The9

No, not that one, which doesn't correlate to any current Umbro kits. I'm thinking he means the old one, as there is a current Umbro template with a single stripe down the sleeve like the last Brazil shirt, which also happens to be the current Forest away kit (it's also the Wales home and Swansea home, but without the contrast colours on sleeve and shirt side panel) So my thinking is we're getting a yellow / blue version of that Forest away kit.

Although as Garry O'Connor is 27, he's hardly in the sunset of his career, and he's scored in the Championship recently, which implies he's not crocked either. As noted above, he has played for 2 different clubs who held his registration already this season though, so we can't play him even if we sign him. If it wasn't for that, he'd be ideal in this situation, something to prove, a decent striker at a higher level with no problem signing a short term contract and not long to prove it in. Could be worth a trial in the summer at least.

Just... don't.

Clotting/circulation issues after surgery, possibly? Could be guff though.

What's there to photoshop ? It's Markus on a flag.

It's not a design competition. I've just been posting stuff that our new kit could feasibly be, based on the limited information in the original post and subsequently. Which is that the home kit has got a patch on it for the aap3 sponsor, and the collar is similar to the New York Cosmos one but black. Other than that, it's all speculation because the only striped kit Umbro have revealed so far is Sunderland, and we KNOW it won't be too similar to that because they go out of their way to avoid that happening. The away kit was described as "Brazil-like" in yellow and blue, which also ties in with a current Umbro template which is similar to the recently replaced Brazil 2010 World Cup kit. FWIW I quite like the white with two red stripes, but we already know it won't look like that. Not keen on the washed-out yellow or the random template, and the black one looks almost exactly like a 2001 training kit we had - and I hate the current black away shirt because of that very reason.

No, that stuff I can rationalise. People saying "Rovers" when there are a shedload of Roverseses, aargh.

No, it fcking winds me up.

So why not just call it "Build Up Fred" ? I am delighted to have been worthy of your free ramblings.

The point is that you can't tell who we're playing from the title, so what's the point of having it ?

I pretty much concur with all of that - at the moment with the available players it's a question of whether playing someone completely out of position as a wide right midfielder is preferable to playing 3 of the 4 more central players *slightly* out of position. I didn't go to Rochdale but you could see at Orient that their left sided midfielder Cox was in acres of space 1-on-1 with Butterfield with Chaplow having to run 15 yards just to have someone else for backup... after a while Orient started actually dribbling at Butterfield from the centre with a player and one in support - fortunately on that day we just about coped with the crosses. Don't forget we've played a narrow diamond with Lallana and Oxlade-Chamberlain in it already this season as well, which is counter-intuitive at best. We started using it when Lallana was out in order to have a creative midfielder who could influence the game more centrally (Guly), and used it against Man Utd and played well, but it killed Ox-Cham's natural game and I don't think we'd be using it much if we had both Oxlade-Chamberlain and Lallana available. Then again there are plenty of nuances to it - Dickson was wide left and no-one was wide right at Orient, it was more of a 4-1-3-2 with the 3 shifted to the left, as much a wide 4-4-2 as a diamond !

Oh, and can some please put the word "Bristol" in the heading, there are two teams called "Rovers" in this division alone, and plenty of others all over the Football League and Prem ?

Misplaced passes ahoy in the MK Dons and Leyton Orient games, but we won so no-one's bothered. We did it against Rochdale and lost. Performances are similar, outcomes were different.

They're not "judging on sole games", they're aware that we have a load of injuries that limit our options, the team hasn't been performing particularly well for months despite the results, and we're just about scraping by most of the time. We've been slightly better than the opposition too many times after looking poor early on, and each time we've got into a strong position with a match in hand we've wasted that game (Walsall, Rochdale) which smacks of a certain problem with motivation. We're still in a good position, but I don't want us to have to be chasing someone else to pull out better performances, because we might just happen to find ourselves behind at the time when the 46th game finishes.

Sounds to me like the club has told him to stall for time to get the hearing into the close season, probably in exchange for representing him. This is of course purely speculation on my part.

They are starting to build an inferiority complex the size of Portsmouth. Mind you, it's not surprising when they haven't finished above 20th in the second tier for nearly 20 years, about 15 of which we spent in the Prem. I actually can't be arsed to congratulate them, much more interested in what we can achieve.

Not from next season they're not, Crawley are already promoted to the Football League.

Holmes is out for the season.

Pretty sure it is. Lallana (dodgy groin), Chamberlain (injured), Holmes (out for season), after that you're looking at Guly (doesn't defend much anyway and has been more effective in the middle), Forte (not a wide midfielder) Chaplow (not a wide midfielder and poor form), Schneiderlin (injured) and N'Guessan (completely unproven at Saints) ? Dickson did pretty well there on Saturday but was needed at left back to cover for Harding's injury.

Sounds like every other game in the last two months then. I'm not slating the diamond, simply because injuries and previous experience have dictated that's the formation we have to play. We established earlier in the season that we struggle to create anything in a wide 4-4-2 without Lallana (even when Chamberlain played) and we were getting exploited down the left all game long against Orient by Cox as well and yet still won. On the bright side, it did sound like Forte did well out wide when we lost the narrowness, though Lambert was almost unheard on commentary, presumably due to Dawson dominating him in the air. But as I only heard commentary, I'm not going to be too critical of anyone or anything, because if you're not there, you just can't tell for sure.

11.

According to this (and apologies for the front page picture): http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/RulesandRegulations/~/media/Files/PDF/TheFA/KitRegs2010.ashx/KitRegs2010.pdf One single area not exceeding 200 square centimetres on the front of the shirt although In the event that a club or competition elects to have an area of sponsor advertising only on the front of the shirt, and on no other item of playing kit, that area may be increased to a maximum of 250 square centimetres if approved by the competition. But as the Football League allows ads and sponsors on shorts etc. as well, it's 200 cm squared.

I was wondering that just now, nice of the Rochdale fans to sing his name.

Lallana warmed up at half time with everyone else on Saturday as well...

Oh FFS 2-0 down, Kelv at near post again. Johnno Quick coming on... for... Harding ?! Dickson to LB.