The9

Yup, there we go, Blackburn's 2013 GK shirt is the same as the Norway one (though not the one they wore against England recently): We'll probably have that style, depends what colours they have in it.

Yeah, but they're pretty standard across all Umbro clubs so it's no surprise, I could probably find those on the Forest/Blackburn site now. There's only us, Forest, Blackburn (and Huddersfield's teamwear deal) left of the Umbro clubs - that I can remember apart from Man City who have bespoke stuff anyway. Any others ? Rangers, not sure their classic 1972 rework is likely to lend itself to sharing keepers' shirts with others. There are international sides too, but Sweden use old GK templates - Norway's narrow shadow stripes might be it though... I'm off Googling.

I was referring more to Sven's bizarre 2006 World Cup decision really, and the parallels with AOC's selection this time. Were either of them any better when they got called up for England than they were with Saints ?

Wow, massive news. About 2 years ago ! Anyone know if we've put in bids for Walcott, Bale or Oxlade-Chamberlain yet ?

Assuming it is the shirt we're expecting, I'll talk about the shorts and socks, the overall effect, whether it's very "Saintsy" and the away kit which we know nothing about, which is also unveiled tonight. Oh, and all the other stuff I come on here for (i.e. correcting people who say "Premiership"). We have no clue about 2013/14, don't even know if we're renewing Umbro yet. I have a horrible feeling about those "barber's pole" Forest away socks...

This one for instance is also pretty useful in the "how much money the tv deals are worth" discussion I've grafted onto this thread :

I'm always interested in actual stats about this kind of stuff, amazing how much debate goes on without any actual evidence. (eg £6m for Butland )

I'd be in favour of one at 6pm... Count 1 for "hate before revealed" here, prepared to change my mind if it turns out to be something entirely different.

I'm not sure most companies have the kind of audience that would buy uniform replicas for their performances. Maybe Rocky Horror, but they've not really got the supply locked down to maximise their profits from that.

Collar is (believed to be) exactly the same as the Linfield kit above. Let me know if you're going to chuck it, that's probably about the only way they could get me to go to that for £25.

Isn't this "discussion" a little bit about the fairly new concept of not getting a game for England unless you're playing for one of the top few clubs ? There's an assumption now that anyone good enough has already signed for them - it didn't seem to be a problem in 1990 when Steve Bull went to the World Cup despite never playing in the top flight - the flipside of that being that Oxlade-Chamberlain (and Walcott for that matter) are barely different from the players Saints sold when the were outside the Prem, yet they have to sit on the bench for Arsenal to be considered. You have to be playing for Liverpool to get a game outside the top 6 nowadays. Goalkeepers aside... Admittedly AOC scored in the Champions League last season, but is he significantly better than he was for us in League One under 6 months previously ?

Good point well made. Where are Yakubu and Michael Owen anyway ?

I dare say I'll be on it too, so I wouldn't worry about it...

I'm fully expecting about 2000 of these posts to follow...

Assuming that he wasn't too keen on the number 41 he had when he first got a game in the League Cup : http://en.eufo.de/index/squad/southampton-fc/2006-07, I would imagine he just got given it in 2007/8 (http://en.eufo.de/index/squad/southampton-fc/2007-08) and decided to keep it when he scored wearing it against West Brom. I wonder if there's an element of being as good as two number 10s in there somewhere, but he probably wouldn't say it himself !

Not very likely that they'll wait if there's a kit launch today and they've specifically set up an area for number printing in West Quay from Sunday - they'll HAVE to release the numbers before then or it will be completely pointless (other than kids who want their own names and numbers, of course). I'd suggest a squad number release is imminent in the next 3 days.

I appear to have missed the bit where I said you needed my permission. I would also suggest that you're in the minority. Besides, as you've now posted, you're not one of "them" any more.

I don't know why you don't understand that ticket prices are basically irrelevant at this point. The left column here is revenue in our last Prem season : In addition, West Ham received £40 million for finishing bottom of the Premier League in 2010 compared to Southampton’s £19 million in 2005. Similarly, while Southampton’s relegation was cushioned by £13 million of parachute payments, West Ham will receive £48 million (£16 million in each of the first two years, and £8 million in each of years three and four). This shows the revenues of Wolves, Birmingham and Burnley in the Prem (£60m, £56m and £45m) So even when we were in the Prem last time our income from tv deals was more than it was from Match Day revenue, and since then the tv money has basically doubled, and is now 2/3s of all income, which is overall at a much higher level. Ticket prices in relation to that (as they only a part of the Match Day revenue) are a drop in the ocean. http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/southampton-saints-alive.html

Wrong collar. See above.

Ooh, look at the collar on this :

School holidays started yet ?

Yeah, not significant in relation to the tax debt though, they wouldn't have been liquidated for a piddling £3m and could have covered that with the takeover, it was the HMRC debt that did for them. Also sounds like Portsmouth with the Begovic transfer to Spurs (give us a million and we'll sell him to Stoke) and Muntari, who they defaulted on payments to Udinese for, and even after they'd sold him, never passed on a penny of the massive profit from flogging him on to Internazionale to the team they'd bought him from.

Nooooooooooo, there's been a lengthy campaign on the Takeover Thread to vote for the Fans' Statue, it makes them look ridiculous.

Saints will probably field 11 home grown players in a match at some point next season (within the parameters of the Premier League definition they only have to have been registered with an English or Welsh side for 3 seasons starting before they're 21). The idea of 11 academy graduates, however, is completely unfeasible if we want to be successful. Even Man U's Class of '96 only made up about half the team, it's just not possible to bring through an entire side of Prem players within a short enough timescale for them all to play together.

Irony. Also, the only "moan" I see on this page is enormous sarcasm about us selling out 32k seats for the Liebherr Memorial Cup. The stuff about pricing is a perfectly legitimate complaint.