The9

Just for the record, even though our Umbro contract is up, they are still making Umbro-branded kits for teams with contract term remaining - eg this Sligo Rovers 2013 template is new and no-one else has this style at the moment :

We'll have 3 kits if we're still in the Prem, I'd be surprised if they weren't H) striped A/3) blue or black 3/A) yellow. What's more "important" at the moment is that we get a decent kit-maker to provide it. To be honest other than Umbro I don't really like anything by the major manufacturers at the moment. Adidas already have Stoke and Sunderland and we'd just get a bog-standard template (unless we stayed away from stripes again in which cae this place would have a meltdown), Nike are just gimmicky and dull with some horrible ideas and similarly template based, and even Macron would just make us look like Sheffield United. Lotto have some really ugly pointlessly faffy designs (see QPR aways), Warrior are hit and miss (though a "classic" home shirt would be excellent you'd have to fear Liverpool's purple 3rd kit and their horrible boot designs don't say "class") and Under Armour haven't produced one decent kit of the 3 Spurs have. Puma are ok I suppose... Add to that that it'll be 2013/14 so the major manufacturers will be experimenting with stupid designs in a non-World Cup year in order to change to a classic look for summer 2014, and I'm not exactly positive that we're going to end up with anything decent for next season either. Whatever we end up with, plain stripes is an absolute minimum for me. A nice amber and black away kit as per 1970/71 would make my day too.

If you ignore the little matter of not having a record of our change kit for the first 85 years of our 127 year existence. FWIW we played in white shirts and navy shorts and socks in the 1902 FA Cup Final when we changed due to a clash with Sheffield United. No shirt clash in 1900 against Bury.

What a horrible, horrible decision by the club to do this. Money-grabbing plastic club lower league style desperation at it's very worst. Not satisfied with trying to make us look like Liverpool in the League, we've now gone for a Spurs-like all white in the cup. And why ? Because firstly they've designed an all-red aberration of a home kit, then compounded the mistake by trying to market the home/away as "stripes overall" by designing a complementary away kit which rarely gets used and is therefore almost pointless. To make that worse, they've now tried to cover themselves by shoehorning it into a home fixture in a desperate move to try and shift some stock. It is utter incompetence. The last time I heard about something like this it involved a Goldie Lookin Chain sponsored Newport County limited edition kit, the now-defunct FAW Premier Cup (they drew Carmarthen away, who also play in amber), and begging the Conference South for special permission to wear it in a league game instead. That is precisely the level you'd expect this debacle to play out at, it is utterly non-League.

I can't recall it happening at any match when I've been in attendance (apart from the Forum Matches when one team played in stripes and the other in the away kit but that doesn't count) - that Bilbao UEFA Cup one sounds feasible, plus there are probably a few instances (like Ajax) of us wearing an away kit in friendlies for marketing reasons. When we had the sash, we played a few teams who wore red at St Mary's (and some still sang "Come on You Reds" like idiots), but no visiting team wore stripes - both Brentford and Exeter wore black IIRC. I believe Bilbao also played both Liebherr Cup games in black at the start of last season. They did - see below.

Do we ? I haven't actually seen anyone say that.

Worth me pointing out that if we win all of the matches against the other sides in the bottom 6 we only get 30 points which will almost certainly see us relegated ?

Cardiff v Liverpool was a 4pm kick off : http://www.football-league.co.uk/capitalonecup/news/20120203/carling-cup-final-ticket-details_2293330_2599041 Arsenal v Spurs was 1:30pm : http://www1.skysports.com/football/live/match/253529/report Norwich v Man U : 1:30pm : http://www1.skysports.com/football/live/match/254222 Stoke v Swansea : 3pm : http://www1.skysports.com/football/live/match/253866 So two matches with 1:30pm kick offs (and the North London derby was televised whilst the Norwich match wasn't) but Stoke overlapping with the Carling Cup Final, so it seems that they don't move matches to avoid the Carling Cup final... unless they want to.

Last season the Cardiff v Liverpool Final was played the same day as Sunday 26th February 2012 Arsenal 5-2 Tottenham Hotspur Norwich City 1-2 Manchester United Stoke City 2-0 Swansea City Not yet found out the kick off times though.

I can't remember either...

At least Newcastle and us aren't still in the League Cup.

Whatever the solution, you can guarantee the club won't have given it a second's thought.

I usually do.

No, because I meant 41 as there aren't any ST holders in 43 ! My ST is in 41 so my brain did an incorrect calculation which said "I know I don't have to move so it must be the other side of block 42" - but that isn't the case for some of the people immediately to my left, so it is indeed 41 and 42, original edited for clarity now. Not going anyway I don't think.

That is categorically just wrong. Without the ball we leave one up, and never more. We do play variations of all 3, but mostly when we have the ball our formation is 2-6-2 with Lambert and one of the midfielders up with him. This is less the case now Shaw plays, and if I could be arsed I'd go and have a look at the "heat maps" to see if Fox was always more advanced than Shaw has been - though most of the time the formation (which is an outdated concept anyway) completely depends on how much defending we're doing overall.

The "real difference" is that we've playing against crap teams. This is proven beyond a doubt by us losing at Liverpool. Shaw is more defensive than Fox but until he has to face the top sides we won't really know if he's good enough (as Fox basically wasn't). As for Cork, he played against Liverpool, none of the wonderful things that have happened against crapper teams happened there.

Had a discussion with Mr Steve Grant about this a week or so back. Glad to know for sure so far in advance the date of the Newcastle match - not on tv either.

It says clearly on the OS that Blocks 42 and 41 will have to move and won't be able to buy tickets until that date. It is a million times clearer than anything you've written. Everything else, yes, the ticket office procedures are frequently useless and inconvenient.

Tbh I think it can only clarify the situation, and if that leads to a decent judgement, whether it's in Chanrai OR the PST's favour, I'm all in favour of the transparency. I don't really care WHY it's been clarified, it's good that it has.

Hi, you can tell something's actually happening, I'm back on the thread. Welllllllll, the argument from Birch was that he would go back to the CVA1 people to get their assent to CVA2 and somehow that would overturn the idea that not getting paid a penny from CVA1 would be ok - so it's good that the FL have actually clarified. Would be nice for the FL to also remind them that they only have until the start of next season to get out of admin...

Still mainly just this one. We'll only see whether best 11, settled back 4 and not playing Fox are relevant if we keep the same defence for the matches against the likes of Arsenal and Man City in the New Year - I think we still make enough minor errors back there that half-decent sides would take advantage of that it's only the failings of the opposition. Hopefully Shaw at the very least will prove to be an improvement in the longer run, certainly looking less exposed than Fox did.

I honestly don't think he's shown us anything much yet. I actually thought his touch was pretty poor a lot of the time on Saturday and is one area where he can learn a lot from Lambert (and others), but his pace in behind was something that gave us a new dimension. There's no solidity to his touch and sometimes he's waving a weak ankle at it rather to deflect it, rather than trying to get hold of the ball and it seems to be a choice he makes. It's still going to take time, but at least he's getting a look in now.

See number 2(a) below. It very much is an argument. ar·gu·ment (ärgy-mnt) n. 1. a. A discussion in which disagreement is expressed; a debate. b. A quarrel; a dispute. c. Archaic A reason or matter for dispute or contention: "sheath'd their swords for lack of argument" (Shakespeare). 2. a. A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood: presented a careful argument for extraterrestrial life. b. A fact or statement put forth as proof or evidence; a reason: The current low mortgage rates are an argument for buying a house now. c. A set of statements in which one follows logically as a conclusion from the others. 3. a. A summary or short statement of the plot or subject of a literary work. b. A topic; a subject: "You and love are still my argument" (Shakespeare). 4. Logic The minor premise in a syllogism. 5. Mathematics a. An independent variable of a function. b. The angle of a complex number measured from the positive horizontal axis. 6. Computer Science A value used to evaluate a procedure or subroutine. 7. Linguistics In generative grammar, any of various positions occupied by a noun phrase in a sentence.

Just to add this back into the equation re: "next year's revenue" : http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/southampton-saints-alive.html "At the risk of stating the obvious, there is never a good time for a football club to be relegated, but it is fair to say that Southampton’s timing was particularly bad, as they missed out on the significant growth in TV deals, e.g. West Ham received £40 million for finishing bottom of the Premier League last season compared to Southampton’s £19 million in 2005. Similarly, while Southampton’s relegation was cushioned by £13 million of parachute payments, West Ham will receive £48 million (£16 million in each of the first two years, and £8 million in each of years three and four)." If we'd have had the current £48m in the 4 years following the Prem relegation we wouldn't have been in anything like the same trouble - add the additional £10m to 2006 and 2007's figures and our income would have been on a par with our last season still in the Prem. Even the attitude of clubs to relegation of keeping their players for 2 seasons and going for the bounce-back rather than culling their wage earners after 6 months or a year shows there's much more money going to the relegated clubs now, and of course that amount is going through the roof next season. So a small loan against guaranteed parachutes (minimum) shouldn't be a problem...

Being at Boro away when Crouch made it look like we might stay up as we bewilderingly won 3-1 in 2006. Bucharest away. And being at The Dell for Thierry Henry's first goal for Arsenal.