten how to play since though, but at that point were on a pretty decent run of form.

Olivier Barnard's twin brother ?

Adding the loan signings would have given a bigger picture - where are the likes of Henri Camara and Peter Madsen ? Soccerbase seems rather lacking in that information... as does the article as a result. Few typos in there too : Olivier Bernard, Dany N'Guessan, John Otsemobor, and a couple of dodgy apostrophes for plurals.

Difficult to judge, people who aren't good enough for their Prem first teams at the moment, or people who just aren't good enough for the Prem ? You'd have to think that League One is at least inarguably competitive, whilst that hasn't been guaranteed in previous reserve leagues.

No guarantee they'll get the deduction at all this season, they only have to come out of admin before the start of next season. And the FL will happily carry it over if it has no impact anyway.

I think Nige has played a blinder, bringing Boruc back has pushed Guly starting his first home game in months completely off the idiots' radar.

That gets a mention on the Wiki page, as it happens.

How do you mean ? In terms of "ability to perform" ? Pretty sure the person's age and recovery rate would come into it as well.

Did really well against them in the League Cup as a sub. I'm not sure how letting someone who isn't in the first team matchday squad somehow makes a slot available though ? Also, he's not named in our Prem squad list as he's not old enough, so that's not a consideration either. Now if we were shifting Forte or Dickson on, they're both additional spaces.

Wiki says : Taurine and glucuronolactone are normal body constituents and also naturally present in the human diet (e.g. scallops, fish, poultry and grain respectively). The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in its January 2009 opinion on the safety of energy drink ingredients concluded that the exposure to taurine and glucuronolactone at the levels presently used in energy drinks is not of safety concern. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/935.htm Red Bull Cola was discontinued in the US in 2011 but the "regular" energy drink is still on sale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Cola

It's to do with what's on the banned list, which is a combination of harmful and performance enhancing - there's a line somewhere between "adding sugar for more energy" and "blood transfusions". Seems unlikely that a major sponsor of the England Football Team would be a provider of a banned substance - even alcohol isn't banned in football competition per se.

Prem / FL anti-doping statement here : http://www.epfl-europeanleagues.com/anti_doping_procedures.htm "The FA prohibits all the doping offences listed in the World Anti-Doping Agency code and applies all the sanctions laid down in the Code for those offences." The WADA code is here : http://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/World_Anti-Doping_Program/WADP-The-Code/WADA_Anti-Doping_CODE_2009_EN.pdf The actual (2012) Prohibited List is here : http://www.wada-ama.org/documents/world_anti-doping_program/wadp-prohibited-list/2012/wada_prohibited_list_2012_en.pdf

There's an approved list, which is constantly evolving, usually to add masking agents, etc. Plenty of debate around the various drug testing organisations about it too. The USADA and IOC have different ideas, and it's also difficult for clean athletes to ensure they don't accidentally break the rules : http://news.bbc.co.uk/winterolympics2002/hi/english/alpine_skiing/newsid_1885000/1885843.stm It may also not be news that players also get given cocktails of performance-enhancing drugs to get their bodies in peak condition and aid recovery, etc. There's nothing dodgy about it provided those substances aren't on the banned list. There's also a difference in taking of banned substances for personal use, and those for "cheating" via performance enhancement.

I read it as 13% said yes, 19% were "neutral" and therefore 68% say it's a load of old borax. Or, as you've accurately identified, in a sample of 100, that's 13 players, 19 players and 68 players. It's not much of a sample anyway.

And as I identified, we had a lot of people ready to overlook all of his awful passes off the pitch and us conceding 6, as well as nearly giving away a critical goal against Villa. I thought it was the Fulham match he played that awful backpass in as well ? He did that from a CB position. Anyway, the point, which is that people shouldn't write players off based on a few mistakes in their first few games, is valid whether either of us think he was crap or not.

And this is why Javi is no kind of "Football Consultant" - because all of the integration people nowadays also have other directly useful football-related skills.

Judging from the amount of stuff he's stuck on there about marketing which is lifted from the public domain, I'd be inclined to think he's trying to pass himself off as someone he's not. The bit about "hotel management training" stashed under the bullsh111t about what he did when in Southampton and at Hoddle's Academy is probably nearer the truth, along with something about speaking two languages and that being handy to give the players someone to talk to in their own language for a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinto_El%C3%A1 Still couldn't tell you where he was.

Not surprised about the cocaine use given various stories about former Saints last time we were in the Prem, or the racism, or that 1/4 of players think a gay player would be "outcast". And of course all of them would say it would be someone else doing it.

Good use of selective quoting there. What about the threads about Yoshida being a liability ? e.g. "If Yoshida isn't the answer..." He was rubbish against Arsenal along with the rest and personally responsible getting spun for Gervinho's goal, along with Fonte not covering. Fine against Villa, other than the "massive mistake which almost led to us falling 2 behind" mentioned here : http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?40714-Yoshida-as-a-full-back&p=1505517#post1505517). And yes you can't judge him on the two matches out of position (when he was terrible), but he also cost us points with the backpass to Gazzaniga in a later match. So that's 4 matches early on when he was pants, no matter how much people wanted to say what a great player he was - and there was a lot of that based on nothing other than him winning some headers early on. He does now look a lot more solid and to be honest it supports the people saying Fox getting caught upfield and a lack of defensive midfield were the problems, because he's still a shinner who slices simple passes into touch, he's just got fewer balls in behind him which he doesn't read making him look bad - though that was still happening even at QPR. Overall I think he's grown into it, but let's not pretend he came in as some kind of colossus, he looked inept on a few occasions and it's the other changes which have improved us far more.

Good point, forgot about that. Some spoon on the comments section under that pic was banging on how it was fake because they were getting Chevrolet in next season, but that's the season after. Also, in 2011/12 the Barca shirt leaks all had unicef on them and the actual shirts were Qatar Foundation - but the shirt was the same nevertheless :

Hopefully those three, but I keep looking at the fixtures list and wonder where the points will come from before April. We need to win at Villa and Wigan and pick up other points with home games against City and Everton looming just to give ourselves a chance. Wigan are in the mix, Newcastle and Sunderland on the fringes. If West Ham keep having injury problems they could slide into the equation too.