The9

I've been to Braga, it's mental. This is UNDER the pitch !

My question is what is it that Birch is offering the players who have left in order for them to be leaving with significant money owed to them ? As administrator what control does he have over future parachute payments ? Is he offsetting the departed players' contracts against the parachute payments due, and therefore taking control of them out of the future club's hands ?

Well, I didn't see him in that one, but I saw his lovely range of sliced-through-the-ball-with-the-laces-every-single-time passing at Brighton away, and he was bloody awful in that one. Admittedly we were down to 10 men and he was up front with Forte, but still... I suspect Dag & Red fans know more about him than we do, he's only started a few minor cup matches for us. Maybe his level's League One, I wouldn't be surprised.

Reeves has looked completely out of his depth every time I've seen him play a competitive match for Saints, lucky for him that he's only 21, as he wouldn't have made the 25 this season. I haven't seen enough of the others to judge accurately. Literally have only seen 10 minutes of Shaw, and Ward-Prowse has done well, but there's a difference between friendlies and playing against the worst team in the Championship last season, and regular Prem matches. I'm optimistic for those two, but let's not go nuts.

I reckon setting him up with a crash test dummy in an Argentina kit and blonde wig would probably do it. 2mins 44 here - bit of a harsh one (out of context), though Kana-Biyik had already been sent off before the legendary 89th minute triple assault on Caniggia which ended with a red for Massing. [video=youtube;lpQ_JTkm-u4] Nice to hear Brian Moore calling Cameroon's cynical fouling "happy-go-lucky" and Ron Atkinson on co-commentary.

I'm not being funny, but that's barely even an article. Is he Andre Kana-Biyik's son, from the Cameroon World Cup side of 1990 ?

I moved here, it's a great place, greener than most cities, better transport links and a segmented approach to going out which is pretty good at keeping me away from the scumbags too. Could do with a few more buses to and from Hedge End though...

The Trust being desperate to oversee the club despite the complete lack of investment they have, showing everyone how not to do things whilst reeling in the face of a load of semi-interested no-longer-fans criticising them at every turn for not investing massive sums to get them into the Premier League/Championship/out of League One relegation zone would be entertaining, but still not as much fun as them just... stopping.

Can we start a rant about airport car parking now as well please ? £2.50 just to drop off at Bournemouth, £2 to do so at Leeds-Bradford - including disabled / blue badge holders. Southampton is still free for a 10 min drop off, but they're already directing people into the ground floor of the multi-storey car park behind the barriers, so it's a matter of time before they start charging as well. It's just extortion, why the hell should you have to pay just because someone has decided you can't turn around on what might be a public highway and the only route within half a mile forces you into a car park ?

The "m" is for "moron-catcher".

Please produce one example of when they have treated a team differently in the same circumstances under the same rules. It simply has not happened.

RyanAir have two tiers, "priority booking" and "reserved seat". If you pay to reserve a seat you get priority chucked in, but you can just pay priority. There are a very limited number of reserved seats (basically all of the emergency rows). I assume priority boarding is also limited, but not sure. There are two VERY well defined queues, plenty of people without priority snarking about it, and I suspect anyone trying to jump in the front of the pack after Priority have boarded wouldn't make it as far as the plane.

The FL haven't "allowed" anything yet. As it stands there are 23 teams in League One next season and no-one has Team 24's Golden share.

Come on now people, even if they do manage to get the other wage earners off the bill there is still no guarantee that either potential buyer will actually go ahead under the criteria that the FL set out.

But Rangers liquidated voluntarily after HMRC blocked their CVA, AND they didn't have the benefit of millions of pounds owed to hundreds of others who weren't HMRC which diluted HMRC's CVA voting rights preventing them doing the same for the Skate Cheats.

They won't know what it is.

Like I said, if you're on your own it's not really required. I'm a fan of waiting for the queue to disappear myself. Not everyone is as patient, as comfortable a flier, or as unbothered who they sit next to though (i.e. the wife).

Depends how keen you are to stand up for an hour before your flight due to other non-priority people panicking and queueing an hour before departure. Viz RyanAir Arrecife - Bournemouth 3 weeks ago, when our £10 priority booking was worth about 50 minutes of not standing in a queue, better customer service from the staff, and additional legroom due to pre-booking the seats over the wing. If you're travelling on your own, great, sit down and join the back of the queue, worst case scenario you'll be next to a fat obnoxious pikey and your bag will be at the other end of the plane - but if you're in a couple and want to be sure of sitting together, or want the extra legroom, priority is a must, especially on RyanAir. As for their "bing bong, another on time RyanAir flight" their success stats seem to be based on unfeasibly long flight times being given to begin with. They had to go some to get us to Arrecife AN HOUR ahead of schedule over the course of a "four" hour flight that's only ever taken 3.5 hours when I've done it before. I'm sure there are people who know more about it that me on here, but it can't just be favourable winds ?

Again, agree with all of that - and it's a fair point, but if we're going to lose anyway, why risk him and damage his confidence for Wigan, which will be an easier ride (though not "easy")?

I agree with that, but I think in terms of Ward-Prowse's long-term development a Prem debut at home to Wigan might be a more encouraging prospect than one away to Man City. Cork could be well off the pace for the first few weeks, not training with the rest of the squad, doing lighter tournament training and sitting on the bench for GB instead of getting matches. Ward-Prowse is also going to improve more and learn more by playing pre-season than any of the other midfielders. Will be interesting to see who plays in the Udinese match, which would usually be the dress-rehearsal for the first match of the season.

Just for the record, out current 1-11 in a conventional 4-4-2 would be : Davis Richardson (#5) Fonte (#3-was Harding) Lambert Schneiderlin Cork Sharp Guly Barnard Subs : Butterfield, Fox, Hammond, #15 (was Jaidi), #16 (was Martin), Forte, Chaplow. 1-11 isn't that important, especially not when one of your best players has worn #20 since his first full season in the squad.

There are a lot of reasons why players end up with the numbers they get. Lambert got 7 because it is an iconic Saints number (and as you said, one of the few free when he signed after the start of the season). As someone mentioned to me yesterday, if he changes number one line of our song about him then makes no sense. Jos got 26 because we were expecting to sign someone else [probably Ammar Jemal] as our number 5 last summer, and he was more of a stopgap signing who turned out better than hoped (Jaidi was number 15, by the way, Fonte was 6, 5 was blank all season). He's also said on twitter that he wants to keep his current number, so players (like Lallana) often choose to keep "high" numbers, which can suit the club when enticing new signings who want to appear part of the "first XI". Connolly was 22 because he was 22 the season before when he was a "late signing" and wanted to keep it, presumably. Barnard got 9 as a striker based on his previous season's performance, but he was injured and then replaced, there was every reason to think he'd be a regular last pre-season other than the court case and injury. Cork's 8 is perfectly in line with his role as a central midfielder - he even played as an attacking midfielder last night for Team GB.

They did, but since Adkins took over we've had a very sensible numbering system with logical numbering throughout. A little anally retentive, even.

Thing is, even if Adkins IS planning on incorporating Ward-Prowse into the side as a regular starter by the end of the season, chucking him in to get destroyed by Man City at the Etihad is a really bad idea. That's the one place where experience will be vital, and we're not going to be starting with a bunch of kids who haven't played a Prem game in that match.

No, as quite clearly stated on the OS, the paperwork wasn't signed until today. Which is also why they took the story down yesterday.