The9

It'll certainly be more difficult for them now than in League One, and we barely produced anyone then either... Er, Oxlade-Chamberlain aside, but he barely played 6 months and was gone by 17. Like Bale and Walcott, they broke in very young and left pretty quickly. Is it fair to say that if you're not good enough by 19 you're unlikely to be good enough? Or does this overlook the likes of Baird and Lallana? Fwiw I think Jack Stephens and James Ward-Prowse might have a shot at it. Ben Reeves, not based on his games last season. Shaw is somehow cursed for me to never see him play (I saw Saints v Arsenal but not Anderlecht on Saturday) and I can't judge Hoskins or Chambers due to not seeing them enough yet either.

50000/19 = not many though?

Just for the record, I've moved twice since the free bus tickets were withdrawn (and walked to every home match from then until 2011) and I no longer live Southampton-side of the M27, so it would be a bit of a walk. I also note that 6 posts in and no-one has answered any of the questions yet...

Back when Lowe closed the corners of the ground, I remember some discussion on here about the removal of the free bus tickets from the Season Ticket booklets (I for one was kicking up about the ST cost staying the same, and the removal of the bus tickets after they already had my money). IIRC, the reason the club provided the free bus tickets was that Southampton City Council insisted upon it as a condition of building the stadium in the City, as a measure to reduce traffic and presumably some kind of Green agenda. Now, when Lowe got rid of the free bus tickets, the justification was something like the expectation of attendances not being over something like 24,000 for more than 10 matches. I seem to remember the council agreeing that if the club went back to having larger crowds, which didn't look likely whilst fielding a team of kids in what became the Championship relegation season, that the club would be required to provide free transport again. So, the obvious questions : Can anyone remember the exact attendance figures in question ? Is this City Council requirement for free transport still in place or could it have been buried politically as potentially appearing anti-Saints in the new era ? Is any Council requirement even still valid since the change of stadium ownership ? Do the club even know about the possible requirement ? If needed, how would they incorporate the bus tickets with the new smartcard ST ? WHERE'S MY FREE BUS TICKET ? Also, this is NOT, repeat NOT, about stadium expansion in any way, and I'd appreciate it if anyone wishing to discuss that takes it to one of the hundreds of existing arguments already buried in other threads.

Nice to know, considering Lallana took him to pieces repeatedly.

Duplicate

New Sunderland home is striped front and back with black shorts and socks. We can probably get away with the white kit there, just leaves Stoke as a clash with both kits then. http://www.football-shirts.co.uk/fans/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/safc.jpg

Their version of hoops looks better than QPRs, at least.

Ah, I see what you mean - the captions are wrong on the pictures and it actually refers to the red as the away - as well as them showing away-home rather than home-away in order. There are a few shirts missing still at the moment so they can fix it. The "correct" information I was referring to is on the Saints team profile page on the same website, where it was (and is) correct. http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/clubs/profile.overview.html/southampton

Nothing yet.

If it's in the top left corner (top right shoulder) it's Puma's template for 2012/13, a few kits have their logo very high up on a contrasting band of colour.

Interesting, they were the right way around when I looked a week or two ago... I wonder...

Most likely, which is one of the reasons I'd like us to get him in before they get used to having him around. I suspect the successes at Atletico might have tipped them off a bit though.

I can only count in Base 9 and Walcott used to be my favourite player.

We've got a few in on loan to buys before though...

None of which makes his contributions any less valuable.

We won't sign anyone as a back up to Kelvin. We'll sign someone with the ability to replace him. And possibly someone else with the ability to replace the person that replaces Kelvin. I'm still pretty keen on Courtois on loan from Chelsea myself...

I am reliably informed that the virus/redirect issue has been solved by The Management.

Interesting - I had an auto-redirect to YouTube via 3D wares today that stopped me coming on this site at work, mentioned it to teh Saintsweb bosses but apparently an isolated incident...

Can't say I have a problem with him either adding facts to a debate or bothering to reply in detail to people who try to pick on individual details of his posts. Sometimes he misses the obvious wind-ups but then all WUMs deserve their time wasted anyway.

Steven Naismith (Everton) - played Morecambe but he didn't play. Steven Whittaker (Norwich) - first friendly is on 21st away to Hertha Berlin. Rhys McCabe and Sone Aluko (both free agents) were the original 4 Steven Davis has joined us and not played yet, see above for Lafferty.

You must have missed the bit about "going to all 19 home league games" and some competitive away games ?

That's your prerogative, they mildly annoy me.

See above. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to get changed for 5 a side. You should play.

Pretty sure charging fans for things that were free previously (eg ticket postage, car parking on non-matchdays, ticket booking fees) would be regarded as being "at the expense of the fans" by anyone, it's a measurable quantity and is not a matter of opinion. As for insisting people collect tickets in person on numerous occasions over the last few seasons, not sending some tickets out by post at all, failing to have the TO provide clear instructions, giving contradictory messages about allocations selling out, it doesn't take a controversial opinion to suggest that's poor customer service either. I'd say the only discussion to be had is whether that's an acceptable cost when put in context of the on-pitch achievement. So far, so good on that front - but there's no reason why we couldn't have both on pitch success and something resembling competent, fan-friendly policies and customer service as well. It's not like it's a trade off. You also don't need to have afanontheboard to find out where the club could improve their relationship with fans, it's just another lazy pigeonhole for the people who for some reason want to whitewash all of the failings because they happen to be fine with the fact we've been winning football matches.