The9

The mere fact he's playing and having a decent game ( http://homervisionhd3.dyndns.tv/ ) means that I suspect Holloway's said "if we win and stay up I'll sign you". Suits me.

Isn't one of the issues with the Financial Fair Play rules that the way players' contracts are accounted means that their value depreciates/amortizes over the term of the contract, so if you sign Tevez for £40m on a 4 year deal, every year you have a £10 million loss to start with, and that's for EVERY player without even considering the wages? I suspect I'm misunderstanding it somehow, so if anyone wants to clear that up for me...

My thoughts are that I hate it when accountancy becomes part of the competition, but that the best way to get fair competition is through shared club ownership of the League - but that runs the risk of it becoming a closed shop wherever the cutoff lies. The UEFA rules are explained here (it's a pdf : http://en.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/Clublicensing/01/50/09/12/1500912_DOWNLOAD.pdf), and it makes no sense for the FL to do anything which isn't in line with this. For those who don't want to read the actual document, there's a BBC article about Chelsea / Man City and the UEFA regulations here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/davidbond/2011/04/having_made_gigantic_losses_la.html

The fact that there hasn't been any mention of this on the OS (and there's plenty of "fan-friendly club" PR mileage to come from it if they chose to do it) is what makes me think that much of that was about drip-feeding the "select audience" the odd bit of good PR with no intention of following it up. But we shall see.

About 11 months so far, and despite deciding that I would definitely save in the interim, I've managed to save precisely nowt towards it. I suspect this season's ST will come from going cap in hand to a mate who still has a 0% Barclaycard for Season Tickets and then paying them back in instalments. But at least this time around I'm expecting it to be "one lump sum when we deign to mention it to you, if you're paying attention" from the club, so I, apparently, "can't complain" about the general inconvenience of it. Not that there's any guarantee anyone would get credit under a payment plan nowadays anyway...

That's true, but given the huge number of other clubs with payment plans and Saints' historical use of them there was still no reason to expect it would be withdrawn with absolutely no notice, or that STs would only be sold until the start of the season, or that anyone would have to find a lump sum the same month it was announced in order to get the renewal price. This time around we are at least prepared for the worst, and unfortunately expecting it.

Another one who's happily inert to the medium term effects of the recession on people's spending ability, evidently. There are PLENTY of people who might just have been able to scrape together the money last year and put themselves in hock for the season just gone who know they have absolutely no chance of being able to do that again this time around. VAT is up 5% on this time last year, energy bills are expected to rise 25%, getting credit is even more difficult than it was, there are more unemployed and inflation is rising overall as well. All of that affects the money available and the chances of being able to put some aside.

It's enough to stop people who already had to take out additional borrowing to pay for last year's at such short notice from saving up...

As I said last year, if there's no instalment plan this season, it's still crap for the people who want to use it, but at least we had some reason to expect that to be the case based on 2010 and have had the opportunity to prepare for it by saving, or considering other alternatives. Last season there was no reason to think the club wouldn't provide a service which it always had at St Mary's previously. It still doesn't change the situation that without an instalment plan a LOT of people who would want an ST and could cover the cost of one over 10 months or so won't be able to stump up the cash in one lump sum, and that's counterproductive to selling as many STs as possible.

Doesn't that economic calculation depend on how confident the club is that we'll sell any of the the more expensive tickets ? For the season just past where we were odds on for promotion the "gamble" was that people would want to see a winning team and would turn up on the day if they didn't have an ST, and therefore pay the premium rate. There was profit to be made in knowing that the demand was there and would be taken up - there's no such guarantee of Championship success, so a similar policy would be foolhardy as the expected walk-up will definitely be heavily dependent on League position and recent form. In that situation, you count the ST money and are glad of it because people don't even have to turn up to have paid for the match, albeit at a slightly lower rate per match. Not allowing people to buy a ticket to 23 matches AFTER some of those matches has happened (whether at the same price or proportionately reduced) doesn't smack of sound business practice unless you're trying to make people pay match by match. For a start they know we have one of the most dispersed fanbases in English football, so a lot of people who wouldn't have an ST due to travelling costs also can't get to the ground in advance to avoid paying Cortese Tax. The £3 charge certainly isn't an incentive for people to use online booking, which is the cheapest way for the club to sell tickets, so it's either profiteering from the most convenient method of buying tickets - or being used as a disincentive to use the online system, which would make no sense because it's cheaper to the club than staffing a ticket office all day.

Imagine how many we'd won by if they'd worn the dark grey shorts and socks that were MEANT to go with that kit.

My pleasure. If you could pass it on the Alex Ferguson as well, might help.

From the thread so far I'm assuming that if Barney the Dinosaur doesn't get sent down for bottling a cage fighter in the White House then he's going to get stalked by some mental in a pink scarf, or am I missing the point ?

The kit has nothing to do with the results. HTH.

Rumour has it that's what we're getting, so you may have to get used to it !

That's not hard though is it ?

My money's on the European Director blokey, and "early doors" usually means about now, for some reason.

No no, Comolli's their Terry Cooper.

It had better be, as it was meant to expire on Aug 12, 2010 according to some people on here (ignoring the fact that all full-season contracts expire at midnight on June 30 / July 1.

I thought Jakobsson was at least a competent defensive midfielder when asked to play there, Calum Davenport was a worse central defender, and Mikael Nilsson just worse full stop. Bernard was just a clown.

As Manchester United have proved in the last 30 years, there's no stand that "can't be extended". Just because the offices and changing rooms etc are there doesn't mean they can't be temporarily relocated, and putting aside the big walking area outside the main entrance where Ted is, there are plenty of clubs with stands which pass above roads and railways. Even if there are properties behind, they can be bought out and developed over. There's always a way if there's enough money - unless you happen to be a certain team 20 miles away, channelling all the funds into the team for a short term gain without a thought for developing the infrastructure. Though we're a LONG way from needing to develop the Itchen anyway.

Fuh... Foundation. He said it.

I suspect it's more likely that either Cortese won't pay for what are probably additional policing costs for closing Northam Rd (not unreasonable), or maybe the council is forcing the club's arm regarding this, given that the original St Mary's plans included a green commitment. That was the need to provide fans with alternative methods of getting to the ground for as long as the crowds were above a certain level, and we're starting to look like we may have those kind of crowds again next season. When it was obvious we weren't going to get big enough crowds after barely staying up in 2007/8 and Lowe closed the corners as a cost cutting measure the club got rid of the FREE bus tickets that used to be on STs and match tickets. If I remember correctly it was 25,000 crowds which had to happen a certain number of times (maybe 5 or 10) in order for the club to have to provide free bus transport, though I'm not sure if the "green" responsibility was dropped altogether by the Council to help the club out. I will be interested to see if anything happens with that in the next season or so, and in the event of any expansion there will certainly be new carbon neutral demands for the club to meet. Maybe we'll get that train station...

Almeida was Portuguese and got murdered by Henry when he came on. A bench of Parlour, Luzhny, Henry, Suker (and John Lukic), plus Bergkamp, Overmars, Ljungberg, Vieira and the usual back 4 on the pitch... Ah, here we are : 18 Sep 1999 Saints 0-1 Arsenal (Henry 79) Southampton P. Jones, J. Dodd , D. Richards, C. Lundekvam (M. Almeida, 71), F. Benali, M. Oakley , M. Hughes, T. Soltvedt, W. Bridge (M. Le Tissier, 81), J. Beattie , H. Kachloul Subs not used: N. Moss, P. Colleter, C. Marsden Arsenal A. Manninger, L. Dixon, M. Keown, T. Adams, N. Winterburn , P. Vieira, F. Ljungberg (R. Parlour, 46), G. Grimandi , M. Overmars (O. Luzhny, 84), N. Kanu (T. Henry, 71), D. Bergkamp Subs not used: J. Lukic, D. Suker Referee: G P Barber Attendance: 15242 I think the gist of the OP is that these players are dire at League One level, have never started a game for the first team (or even been risked in a nothing cup game) and have remarkably long contracts. They are not fly-by-night short term players, perennially injured, first teamers, untried youth players, internationals nor Premier League standard, which most of the others are. What I find bizarre is that Pulis must have got an extension at some point, because his original deal was due to expire last summer. I'm assuming it had an automatic roll-over year built in somewhere.

I hate crappy Brazil wannabe shirts far more than blue bits. Notts County away this season, made by Nike, yellow with green trim, made them look like the least imaginative team ever (which ironically the team perpertuated). The "we want to look like Brazil" look should have been banned after Crystal Palace did it in the late 80s. You've got a weird relationship with Saints kit history, hating red sleeves for the 2005 relegation despite other teams in red sleeves doing very well season in, season out (and Saints themselves doing well with red sleeves in the 1980s), and not wanting blue in any Saints shirt despite the notable blueness of the trim on the yellow 1976 Cup Final kit.