The9

How are you judging popularity, as you're not talking about shirt sales ? Even allowing for the fledgling replica sales market back then, there are still loads more of the previous broad striped Patrick replicas (Rank Xerox usually) still popping up out there on eBay, whilst the "plain red" are only around in matchworns and are really rare. You'd have expected a "popular" shirt to get a big run like the previous shirt had.

I just can't understand why someone would spend £42 on a shirt, and then however much Prem number printing is at JJB (just checked, it's £10 usually), just to turn the shirt into something with no basis in reality. I can understand people putting their own name on a shirt (even their username!), or getting a slogan, or a tribute, but I just don't know why you'd go out of your way to make it look "wrong". It wasn't as if we were even promoted at the time.

I think it's bloody horrible as a Saints kit. I liked the Forest shirt, I liked the classic Liverpool Crown Paints kit, but they're both teams who traditionally play in predominantly red. If the white stripes were about 4 times the thickness I'd probably like it.

Well, that's a shame, he'd have been perfect for us, but there was always a good chance he'd stay where he was. He doesn't appear to have signed for any of the top sides though, so you'd have to assume we'd have at least made enquiries - IF we were interested... he did fit the profile though. Overall, Swansea splashing £6.8m ? Christ, what's the world coming to ?

Presumably the theory is that Saints fans will buy something different because of what happened with the sash kit. I think they've misjudged the audience - the sash sold well because it looked like a polo shirt, and was quite plain, a historically classic and legitimately retro style, and could also be worn away from football reasonably enough. Plus it was a ONE-OFF, an exception ! This thing looks like one of loads of Saints red training tops I've seen so it's not unique (and a 1994-ish Forest kit), it has no historical basis, doesn't look "classic" and I think people will dump all over it. The shorts and socks might tone down the overall look, but at first glance, euw. Going to find a pic of that Forest shirt...

I heard the collar was a lot plainer than the Sweden shirt, and I'd also guess that the sponsor could be just white this year. I'm intrigued to know what colour the shorts and socks are though.

Given some of Cortese's offers and near-misses with players, and his reported stubbornness in transfer dealings, I'd be quite surprised if "how his agent behaved" wasn't near the top of the reasons for some of our recent non-signings.

Still sunning himself on the other side of the world, I believe. I bet he's lurking though.

God you two are tedious. It was a woman anyway, I'm assuming that means she shouldn't have been at the match in the first place or something...

Mm, but as yet there haven't been any Umbro shirts with bands across released for next season.

Well, I would have thought that having a red kit and a white kit would be a problem when playing a team wearing red and white stripes (like, say, Sunderland or Stoke) might be the obvious answer...

Because England decided not to bother with regional assemblies when Scotland got their Parliament and Wales their Assembly. The idiocy coming out of the Welsh Assembly was one of the reasons I actually left Wales to move to Southampton. I didn't have a problem with free parking at hospitals or free prescriptions, I'd just about had enough of my local train station broadcasting destinations in welsh first in an area with less than 5% welsh speakers - before they made it compulsory in schools to make the stats look better.

Probably similar this season, though it's a later start there's no particular rush to complete the fixtures as there's no major championships at the end of it so it'll be a later finish too, and I should think FIFA want to keep the number of international dates fixed whether the qualifiers run all season or end in November like they did last season.

Every match is available for broadcast and some countries show them all simultaneously - there's no need for loads of people to demand we're on, we'll already be on in a lot of places. The "big boys" (especially the Europa League ones) will be more likely to be on Sundays, Sat lunchtime/evenings and Monday nights more often, leaving only 4 or 5 Saturday afternoon fixtures to choose from, with all being on somewhere and being watched by someone. Much better chance than of being one of the two Championship matches streaming.

If it does end up being the red with white pinstripes, I'd love our away kit to be white with red pinstripes, which I think looks miles better anyway. We could then keep this season's yellow as a third kit for the inevitable "double clashes".

I saw someone with "Lallana 20" in Prem number style on the 2011/12 shirt in the last few weeks of last season, utterly pointless - just flat out wrong to have Prem numbers when we're never wearing that shirt in the Prem anyway.

Other new teamwear styles from Umbro : Classic and Aston - the former is the new Canada kit and the latter, last season's Blackburn away (and Saints away without the contrasting sleeve colour). But by definition these aren't going to be "new" shirts for the forthcoming season, they're now basically parks kits...

Oh, and wondering if the GK shirts seen on Soccer Aid might be next season's Umbro style, haven't seen them before. Seen the "Winchester" outfield shirts loads though, they're a couple of years old. EDIT : Have since spotted it in the Teamwear 2013 range, so probably not :

For future reference, my attitude to that is "so far doing it our way works regarding on-pitch activity, but not in every aspect of everything the club does off it, especially where fans are concerned".

Well yeah, but it has done for 10 months since it was launched.

Sounds like a fairly generic piece of good practice. Though I'd be inclined to say Woodward's focus would be infrastructure and mental focus, and Clifford's focus was ball skills based on Futebol de Salao, rather than the generic "developing habits" stuff.

I'm in favour of treating them like second class citizens. They're going to get bantered to death in August if they pitch up as if they've been coming all along. "Know the way to the stadium?" "Haven't you got a wedding to go to?", etc. They've already proven they're only in it for the Prem games so what difference does it make how people treat them ? If we get relegated they'll leave, if we don't they might stick around. I have no problem at all with people who've never had an ST and have decided to come for the first time. It's just the ones who sodded off, found something "better" to do, and now we're good enough for them to invest some time in Saints again. Well, having seen all that, they're not good enough for me and there will be hilarity at their expense.

I have to say I am starting to take offence at certain plastics on the periphery of our circle suddenly being tagged by their equally plastic friends in FB pics of St Mary's as if it's their spiritual home, when I know for a fact they've spent the best part of the last 7 years sodding off to the New Forest picking flowers on Saturday afternoons.

Erm, 18 ? There are 19 others.