The9

In terms of Cortese's plan generally, this summer will be when the investment in the playing squad can be judged post-Markus. Until we buy someone from the bottom half of the Prem, or a top-level Championship player of the level of Fonte, there will always be the suspicion that we can't fund any new players without Markus being around. That'll be the point when my cynicism regarding funds being available will go away. Until that point, we're just a Championship side that expects to do ok because we bought Championship players 18 months ago, but hasn't added anyone since. I'm ok with that, we've got a decent squad, but I'm not buying into the "loadsamoney" theory since Markus' death until we show it.

No-one's called on Clifford because he's a maverick and playing futsal is not the sole solution to professional footballing skill development problems - not to mention that his focus is on young kids' development now so his role at a pro club would be limited at best. Woodward's affiliation to Clifford didn't help his cause any. No-one's called on Woodward since because he joined the British Olympic Association immediately after leaving Saints to do what he was doing at the RFU, and hasn't made himself available.

I pretty much feel like this as well, which is why I have a suspicion Cortese's original 5 year plan went "Lge1 promotion, nPC consolidation, nPC promotion, Prem relegation, nPC promotion" and stay there. I think his reworked plan, taking into account failure to go up last year is "Lge1 consolidation, Lge1 promotion, nPC consolidation, nPC promotion, Prem for keeps". But there's always the possibility of shooting straight through via the play-offs this year to get the yo-yo back on track. What bothers me about the Prem is that the bottom 14 are basically interchangeable foreign imports and any of them in another kit could be any team. I don't particularly want us to get into that, but the only alternatives are Championship mediocrity and the "what if" feeling, or becoming one of the obscenely-spending faceless multinationals at the top. I suppose I could cope with the latter if I could afford to watch and the football was good enough.

People change their accents, pronunciation and affectations dependent on social situation, Lallana could have just chosen to pass himself off as someone who doesn't think it matters getting the foreign bloke's name spot on, especially when he's not bothered about it much himself. There are plenty of instances of people who should know better just getting it wrong, with commentators being the worst. I remember Everton's Abel Xavier ("Abbul Zavvy-yay") becoming Liverpool's "Ay-bull Ecks-have-ee-ay" in the early 2000s, just because as an Everton player no-one cared how to pronounce his name, but when he joined Liverpool suddenly it was important to commentators. And who will ever forget Tony Gubba going for "Mik-aye-ell" Laudrup in the 1986 World Cup ? Or "Michael" as he was known for every other second of his career. Deco was "Deck-ooo" in 2004, for about a fortnight just because people were in Portugal for Euro 2004 and thought they should get it right for a bit. There's just a degree of Anglification on the pronunciation of foreign names, and calling Portuguese Jose and Spanish Jose both "Hosay" is one of them.

I'd quite like to know about all of the science that Spurs employ under Redknapp, the stuff like Kinesio tape hasn't just sprung out of thin air, and Bale was one of the first high-profile users. From what we know about Redknapp (and from what I know from reading a biography of Woodward I bought for a quid from a discount book store in Eastleigh!), Woodward was very keen to manage a football team and saw the transfer of his Sports Science skills as the way to get through the door. Woodward's skills in sports science included player monitoring, developing the training environment (including for comfort and relaxation), and match day preparation and psychology, amongst other things - and I suspect Redknapp discrediting his methods by making out that the technology wasn't needed was his way of preserving his position. I remember him making some comment about not knowing how to switch on the Prozone machine, implying it was useless and unnecessary, when by then pretty much everyone else was already using some form of player monitoring, and nowadays you get the likes of Arsenal talking Wilshere out of the U-21s by showing him GPS records of his training and matches ! Lowe was open-minded enough to consider Woodward could help Saints, though it's fair comment to ask why we were blowing the money on longer-term planning when the key was to get back to the Prem sharpish. In a settled Premier League environment Woodward's influence could have given us a huge edge, and worst case scenario would have kept us up with the developments at places like Bolton - this was 2006, not 1986 and plenty of teams already had this kind of thing going on already. We'd already seen the benefits of pure physical fitness with Strachan's 2003 side and the Cup Final gameplan was to drag Arsenal into extra time. I don't believe for a second that Redknapp doesn't have sports science people now at Spurs, given the choice at the top level everyone would do it whether the manager thought it worthwhile or not, to get whatever edge they can.

Because lower league footballers are exactly the people you'd want to turn to for benchmarking international linguistic skills. @the OP - FWIW there's a thread on the Computer Games Forum for FIFA11 which has a link I posted to a load of Saints songs in mp3 as recorded by me in the Northam from October this season. Dunno if the download link is still live, but Jo-zay Fon-tay Baby is one of the ones I uploaded.

Only taken me 18 days to reply, but Racine was there and kitted up, I was sat just behind the tunnel and he nearly got on at one point. When you look at the list of released players, or non-renewed loans, there's a definite correlation between those who were at the all-star game and those kept and those leaving - no Dale Stephens or Dany N'Guessan at the all-star game either.

It's the permatan advice he's after. And possibly some hair retention tips.

Yeah, fair enough, I've re-read it and it does seem more like a suggestion, sorry about that !

That was Pride of the South, it's ok, he's a Saints fan. No reason to disbelieve the 55k figure, we had most of the Club Wembley seats in addition to selling out the allocation.

I didn't say you did, but why would you care what his attitude was like otherwise ?

And we still don't. Look, if we're really going to be bumping all of these ancient threads can SOMEONE please dig out the pre-season "where will we finish" polls from 2008/9, 2009/10 and most importantly last year ? I want to see what comedy crap I came out with prior to the Championship relegation, I remember being very unsure of where we'd end up even in September, being a tad optimistic and all...

Hardly the same situation is it ? Connolly will take what he can get with his playing career near its end and Puncheon's playing at the highest he ever has and will probably want to not waste his career in a team's reserves if he can get a move. I'm not sure why anyone would want him to stay.

Good good.

But that's just a really crappy charmless retro-style kit that lacks the authenticity and design specification of the original. It's the equivalent of this : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SOUTHAMPTON-FC-80s-Blue-Away-Score-Draw-Replica-Shirt_W0QQitemZ230608785816QQcategoryZ106521QQcmdZViewItem but without the good cause.

An tag at least would have given it a chance. Incidentally, there's some Umbro geezer showing the design concept behind the Man City kit here - also shows the "tag" for 2011/12 which will be the words "Tailored By Umbro" in handwriting near the seam down one side of the shirt (presumably to replace the little triangle gimmick from last season's kit).

I don't like it much :

I'd be surprised if it looked like this though : I've been a bit bored without the speculation... there are 3 deliberate mistakes on here btw.

Damn, you've got me there.

Another Umbro striped kit which we MIGHT get to see before the Saints one - the Man City away :

Not in the Premier League, the overseas tv deal dwarfs any income from attendances. In the rest of football, there's more truth to it.

Well THAT'S not St Mary's. FWIW, they were doing the exact same deal last year for people switching to nPower, £40 voucher for your club's shirt. Or you could, if you weren't the gullible type, go to one of the "switcher" comparison websites and discover that a different nPower price plan is about £200 a year cheaper, like I did.

Or it could mean that he gets seriously injured in September and never plays again. What a load of drivel.

That's nonsense. High wages are caused by AND paid for by the tv deals. If there was no tv money all the mercenaries would just play somewhere else, and prices would stay the same.

Apart from not having been there yet because they came up when we went down in 2005, it's a very easy train trip from Manchester Piccadilly on the line to Southport, and Manchester weekenders are probably more fun than the Blackpool ones...