The9

It's because other people have friends and want to talk to them.

Most definitely DID have a save to make at his near post when Richardson got turned in the 6 yard box and hesitated as Haber poked the ball towards the near post. And came out and seemed to make a weird sliding tackle at one point too. Looked pretty decent, had the same problem hesitating at goal kicks that Kelvin used to as well though, takes a lot of confidence to play that pass into the midfield directly in front of goal and eventually resorted to long kicking, but that's not really a criticism of him, more the players taking too long to get open.

I'll give a quick recap, seeing as I went. First half, no movement, players struggled in the system which was exactly as the first team play. It's limitations were pretty obvious, if a full back has the ball the wide midfielder can't provide a short ball option and if he does can't get up to support the lone striker. So every ball from full back is either a chip up the line or a 1-2 with the defensive midfielder and back to the keeper. At least it is when there's no movement. Haber up front for Stevenage looked good and probably should have had a couple. Gazzaniga looked solid, took ages over his kicks (infuriating the home fans as he waited for Plan B to kick in as they had us well marked) and ended up going long a fair bit. Shaw looked awful defensively, and not great under pressure with the ball, whacking it a fair few times. Bad decision-making, but on the flipside looked like Gareth Bale the one time he got into their half and really threatening. Doesn't appear to be a left back, but has left-mid potential. Seaborne was decent enough, dug us out of a few holes by reading crosses and runs well. Richardson (out of position at right CB) got done by one over the top and also caught in the 6 yard box by Haber toeing the ball away from him. Looked rusty and a little slow. Butterfield struggled to do anything useful with the ball but showed his defensive experience. Chaplow ran a bit second half but wasn't really in it, Ward-Prowse tried to get some pace into the match and worked hard but no-one else responded and he wasn't often the pass of choice. Hammond was Hammond, sideways, competent but limited. Tadanari Lee, like many of the fringe first teamers, looked like he had something better to be doing. A few forward runs and then the goal from a nice Puncheon cut back. He was trying a little bit. Sharp looked completely isolated and utterly unsuited to the system, and barely got a touch. Didn't really make many runs. Second half there was a bit more effort, and eventually Stevenage ran out of steam. It was never a backpass for our 2nd but credit to Chaplow and Sharp for quick thinking, Puncheon's goal was superb, then we brought on the blonde squad and both Chambers and Reeves looked impressive (especially Reeves, best performance by far I've seen from him) - then Hoskins came on late on, looked hugely confident, created himself a couple of chances and didn't look out of his depth at all. Probably played better than Sharp in his 5 minutes on the pitch to be honest, very impressed. Overall, we deserved the win, but made very hard work of it for a long time, got in front, then the kids came on an it looked like a completely different side, dynamic, creative and exciting. There might be a lesson in there somewhere. Crab Lungs is not wrong about our short blonde player cloning plant.

Funnily enough he was by far the best of our back 4 last night.

I played against him in 6th Form football in Newport (his dad was an ex-Newport County pro), he just ran up and down the wing for his school with the ball until he'd committed the entire defence and then either crossed it to the open striker or ran in and scored. I think they beat us by about 10 goals and he was involved in all of them. Strangely never put in a token appearance for Newport County to my knowledge. He was in the Admiral shirt team picture with Shearer in 1991/2 IIRC.

Actually Hatch played at right back like Jake Thomson did, lots of good solid firm passing, very nippy but probably a little lightweight. Matt Paterson to me never looked like he had the sharpness to succeed, everything was at one pace. Decent enough finisher though.

Oh, and anyone know if we're playing in yellow as I suspect we will ? There's no colour confirmation on the Saints OS but Stevenage play in white with a red hoop, red shorts and socks, so both our home and away kits will clash.

Having forgotten about Chaplow, I'd probably have him in for Sharp. Soooo Gazzaniga; Richardson, Stephens, Seaborne, Shaw; Reeves, Hammond, Puncheon, Chaplow, Lee; Hoskins.

See if people's selections agree with their "Best Games Ever" from 2009 here : http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?11928-Best-game-ever NINETY-THREE posts before anyone mentioned SWOS. I preferred Anco Player Manager if I'm honest.

Should think a few of them will have worn a few of these (especially Theo and Dyer) for the later ones : http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?39726-Saints-Kits-on-eBay-still-in-packaging Oops, was that a shameless plug ? Sorry !

Cheers for the heads up re: Jake Thomson, I had no idea he was playing for Newport now. Can't say I blame him with this going on : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19043327

A bloke from near my old home town won £150m on the Euromillions in 2009 and appears to now be on the board of Newport County - currently miraculously top of the Conference... can't say I'd do the same. I'd go on endless holidays and buy a few places to stay in cities I like so I could travel shorter distances from "home". I'd probably also get a top quality grass football pitch made up in my garden and let some local parks teams use it - and a 3G pitch. Then I'd buy Umbro and get them producing decent kits again instead of phasing themselves out of kit production. I'd have to win at least £10m to even start doing that kind of thing though.

All in the same condition as the day they were bought, in the packaging, with tags and all that malarkey. Prices start between £10 and £20, 5 day auctions ending on Friday. Option to collect to avoid postage. This one : XL http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261089384162?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1203 This one : Large 2000-02 away http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261089375017?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1203 This one : Large, Long Sleeved http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261089387435?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1203 This one : Small (34-36") http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261089389885?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1203 aaaaaand this one : XL http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261089380407?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1203

Not even Roger talks as much baseless shiiiite. I can't imagine we'll put anything near a first team out. Like we didn't on Saturday. Gazzaniga; Richardson, Stephens, Seaborne, Shaw; Puncheon, Hammond, Reeves, Lee; Sharp, Hoskins. Or similar.

The weirdest ads I've seen at football were the ones during England v Italy the other week, they clearly had been superimposed using some green-screen technology and wobbled around when the camera angle changed. In addition, the screen used was the same colour as the dark bits in some players' hair, so a few times they appeared to have invisible bodies with ads showing through - also the adverts on the replays from different angles not linked to the artificial rendering were the standard "in-ground" ones and not the "for England" ones. They stopped doing it after about half an hour so they obviously noticed the disappearing player heads...

Surprised the police have allowed this, we've always been linked with the Skates and they don't have the resources to cover both on the same day. Guessing Sky were able to confirm they would show us on the Sunday before the L1 fixtures could be confirmed.

It's useful for identifying who is out there and what positions they play and maybe contract info, probably notsomuch the player ratings (especially for younger players) which are notoriously subjective despite the great pains they go to to try and get them accurate.

I think if I spent hours every day practising my writing with both hands I'd expect to be able to write with both hands pretty quickly and very competently.

Judging by the shirts being worn by Barca, all of those clips are from before his cruciate injury. Hmm.

I wouldn't worry about it, it's one clip from one video.

I couldn't hear a single song from the Wigan fans all match long, just for the record. Northam was much busier than usual but no louder.

To be fair, the ground was rammed... ...With the exception of the whole of block 44 (Wigan's fault for not selling their allocation and ours for not selling it when they let us have it back); a chunk of Block 43, massive chunks at the front and back of Blocks 2, 3, 5 and 7, the entire back 20 rows of the Itchen/Chapel corner, the area directly behind the goal in the Chapel, and 3 rows at the front of the corner of Kingsland at the Northam end. Somehow with the strategic non-selling of tickets in the Northam and the front rows of the Itchen we managed to contrive to make the ground look completely empty on tv for large chunks of time, even though there were only 3-4,000 empty seats. Doesn't convey the greatest impression of the club to the world at large, does it ?

I meant the last ditch lunge that nearly conceded an own goal really...

I'm not keen to revisit the last left back we signed from Ajax, but he drove a Hummer, nearly moved in next door to me, and was described as "clumsy" by an Ajax fan I spoke to at Euro 2004. As well as hoofing at Crouch at every opportunity and refusing to play in the Championship.

AFAIK no-one on here actually knows. Most of their Uruguayan signings had "has a Spanish passport" or similar on their Bologna website stories when they signed, a couple of them didn't. His didn't.