The9

Quite. I have also heard "promotion" from some people around me. The "when we reach the Premier League" thing is surely an overactive imagination, never heard it sung. I recall Newport County singing "We are County, Ashurst is our king" in 1980 when they got out of Division 4.

MK Dons' stadium was built to hold 40,000 in the first place in lieu of the World Cup 2018 bid, there's a completely empty tier around the top which is ready to put seats onto. If you can point me at a similar area in St Mary's, please do.

Swansea got murdered by Manchester City in their first match and didn't score for ages, that alone would shatter some teams. They do however have a few players with Premexperience. I guess it comes down to whether you're happy being a couple of injuries away from relegation or not, have Swansea got depth to deal with injuries and suspensions? . You only have to look at Cork's comments on the OS to see how vital the squad is and how having players who can step in and maintain the level is.

I'd like a team full of belief that won't get immediately smashed out of them when they get taken to pieces by one of the top sides in August, which means having players who've already been through it and know how to compete, integrating with the talent we've got.

Well, 6 not including Hooiveld and 7 including him then. I'm pretty sure we'll carry on doing the same sort of thing. Pardew's last 16 was, to break them down into current roles to look at the turnover since then : Starters (6) Davis, Fonte, Hammond/Schneiderlin, Lallana, Guly, Lambert Match Day Squad (6) Harding, Butterfield, Martin, Hammond/Schneiderlin, Connolly, Bialkowski Not involved in League this season (4) Dickson, Barnard, Jaidi... and Puncheon, who may as well be in the next category... Left club Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wotton (2) We've brought in : Cork, Chaplow, De Ridder, Fox and Hooiveld (5), all at least first team squad players, plus Forte and Jack Stephens (2) who've not featured in the League. McLaggon, Pulis, McNish, Gobern and Mills (5) have also left, and Dale Stephens, and a few others with under 2 starts were in and out on loan. So still 12 of the 16 are regular squad members from when Adkins joined, but we've added 5 more to that lot in the 2 transfer windows since, and you have to assume that was the plan for Forte... that's pretty consistent with what I think we'll do.

I definitely wouldn't be amazed at all ("a striker" and Hooiveld is already 2/3rds of the total suggested), and the whole point is that we'd be signing Prem-quality players to replace the ones who don't get a game.

Unfortunately if we get promoted from the Championship we'll end up in the Prem with all of it's vacuous bullsh!111!t, not much else we can do about it.

I'd sign me, but I think we already have enough passengers on the bus. That's one of the problems with signing players to long term contracts and rocketing through the divisions...

Not necessarily that 7 aren't good enough, but we need a squad of 25 with the kind of depth of ability so we don't let the standard drop, and there are quite a few not getting any kind of look in even now. I can't see Jaidi being renewed, or Dickson being up to it, there are doubts about Seaborne's fitness, Butterfield is getting on, the likes of Hammond and Schneiderlin are unproven, Lambert has never played at that level, Forte hasn't shown us much, Barnard has barely played in the Championship, and most Prem squads have 4 proven strikers to rotate, and there are a load of younger players who we just can't tell with who are currently on the fringes. And I'm talking about 6 or 7 by August is 3 in January and 3 or 4 more in the summer. Evolution, you can fit 3 new players in - with minimal impact - at a time, and that's exactly what we've just done. Now one of those could be, say, Ward-Prowse, or we might have to buy them. But we need to be thinking about the current starting side as the basis of a Prem squad and look at where we need improvements, not assuming we're already good enough. As an example, Taarabt was one of the, if not THE, top rated players in this division last year and essential to QPR's success. This year he's a bit of a luxury because he can only do certain things and his defensive play leaves them exposed, and they've signed the likes of Barton and SWP to give themselves a chance. I'd be surprised if we weren't also looking at 23-26 year old top talents in the Championship or lower Prem in line with our apparent recruitment policy though.

Hm, well Delap played in the Prem for 5 years before signing for Saints, Higginbotham had also played for 3 or 4 seasons, and Leon Best would be the first player to drop from that overachieving Newcastle team once they get some strikers in even though he's improved a fair bit. So I don't think your examples are very good. I'm in favour of the evolution approach that Adkins has adopted, but if we go back into the Prem (!) with the core of a League One side we'll be coming straight back down, and it's one thing to expect League One players to step up to the Champ, it's quite another to assume they won't get found out in the Prem. Also, if we maintain our current form into January, it'll be a lot easier to sign players of a certain standard and type based on offering Prem football at a lower risk to the individuals' careers. We'd be in the market for the Kevin Nolan types (not him, obviously), but a little more experienced, nearer their prime, still with something to offer and the ability to move us upwards.

If I was Adkins I'd be expecting to add another 6 or 7 Premier League standard players before we kicked a ball in the Prem. So yeah, I'd want to be adding players to get us up and keep us up over the next 9 months.

Nope but Hull v West Ham is out there.

That weird advantage thing was the ref pointing the wrong way for the free kick (which was definitely ours) then realising he should have pointed the other way, not having time to point the other way before we took it, and then waving play on to show the quick kick was okay.

Nathan Dyer too..? I think it's more a "young kids dealing with success and privilege" thing in an environment where they see a lot of extremes of behaviour really, there are going to be a lot of bad attitudes. To be fair to Best, he's improved a fair bit in the last 6 months and found a role in a successful team for the time being, but I can't see him sustaining his place if they want to stay up there.

Bloody hell there are a lot of sensitive people on here. We are like Norwich in the sense that both teams were relegated from the Prem and Championship at the same time, promoted from League One and challenged for Championship promotion the following season. These are obvious and inoffensive parallels, I don't see why it should be an issue to compare us, and I'd be delighted if we mimick their Championship finish this season.

I'm not sure making a fairly valid point is bitter, twisted or moronic. It's not the ONLY reason we've turned around, but Liebherr's money got us out of League 1 and the fact we had to go into administration to get a buyer is precisely what got us out of Lowes control.

One hasn't started yet.

"Are" instead of "our".

I find everything annoying, but that one is quite high on my list of things I cannot begin to understand. It's on the big screen at the ground, it's in the programme, it's on the telly, on the back of the players' shirts, it's usually already correctly spelt in the same thread, and you're actually on a computer which gives you access to an enormous database of information which will allow you to check if you're not sure. How, in those circumstances, are you not able to spell the player's name right ? For the record, we don't have a Davies in goal, or a Llanna in midfield, or a Hoofelt at the back (or a Seabourne for that matter) or a Connelly up front. Historically, I can't ever remember how to spell Egil's surname, or that of the bloke called Andreas who played at the back in our Prem relegation season, SO I LOOK THEM UP BEFORE POSTING. Is it too much to ask ? Ignore that, when people can't even spell "to" correctly it obviously is. Apart from that, all song threads, the polarising of others' opinions by people who don't bother to debate the nuances of any argument, knee-jerkism, anyone at all talking about fashionable clothing of any kind at football as by definition it doesn't exist, and all WUMs and trolls.

I'm hoping it will also be used excessively against Brighton on 19th when we will be in the entertaining position of asking them if they are keeping up.

Jesus.

Looking at the video (the rest was from memory) it is EXACTLY the routine I was trying to get our Sunday side to use in pre-season last year 2 standing over the ball so you can go inswinging or outswinging, one of them becomes the runner outside the wall to pull the end man on the wall away or who you can play in for a simple cross 3 players at the far post for whatever ends up there (Hooiveld is unmarked in front of goal as the defenders switch off when the first pass goes short, Fonte spins off to the far post, 1 other player sits behind the 2nd passer in case the free-kick is poorly hit, and then drifts to the edge of the box for rebounds or clearances.) 1 player on the end of the wall shielding the keeper for the shot or spinning in for a second pass at the near post (Guly) 2 runners in the middle - the man who plays the second pass (Lallana) and a runner alongside the wall player (Chaplow) to give two running onto the second pass. Because I recognise it I know it is straight out of Les Reed's FA coaching book. The beauty of this one is the number of options, even the overlapping non-kick taker is in position to mop up an overhit second pass and put a cross in if necessary.

I am especially in favour as it's a variation on the "Fonte to the back post" goal from last season, but as teams have seen it and expect it, we use that set up to add other options. We started mixing it up firstly with Harding and Lambert over the ball last season, and we've mixed it further this time out. Plus Fox gives us a different delivery when he plays too. We usually have Lambert over the ball with a left footer next to him, giving us Lambert's shot, a left foot shot (unless it's Harding), the chip to Fonte, or any of the new short passes with instant lay off to runners - if you watch the first goal back you'll see Fonte makes his run around the back as usual even though the ball oes low to the middle and then to the other side of the area - but there's also the possibility of a short pass and then finding him with a cross a second or two later as well. Pretty sure the "back post run" is in Les Reed's FA coaching book actually.

If it didn't happen last season when we wore basically white, it isn't going to happen. We played at St Mary's against a couple of teams who wore red and STILL sang it - same thing happened away to Orient who wore all red. I think "come on you reds" against teams in red is probably up there on the stupid list. A similar thing happens at away games when we change kit but don't actually have a yellow away kit, most of the people who start songs don't seem able to think of other alternatives to saying "yellows" a lot, for some reason.

The problem with the latter is that we'll have to keep adding lines to it, and De Ridder just doesn't have as interesting a life as Mario Balotelli. Citeh fans are up to about 9 lines for him now, only one of which mentions that he's a footballer. Maybe if Steeeeeeeeeve sets fire to his house or something.