The9

Consider me massively underwhelmed. Was going to do this and take in the Olympic torch too, now might just pitch up to see the torch on its short trip to the ground instead. Then again they might unveil a new kit, so there's still that. It's way too early for the matches to be remotely competitive with the season a month afterwards, and I'm utterly unconvinced that anyone's going to be particularly interested in travelling in any great numbers to see it.

I don't know why you want to add a relative comparison about the club's status when the only empirical measure in the discussion is the cost of signing the player. We're not in League One but that's completely irrelevant to any discussion of the cost of the player, because it has nothing to do with the cost of the player. Or to put it in terms you would understand : Seven million is seven times more than one million. Seven times. Seven. Seven times. Seven times more. That makes seven times less GOOD VALUE. Compared to one million. Which is LESS. Seven times less. Budget. Etc. © CB Fry 2008-2012

Yeah, that's right. Signed 11 August, got on as sub against Millwall and then at Leicester (where he came on for Harding), didn't feature in the League Cup game at Swindon (cup-tied?) and first started in the League on 10 September against Forest.

Hmm, doesn't smack of the Adkins way, does it? I suppose that's going to be a fundamental risk as we sign better players. They know they're better players.

Not sure why that's relevant. He cost 1/7th of the cost of someone we are buying in the Prem, which would imply he's good value, if not necessarily "budget" in comparison.

I agree. Maybe next year - or maybe both.

Rumour on here is that it'll be out "after the Euros", which finish on Sunday 1st July. Our first currently known friendly is 14th July, though last season we weirdly played a load of pre-season games in the previous season's away kit before it was replaced. Though of course if what is meant is "when England are out and people stop caring" that could be as soon as 15th June, ho-ho.

The Sweden kit has pinstripes, and one colour more predominant than the other.

I think it's fair to say that Lambert would command significantly more than £1m in transfer fees if he went anywhere at the moment, even considering his age and contract remaining.

David Connolly is not being retained, so has no contract after July 1st for us to be able to command a transfer fee for. The rest of it... you may as well save your fingers the effort.

Not if he's in Cancun he isn't.

I don't generally believe in those kind of generalisations.

I think Lambert at £1m can be regarded as "budget" on a Prem scale, even though he was "expensive" in L1. He's about 1/7th the probable cost of Rodriguez anyway.

We continue to pay them even when they don't contribute to points on the pitch, that's the loyalty they get from having a contract. Beyond that, no obligation.

We introduce them gradually through pre-season. I couldn't care less what anyone did for us last season now, everyone has to prove themselves on a game by game basis, constant evolution.

And this thread right here is why the mockery of the kit threads will end...

I'd have Guidetti here in a second, and I've never so much as seen the kid play. (Or played Football Manager in the last 6 years, before anyone starts). But scoring goals in the Dutch League at a young age, being a Man City signing for the future and being in the Sweden squad already are enough evidence for me.

Crawley, surely ?

The most interesting thing about that to me are the interviews with Dutchman Johnny Metgod when he was at Forest when he also used the hard J too. Turned out he was trying to fit in with the English way of doing things, which in turn led to more people calling them Ay-Jacks for a little while, "because that was obviously how the Dutch said it". Still not as stupid as the temporary local pronunciations commentators adopt during major tournaments though : For the duration of Euro 2004, Nuno Gomes was "Noo-noh Gohmz" rather than "Go-mezz" and all the players ending in "o" became "oo"s, eg "Deck-ooh" not "Deck-oh". There was even a "Cristiano Ronal-doo" for a little while. The latter is more accurate, but within 6 months of Greece winning the tournament, they were back to the old way of saying things, so why not just stick with the anglicised version ? And then there's "Mick-aye-ell" Laudrup at World Cup 1986. What was Tony Gubba thinking ?

It's also in mid-July, so it's barely going to be a competitive match anyway with the season not starting for another month. Not to mention that the Liebherr Cup is a stupid 3-half format so it's barely legitimate anyway.

And Arsenal Nigeria are due to be in Leeds, so there's a random Worldnet joke for you that about 5 people will get.

We have not returned to the Premiership. The Premiership ceased to exist in 2007. Just as we have not returned to Canon League Division One.

He probably didn't want to risk the Brighton Angry Mob banging on his door, so he decided against naming Oor Nige personally.

On the "J Rod" front, I'd like to point out that I have been referring to Jack Cork as "Jork" for some time for no good reason other than it sounds stupid (in other Jork news, I like to hum "he likes short shorts" to myself when he plays. Unfortunately the portmanteau for Rodriguez is "Jod", and I'm not having that.

Less reliable source than Stevo, IMHO.