The9

Quite. We managed ok without it at Fratton.

It's hardly an excuse - I'm also pleased to know it's against Football League rules, as squad numbers have to be consecutive (as far as is possible). We've kind of wriggled around it by not having a 5, but that's not quite the same as leaving 41-87 empty and having a number 88.

IIRC a number of players got automatic extensions or new deals when we got promoted and I think he was one of those.

As I already said, if we're signing another striker, Puncheon won't get 11. Also, if Hooper wears 88 at Celtic, he'll wear anybloodything.

Because we had lots of players missing and he could have been below par or not worth risking unless an emergency arose, which it did. I'd put the second one down to his professionalism, possibly modern medication and the fact he wasn't being asked to play more than about 15-20 minutes. Then again he might have been 100% fit and fine, can't guarantee he was injured, can I?

Like England international Owen Hargreaves and World Cup Winner Patrick Vieira, who City have signed for nowt in the past 3 seasons ?

I wouldn't worry about it, once you get to Conference level, there are teams going under every season and teams failing to meet ground criteria so the numbers are constantly in flux. Most seasons they have to delay the fixture release because they're waiting to see if sides can start in the leagues they're in (eg Chester City).

By the way, the "default score" is 3-0, not 2-0.

Even better, because they'll then be thrown out of the Football League too. Long and short is to be part of the league you agree to abide by their rules. The FL wouldn't tolerate a situation where members were challenging their authority or there would be anarchy. The rules, for the past god knows how long, indicate that clubs who fail to fulfil their fixtures have their records expunged. It happened to Aldershot after THIRTY-SIX games in 1992, they resigned on 25th March, and all the points and all their fixtures were eradicated. Nothing protects the integrity of a competition like the competition authorities actually sticking to the rules they are playing by.

I'd imagine Richardson wasn't fully fit, he only came on because Hooiveld got injured.

I suggested in December that 2 CBs including Hooiveld would be Prem planning, that's now even more important with the current injuries. I still think a Prem-standard striker could be the difference, we don't really have any players who can create goals for themselves out of nothing with Lallana off form and De Ridder out of the team, and we need someone up top who teams haven't scouted as part of the Saints line up to make ourselves less predictable.

I still think De Ridder is a decent player, but he needs a run of games we can't necessarily afford - and he's probably best suited as a game-changing sub. I don't think Puncheon's return impacts him as much as us signing Lee will.

Time for a little bump, with the winners in the opening post...

We have 5 and 11 free, after that it's 37, 38, then 41 and upwards. Based on his position and Nigel's OCDs he'll either get 11 if we're not planning on signing another striker, or 37 if we are. 37 would amuse me, as it's the number Rob Lee got when brought back into the fold for Newcastle after Gullit froze him out and was then sacked. Nothing on the OS yet, even though Tadanari Lee is already listed at 19.

He needs to win more headers against 6ft 5 defenders in order for the new Southampton Style as seen on Monday to work...

Woo, right back in the The9's All-time XI. Almost as prestigious as Pele's top 100 (consisting of 125 players and featuring Doncaster's El-Hadji Diouf).

Having had a good look at Grant Holt for Norwich on the weekend, I can safely say Holt's sprinting ability, basic pace and movement significantly outstrip those of Lambert, and anyone expecting him to step up to the Prem as he's stepped up to the Championship (as Holt did) is probably going to be disappointed. That being said, Steve Morison is cack and he's scored getting on for 10 in the Prem, so maybe that's a better comparison ?

Nice troll.

I was all over the Dell, but 99% of my Saints league games at St Mary's have been seen from the Northam. I tend to go walkabout for early round cup matches and stuff like u-21 internationals, but I've only seen 3 Saints league matches at St Mary's outside the Northam.

He's the 21st man. You want to be looking at Butterfield.

Due to family commitments (I have Watford ST holders in my family) you probably wouldn't get a lift back, so you may wish to reconsider that.

In other news, in the last 10 minutes Guly has created a Twitter account, slagged off Ben Reeves' choice of boots, apologised to Cortese, and is now expecting people to stop slagging him off every time he puts a pass 5 yards from its target. Clearly Ryan Dickson is doing twitter wrong. He needs to stop going on about Celebrity Big Brother and start insulting chairmen.

Preferably something that doesn't contain an American spelling and a wrongly conjugated word... "Spreaded" ? You mean "spread".

I suspect that they had this chat on Monday night/Tuesday morning and decided that Puncheon putting himself in the wrong by posting a daft remark which he could then apologise for was the way to go, hoping that everyone chose to ignore the elephant in the room of the previous misdemeanour. Personally if they're all happy and it benefits the club, I'm fine with it, but I'm taking the whole PR stunt with a pinch of salt. EDIT : Also, if Puncheon had just said "sorry" with nothing having happened recently, the focus then would be on "what was he apologising for?" and "why now?" whereas now there's a spurious tweet given as the reason and people aren't bothered about the previous stuff. The fact that the tweet was utterly nonsensical and out of character with Puncheon's exemplary behaviour in training and playing with the kids when asked to, doesn't seem to warrant questioning. Then again, as I've said, I'm not that bothered, I just think it's mildly comical to see everyone just ignore it like it never mattered anyway.

I'm also now assuming this takes care of our "new signing" on the right of midfield. So so far against my estimate of 4 players including Hooiveld, we've signed... Hooiveld (CB) Lee (ST) Falque (AM) plus Puncheon (AM) and there are bids for strikers rumoured. Maybe we can liberate some of the Puncheon replacement fund for another CB as well, we're certainly showing a shortage of match fit experienced players at the moment...