The9

Oscar Gobern is out of contract, Huddersfield have signed an out of contract player (albeit one we'll get compensation for having trained up in the Academy as he's under 24), why would they be giving us a player when they have no obligation to us ?

What he said. Of the plain red with words options, I like 1 best as well - shouldn't be a problem to have all the text on one line, but it might be better to use larger letters as with the two-liner. At least the general colours, image and words are agreed, and well done to JustMike for going through all of this, hopefully it will look excellent.

I don't like a halo - it's a bit OTT and the slogan covers it, I prefer the face (non-cartoony) to the waving pose which I think is a little bit cheesy, and I think a black image on the central area of a red-white-red flag with the "Forever A Saint" text in whichever colour means it can be read on each background is where I'd go with this. The waving pic flag with slogan above is pretty good though. Surely the two-colour one is cheaper than a three-colour as well ? PS Stick to conventional, solid lettering (the one above is perfect), that "distressed" effect looks gash and cheapens it as well.

Some of you lot are pushing the envelope by including some 8/9/10s. Poor show.

Girls I have known (not necessarily in the biblical sense) have allegedly ****ged Keith Gillespie, Kevin Davies and Aaron Flahavan. Woopdedoo.

Also, I'm not sure why parachute payments or getting promoted back to the Prem will clear their debt when playing in the Premier League caused it in the first place.

Heard something the other week about fans abusing multi-ball when their side was leading by waiting for the throw-in and then chucking the original ball back onto the pitch. They were Argentinian though, where the skill in gamesmanship is a tad more admired than here.

I've just had a look at Soccerbase : Cardiff (away) on Dec 31 2005 (lost 2-1). Man U (home) on Dec 31 1994 (drew 2-2). Given that New Year's Day is a Bank Holiday and there's usually a fixture then, it's not surprising that NYE matches are fairly rare - but then you'd only expect a match on a particular date to come around every 6 years anyway (with leap years) so three times in 18 years including this season coming is pretty much exactly in line with the average. Though that does suppose only one match a week, and doesn't include summer dates, obviously.

I know loads of them, and it's no worse general stupidity and ignorance than the nob-end kids we get at nearby Saints away games from time to time. You won't get me arguing that there's not an element of English-hating, but it's only the really stupid...

The mockery has happily been made by the kids in the team itself, and the success many of them have had without Redknapp's input. P. Smith - wasn't a kid, but Championship regular for a while not long after M. Cranie - still a Championship regular D. Kenton - hit the skids pre-Saints but no kid M. Mills - a Championship captain and regular C. Baird - a Prem regular and Europa League runner up N. McCann - no kid, basically all but retired on leaving Saints R. Delap - no kid but still a Prem regular now Y. Folly - didn't develop much, League One at best (T. Walcott, 72) - Prem regular and England international N. Dyer - just been promoted to the Prem K. Jones - Prem regular and twice sold for £6m+ D. Blackstock - Championship regular (D. McGoldrick, 81) - Championship regular Subs not used: S. Gillett - Championship regular M. Tejera, A. McNeil - forget them

Sounds like you wish you'd met her first.

I'd have liked to see what Matt Mills, Martin Cranie and Tim Sparv could do for us in the Championship.

Having lived in Newport for 30 years I assure you Cardiffians just walk into everyone, whether they're interested in finding out if you have English accent or not. And despite not having a Welsh accent and utterly despising Cardiff City I've never had a problem with any of them. Also, think about the logistics of that, Cardiff has a population of about 330,000, and only 3,000 Saints fans will be around on the day, so statistically they'd have to deliberately walk into a thousand people just to get one bite.

He said women only go to the football to meet men, he didn't say they only meet men at the football.

My wife is an ST holder and has been one ONLY since we started going out a few years back. She loves Saints, is enthusiastic about Barnsley away, and the other month I came back from 5-a-side to find her watching a Europa League match. Weirdo.

My wife is insisting we go to West Ham on 14th Feb. This is one of the reasons she is my wife. I also just showed her the OP, and she said "tell her to get over it".

Honestly I think passing is Lallana's weakness. He has an unorthodox style and it's a little deceptive to teammates, and he sometimes shins the ball doing so. With that in mind I think he's best used out wide where the skill to beat people, longer passes and crossing are more important than short passes, and I don't see him as so much of a creative playmaker in the middle - though his workrate and closing down would definitely be more useful in a more central role, and he's certainly got the vision.

Indeed. Also, Best as a striker would be worth more money than the others anyway.

I'm actually quite impressed that the League has taken the decision to remove the opportunity for an unfair advantage - anyone who saw Brighton at home last season could see how the supply of balls was being controlled to kill the flow of the game and even back in 2005 Reading were using it to their gain to get promotion to the Prem - though in a much fairer way as they just got the ball back really quickly for everyone, and had trained their players to expect that - which is a fair course of action. It's only when the two teams are served the ball in different ways it's unfair. Of course the logical next step is the introduction of "neutral" ball boy teams and the reintroduction of multiball on a level playing field, because as a concept it's a good idea, it's just the abuse of it by clubs that's caused the problem. On the bright side, Brighton are looking as screwed as I hoped next season, lost 2 of their key players, a stadium which allows the opportunity to spend 2 minutes on a goal kick, AND their entire cheating ballboy squad. I still think they're going to struggle to stay up...

That Patrick "Air Florida/Rank Xerox" kit style mock up is hilariously crap and frankly embarrassing, the number on the front looks more like a Hackett t-shirt than a football shirt. And the red in the Patrick kit was a slightly lighter red than most Saints shirts since, but absolutely nothing like the "red" in the crappy mock up. It was similar to the red in the Pony home kits though, all 3 styles. I've already done a photoshop of the old Patrick Keegan era kit on this thread for no reason other than boredom. AND already noted that the small picture link to the kit launch news shows a single broad stripe not loads of them. All indications I've heard are towards plain normal, regular stripes. Ps Hamster, you think I'm biting on the "one year" thing?

I'm lolling at "apparently the police see the fixtures before we do". Well DUH !

Ok, who had "the day the fixtures come out" in the sweep ? Congratulations Alpine, June 17th is a LONG time after the May 8th date I was predicting, admirable restraint, even if most of the players are still on holiday. I will however readily admit to being mildly narked that someone has already signed Kevin Nolan, especially a team who allegedly are utterly skint. Judging by their spending so far, West Ham will be in the Premier League next season, or League One by 2014. However, the only benefit to us piling into the transfer market this early that I can see is confirming that we do actually have cash to spend. I'm not sure we do, but that just means other teams' Chairmen aren't sure either. If we're going to break the bank, best for it to be with a big name AFTER we sign the supporting acts whilst claiming poverty. Getting a big name now would just drive up the prices of everyone else. As for "in 2010 we started with a crippled squad and a disinterested manager", what's that got to do with signing players ? And I loosely agree with you on 2008, it was too late but firstly it wasn't too late until the season STARTED (which is still 7 weeks away), nor did we have any money to spend and had to leave our signings til the last minute when other teams' squads had settled down and loans were available.

False economy, if she wasn't at football she'd take up shopping, and I'd also get to the pub 98% less.

But that's what they did last year. Unveiled the kit deaign on one date, whilst announcing a launch event and an on sale date. Though last year the "launch" was the on sale event as well. But the kit design was known for pre-order. I do wonder if Cortese has a more "latin" model planned, launching all of the kits at the same time.

Nice to see the Beeb has gone the whole hog this morning and we're now fully installed on the Championship page. Less nice to see West Ham have signed Kevin Nolan, FFS...