The9

I'm just wondering whether the idea was to block MLT's ST to prevent him getting access, and only later did Cortese find out he was working for Sky. Assuming any of this is true of course.

Anyone got any stats on distance run by Saints players compared to Man Utd players ? Would be interesting to see if that (as well as chipping the ball at Mayuka's head) contributed to our obvious tiredness in the last 15 minutes on Sunday.

It will be "Lalalalala", even Rickie Lambert Southampton's Goal Machine degenerates into endless la/na-ing when we get a crowd of over 25k due to the plastics not knowing the words.

Simple fact is that after Sunday he now already has two tunes. Football Genius and Brown Girl In the Ring With the Northam catching on to BGITR and having used it now, there is basically no chance of getting any different songs going for him. The line in the sand has been drawn, and BGITR is the winner... Laaaaaaalalalalala.

More surprised we're not trying to get Gabbidon in...

PremierLeague.com also has Fox listed as injured on their Saints squad page. They haven't yet updated it with the Squad, U-21s, Loan In and Homegrown info though, just got the squad numbers and all players listed in a flat unsplit list (unlike the non-promoted teams).

That's not what his twitter said.

That's why we're discussing if there's space left. The other argument is that the "free agent vs contracted player" rule doesn't come into play until the squads are announced anyway, so anyone who is free COULD sign before the 4pm deadline without it being a problem, rather than being covered by the "you have to name contracted players first, and can't add free agents if you have sufficient contracted players" rule. Also of note, pretty much every club last season named every contracted scholar on the U21 list, so I'm pretty sure the Echo is wrong with this "naming 8 U-21s" thing. Maybe they just mean that's how many U-21s are actually in the "first team squad", rather than the official Prem squad list.

When it comes down to it, unless anyone can give an example of some over 21s out on loan from Prem clubs on non-half/or full-season loans last season, I'm not going to be able to check.

Good question - obviously we'd have to include him if we wanted to pick him, but that's not the same as having to include him as part of the rules to prevent us being able to sign a free agent. Anyway, we'll know pretty soon, the PremierLeague website has already updated their publications list with "Player List 2012/13" but the link still goes to the squads from Sep 2011/12 at the moment : http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/publications.html

He's not on loan until January. He's on loan until November. 3 month loan, not half-season. So we'd presumably need to include him ahead of any gap to be filled by a free agent. We will also have 2 gaps for GKs. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/forte-heads-to-crawley-318792.aspx

We don't have any spaces in the squad that can be filled (we can only name 23 due to not having 3 over-21 GKs), and we're not permitted to add any out of contract/free agents if we have available contracted players not already named in the squad. So unless we sign them before 4pm and get them into the squad before it has to be confirmed, we can't add anyone without releasing someone from their contract anyway, which they'd need to mutually agree.

That was not the first team by any stretch of the imagination, but he looked about as comfortable at left back as Richardson did at CB, which was "not very". Lots of hoofing, some terrible decision making (letting the ball bounce, played at least one dubious backpass and put Seaborne under pressure as well) and generally much better attacking than defending, against a League One side who signed two strikers the following week.

I've given up trying to predict our starting line-up, Lambert has his limitations but evidently can still score goals (and even his favourite far post header) if we win possession in the opposition's half when we have numbers forward (viz Man U) which is something I wasn't expecting us to have as a threat. So with that in mind, it depends entirely on whether Adkins wants to use Ramirez as a foil to Lambert's big man stuff to attack Arsenal with a varied attack, or whether we are able to get the coaching in place to enable the team to benefit from Mayuka's obvious pace. I suspect we won't be ready to unleash Mayuka yet, just us Lee and Sharp's penetrating runs were ignored in the second half of last season. We don't play many through balls, though that's at least partially due to that not being one of Lambert's strengths. So for now, Lambert is the safer option.

He's not a better defender on any evidence I've seen so far, he was bloody rubbish at defending at Stevenage, only decent going forward with the ball. Though as noted above, he was ill the following day. Though it didn't stop him making one Balesque driving run.

We should submit a list of every U-21 we have, definitely. Agreed re: Dickson, and that the Forte thing is a bit of a grey area - though it specifies "contracted" and Forte is definitely contracted to us. There are probably precedents with players out on loan, but we'll find out pretty soon anyway.

I've just had a look at a map, had no idea the Riverside was so far inland, so it's feasible it's 50 feet. I actually thought it was right on the coast next to the river for some reason. I wonder if Fleetwood Town is lower : http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Fleetwood+Town+F+C,+Highbury+Avenue,+Fleetwood&hl=en&ll=53.915764,-3.02536&spn=0.059146,0.154324&sll=54.569673,-1.211243&sspn=0.116431,0.308647&oq=fleetwood+town&t=h&hq=Fleetwood+Town+F+C,+Highbury+Avenue,+Fleetwood&z=13 It's under half a mile from the sea on 2 sides and the river mouth on another.

Figures for all clubs here (from 2008, as mentioned above Grimsby are no longer in the League) http://www.midfielddynamo.com/stadia/england_highest.htm#SectionLowest It seems the Riverside Stadium, which IIRC sits immediately next to the sea in a concrete dock, is at 51 feet. This Sounds like bolllocks to me... but I'm sure this info is in Google for verification now anyway.

The Hawthorns is at 168m, Boundary Park is at 155m. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_English_football_stadiums_by_altitude Oh, and Bower Fold where Stalybridge Celtic play is the highest ground to EVER host a football league game (Stalybridge were founder members of Div 3 North in 1922).

It can't be much lower than the Riverside.

Which ignores the bit about having to name all your contracted players to fill up the squad in preference to free agents if you already have them. The Echo must be leaving either Dickson or Forte off. Or both. But if we have them, we don't have free spaces to sign Del Piero, unless (possibly) he's on the original squad list. We definitely won't be able to leave anyone over 21 who has a contract off the list and then add a free agent (see above).

It's a bit open to interpretation, as the TW is closed but the squads haven't been named yet, and you can still sign a free agent BEFORE announcing the squad but outside the TW, thereby making him an eligible contracted player to be put into the squad list before it's announced. I think it's only AFTER the squad is announced that the rule to prevent adding free agents if you have enough contracted players counts. i.e. if we left Dickson off it to leave a space, and signed Del Piero, the PL wouldn't allow it. But if we only had (say) 21 contracted over-21s we could add someone. If that's the case, then we could still sign him up to 4pm (but seeing as we have enough pros already we can't without releasing someone !).

Flyer confirmed the 3 keepers thing a few weeks back (and above). I just spotted Yoshida on the OS, strange we haven't added Ramirez yet. Logically Cropper would be 31 based on last year's numbers, but it's not like it matters much and Gazzaniga having 12 messed up that particular numbering system. To answer the "Bosman" thing, my understanding is that if they're not in the squad by 4pm, they can't play before January 1st.

Kelvin played alongside Stephen Wright at Sunderland... random and also completely missing the point, of course.

Lallana played alongside Moss and Telfer at Bournemouth (as well as the likes of Anderton, Bradbury and Jason Pearce).