The9

I did forget Sheffield United. Cortese inherited the Umbro contract from the pre-admin era so he's limited to what he can do - I especially wonder how he'll choose to negotiate regarding the outlets the kit can be sold in - we have an incredibly restricted retail side, only the 2 Southampton shops, online sales and (I think still) the 1 Isle of Wight store sell Saints kit. That's significantly different to most Prem clubs, who shift kits through the likes of JJB/Sportsdirect and anyone who wants to sell them and take their cut. It'll be interesting to see what half-baked and slightly unconventional approach he takes to this before reverting to the tried and testing long-standing conventional approach everyone else follows after a year... Though ironically our existing kit sales approach is half-baked and unconventional already for once, which might mean him bucking the trend takes us mainstream. We were a sash and quarters team, but no-one under the age of 60 even remembers us wearing blue shorts with out stripes, so what relevance does it have to the people who are actually likely to buy these things ? It's fine as a one-off Anniversary kit, but anything more than an occasional "special" kit will have the grumblers out in force. It is strange that we haven't tapped into the retro market with a Patrick "reverse Ajax" kit rip-off, but we haven't.

Yeah, that's kind of my point though. Without the thread which you're saying you "don't know why people are banging on about" there wouldn't be the hearsay to "know" what we (think we) know - even the stuff doing the rounds on twitter originated here.

Thought he had another job lined up, didn't he...?

I think yesterday judging by the none-too-subtle "being forced out" bandwagon the media jumped on today.

Chicken Judas.

I don't think you're teaching anyone anything there. Maybe they just like discussing what they want in a Saints kit rather than what they're getting. Also, as nothing's been confirmed about the design from the club, everything at this point is rumours and hearsay, how do you think we "know" it's going to be red with thin white pinstripes ?

All football shirts cost about that much to make though, we all know that. SportsDirect flog them off at £10 and still make a profit. I don't agree really, I think it's a lot better quality than the Pro Star kits - did you know they're supplying Hants Cricket this season ? Still pretty ropy and "teamwear"y even in a "club shop"...

I think it has some subtle and interesting threads woven into it.

I think the sunken pinstripe effect which is woven into the shirt looks pretty high quality actually. It's not just plain and polyester, it has some nice details for a single colour shirt. The away kit is pretty out there though, haven't seen that one close up yet.

The Lille shirts aren't bland, even though they are only two colours. They have an interesting design, which so far is unique to them. They're a little on the ugly side because the collar looks like it extends down the shirt, but they're not just "one colour, some run of the mill collar and a badge". Which is basically what the Man City shirt home shirt looks like. The Nottingham Forest shirt has nothing to it other than some collar and some logos, that is pretty bland. Though it does seem to be excessively shiny. I don't think the new Saints home shirt is going to be bland, the pinstripes are a bit different for us and the collar is interesting (though not unique it hasn't been on many shirts). I'm still not so sure I'm going to like it though.

Looks no more or less like a Premier League shirt than any other to me, to be fair.

The "yoke" can also be a blocked rectangular area (as seen in our recent navy away kit with yellow yoke). That last (Umbro) flybe kit would be SO much better without a sponsor.

Arsenal 6 homes, 4 aways, away the last 3 seasons. 11/12 Newcastle (A) 10/11 Liverpool (A) 09/10 Everton (A) 08/09 WBA (H) 07/08 Fulham (H) 06/07 A Villa (H) 05/06 Newcastle (H) 04/05 Everton (A) 03/04 Everton (H) 02/03 Birmingham (H) Chelsea 6 homes, 4 aways (including a run of 5 homes in a row before last season - you may have a point here, especially 2006-2009, but then the Skates weren't fodder that season) 11/12 Stoke (A) 10/11 WBA (H) 09/10 Hull (H) 08/09 Portsmouth (H) 07/08 Birmingham (H) 06/07 Man City (H) 05/06 Wigan (A) 04/05 Man U (H) 03/04 Liverpool (A) 02/03 Charlton (A) Man Utd Ah b0llocks to it.

As Man City and Man Utd are the top 2 and don't both play at home on the same weekend, I call shenanigans. I'd also be willing to bet that none of the top 4 have had a disproportionate number of home games to start over the last 10 seasons (probably no more than 6/10 homes, and it's likely to even out over the 4 teams). Oh balls, now I'm going to have to look it up.

It's all in here - pairing clubs can affect loads of teams. Though we'd logically be paired with the Skates, and have a different police force to Reading, usually the nearest clubs in the same division are linked by default because they get batched together on the rounds of fixtures where everyone else plays derbies. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2009/06/secrets_of_the_fixture_compute.html

We might not be, it just seems likely. Looking at it in a little more detail it's possible that we could actually be twinned with Swansea (!), with Fulham/Chelsea and Reading/QPR... so maybe we might play Reading first match after all. We won't know until the fixtures are out, I guess, and one other team is always home when we're away and away when we're home.

Actually not that similar... and maybe even nearer the 2003 Blackburn away kit (though that had a ridiculous grey back too).

Every possibility that Saints could sign with Warrior next season, they're trying to get a foothold in football, and you don't just do that with one team. The black/grey bib effort is a bit of a throwback to one of their 2002ish Reebok kits, at least in my head.

They've stuck two flames and 96 on the back at the top, in order to facilitate the use of their original Liver bird badge - which is a massive improvement on the convoluted badge they've had since 1992. Surprised no-one's complained about the lack of Shankly Gates by now...

As I said, we don't have the "V", only the v-neck! I have noticed almost all of the new Umbro kits have the small band of contrast colour on the sleeves, so expect that on the Saints shirt too.

Because they don't get enough money back from us in sales to make it worth the development costs of doing something bespoke, I should think. Man City get their own bespoke stuff, we get something unique based on a combination of current season designs (in this case a bit Sweden and a bit Lille), Huddersfield get a modified version of one of last year's styles or an outright teamwear kit anyone could order for their parks team. FWIW regarding the posts above about the Man City kit, I usually like the simplicity of the Umbro templates and the (usual) quality of the material, but the new shirt is a bit too plain, and the collar even looks like a mishmash of previous styles. Plus the monochrome badge isn't very pleasant. Red and white striped teams : Sunderland, Stoke, Lincoln, Brentford, Cheltenham (though not last season), Exeter. Most play in black shorts too - I quite like the idea of us in navy shorts as pre-1950, it looks decent too. Far fewer red/white stripes than there are red shirts, or blue shirts for that matter though. Slightly more prevalent than amber/yellow or green. Basically if you're looking at "unique", that's only Wycombe and Plymouth, maybe Crystal Palace.

Actually a one in thirty six, we won't be playing Reading in the opening match as we'll be twinned with their fixtures and you can't play "derby" matches in the first or last matches of the season (or on bank holidays). There's no guarantees regarding home or away games either, we weren't in this division last season so it's unlikely it'll be taken into consideration and teams often have 2 homes or 2 aways in a row even when it is.

I don't dare post the Pony tick kit up... It's different having a "bland" single colour to a "bland" striped shirt, the stripe itself is a design feature.

Actually the Irish ones have more stripes - the Sweden ones only have about half that number and look much less "busy"... and their away socks are plain with a contrasting turnover like the current Saints home ones. Also worth pointing out that the Lille socks are plain with a broad band on them with gradated pattern like on the England GK collar (and their away collar). Speaking of collars... this is the only plain V-neck I've seen from Umbro so far this season (not including the massive V on the shirt which isn't part of the collar and we definitely don't have). As we don't even know what colour the socks are going to be, not much point worrying about one out of a few designs at the moment.

He meant he couldn't play him in a proper match.