The9

Pace is still vitally important. There were a number of occasions yesterday when had we been quicker on foot, opposing players wouldn't have been able to affect play as much as they did and we'd have done even better. It's the same argument as with Lambert - just because we're able to make some chances without certain characteristics being present, it doesn't mean we wouldn't be better off with them as well. I don't think many people are saying "let's get someone with JUST pace", I'm certainly saying "let's get someone with the characteristics we already have PLUS pace".

Help, I am being b-antered. You are the King of Lolz. I also "don't give a monkey's".

Sound advice... in 1996.

You can't even spell "leek" or "allegedly" in your own language. Also, I am currently clean shaven.

Fortunately there only need to be three slightly more muggy than us.

Ironically enough his last club was QPR anyway, 4 Championship matches in Jan-Feb 2010 after West Ham let him go on a free and they lost all of them, conceding 9 and only scoring 1 goal.

Seems feasible.

I think you'll find my passport gets me all the places yours does.

I disagree, they've got some decent players who just aren't trying very much.

For once he'd actually be telling the truth though. Which first team player do we think he's going to exile to the reserves and fall out with first ?

They'll probably end up in the Europa League in 2 years, and League Two three years later with no ground.

Fook off, you Anglo-Saxon mong.

Rumour I heard was that he told Mikel he "didn't give a monkey's" and Ramires, not understanding the phrase, took it out of context.

Actually I prefer this : "You know what you are You know what you are You're NOT a racist You're just a wan-kaaaar".

I didn't think there was any doubt ? If Paul Dickov's a Man City "legend", Lambert's a Saints one.

Honestly it's not particularly insightful. They talk about player positions for West Brom and QPR matches but as well as conveniently ignoring that the player postions were actually just more defensive against West Brom (therefore the attacking positions are compressed on top of the midfield and the whole team is more compact and much nearer our own goal generally, so of course the "formation" is less well defined) they also completely fail to mention that Davis, on as sub against QPR, had a higher average position than Lambert. Even if it's only looking at it from a Fantasy Football point scoring perspective that's a pretty huge oversight. The most important statistic in that equation isn't remotely related to our personnel, it's "West Brom 6 home wins, QPR none".

I look at this and think "so Cork playing versus Swansea at home and QPR away is a fair basis for a comparison with Davis playing against Man City, Man United, Arsenal, Villa, Everton, Fulham, West Ham, Spurs and West Brom ?". Give me Cork's stats for his two matches and Davis' stats against just Villa and Wigan and we might have a fairer comparison. Not sure if "they're playing different positions" is necessarily a valid argument, until Cork was fit it was mostly Davis alongside Schneiderlin, since Cork's been fit it's been Cork alongside Schneiderlin. If they're playing different positions it's probably because one of them isn't suited to the position they were meant to be playing, as it's been obvious for a couple of months that we needed more strength in front of our defence. Whether the improvement is due to Cork or due to the opposition being worse we won't know until Cork has to face the top half teams from December 28th for a couple of months.

I'm not sure it's so much erroneous or bull, just very carefully worded and certainly marketing spin if not propaganda. I'm still fairly sure we'd have shifted more shirts in the 2002-4 period when we were in the Prem, better, online sales existed and we were selling through the same number of outlets as now. As I've said already the only changes are manufacturer, financial state of the people who buy the shirts and the expanded global audience (of which the majority would already have had Prem coverage). Of course we could be flogging zillions to China, but I don't see any evidence of it.

I gave up caring about his synapse-popping moments long ago.

I'd be more inclined to think they got burned when we were in admin... they could have total sales but not units, nothing or anything, but it wouldn't suit their spin to acknowledge previous sales. The point is they've chosen their wording very specifically to use a phrase which doesn't say "sold the most shirts", therefore we have not sold more of these shirts than any other. If they were genuinely impressed with the sales they'd be ordering more stock, not saying stuff like "we might sell out earlier than last year so please buy it now". The other thing that springs to mind about this is that the sash shirt sold out almost immediately and there were few "normal sizes" in stock from August to October, which would also explain how this shirt could outsell the shirt they previously claimed was our best ever seller (and I'm not entirely convinced about that one either, but it's a lot easier to believe). The other issue is that single season shirts with no specific purpose (unlike the commemorative sash, which was also our first one season home shirt) very rarely sell as well as multi-season shirts because some people are put off by knowing it'll be out of date within 12 months.

You're missing the bit about there still being 26 matches to go. So it might not lie, but it certainly masks the end of season standings nicely - until the end of the season. FWIW QPR, having just played us, have Man U next, and then the rest of the bottom 6. Whichever of us is still in the bottom 3 at Xmas is doomed. Until then, it's a bit more difficult to say. Meanwhile, Villa have got a run of top half sides coming up and are already in the bottom 3.

But seriously...

Judging by your selected matches, yes, they are 4 points better than us in comparable games. Interesting set of stats though, that and the "Saints fastest selling kit ever" nonsense proves that adage about "lies, damn lies..." quite nicely.

Using individual cases rather than a general assumption that the justice system achieves a suitable goal in the vast majority of cases is a long and boring road.

Anyone discussing our formation without using 2-6-2 as identified by me against Man City (and much later by Gary Neville on MNF) needs shooting.