The9

Sticky please... I'm fairly confident that we should finish at worst second. Pending half the team being unavailable at any one time for a while, of course.

That's not true either, if Brighton lost 2 games in addition to the one that we'd have beaten them in by winning all of our matches we'd win the League. Hypothetically speaking, in case anyone thinks I'm being "unrealistic" or something. I'm still not over the BHA bloke warning us about Bournemouth, who we've already rolled over twice so far.

Having also had experience at Newport when they had a speedway track around the pitch at Somerton Park in the 1970s, I can confirm that speedway tracks are either smaller than athletics tracks, or the pallets of turf they used to wheel in for the corners of the pitch must have been much bigger than I thought. And of course Wembley Stadium had greyhounds.

I pretty much agree with you. The Withdean is craapamundo because the away fans are behind the curved track, the long jump pit, the high jump, a perimeter fence and a random area of concrete - plus it's an open stand, and you're a million miles from the far end of the pitch and any opposing fans. It's not just the distance, it's the rubbish open plan nature of the place - but the distance is particularly bad too. Newport County's Conference ground is at an athletics track and you can't hear the opposing stand and the view from the back of even the side stands is relatively useless as the biggest stand only goes back about 25 rows. However, when they whacked some temp stands right behind the goal inside the athletics track for the visit of Blackpool in the FA Cup in 2001 the place improved significantly. Subsequent promotions meant the need for permanent structures behind the goals, which start about 50 yards from the pitch and are utterly pointless as no-one uses them. Meanwhile, I can't say the athletics track at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin was an issue when I went in 2006, but I was a fair way back in the stand and it was worse being behind the goal at old Wembley. Again, the nearer you SHOULD be, the further away it feels. Front row people don't expect to be 50 yards from the near byline. Having been to Stade de France for a few games in 1998 as well, I can confirm that the view from the low down seats is a bit pants, but further back it's not a problem. In summary, if the stand goes back a long way the distance to the pitch doesn't seem significant, but in small grounds, an athletics track absolutely kills the view and usually any chance of an atmosphere too.

Albeit about 10 feet below the running track. Also, I'm pretty sure a running lane is wider than the combination of aisle and seat. So let's say 20 feet above the pitch and a superstructure taking up the first 16 rows of seats. Actually as I'm in Row S that works out pretty well for me.

Actually only Peterborough can catch us by winning a game in hand, and we're playing them next week. As for home games, meh, it doesn't mean anything, we scored 6 at Oldham and don't always get better results home than away.

We are consistent. We win about 5 in a row then drop a couple of points. That'll be good enough. And the home record is down to the crud results at the start of the season more than anything. Lots of aways to come, we'll have a much better idea of potential by mid-March.

I don't see why we can't still win it, plenty of matches to go.

Yes, what you're missing is the fact that if the Spurs plan goes ahead the Olympic Stadium will be fundamentally changed in build after the Olympics and they're using that opportunity to rebuild to optimise the stadium for football as far as they're allowed, whilst we already have a completed ground already designed for football in which such changes aren't required.

Don't want to bother you with facts, but everyone I know in south Wales knows what it means and a few people use it occasionally, never mind getting narky about Portsmouth... ...before I moved here I always thought it was a London phrase as I'd heard it regularly used there as well. Either way, it's very widely used and not worth getting bothered about.

Can You Help ?

I think we could probably get a temporary stand with about 25 rows put in front of the Itchen, but it's going to be a right sod for anyone sitting in the Itchen to be able to see with it there. Equally, digging diagonally from the front of the Itchen under the pitch might give us the chance to construct a trench to trap Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in, but the sightlines will probably be restricted. Especially with the running track going overhead.

It was help I was after.

Which turns out to be right, according to this thread on 606 : http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A37744167 18 year old French midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin from RC Strasbourg will sign a 4 year contract with Saints today, choosing us over Pompey. Also there should be a press conference later today, possibly to unveil Poortvliet or announce the retained list or both or maybe more. Press conference was also mentioned on Radio Hampshire.

Lowe, to give the obvious answer.

As far as the club is concerned the "academy" is responsible for "the likes of Mike Channon, Matthew Le Tissier, the Wallace brothers, Alan Shearer and Francis Benali through to Wayne Bridge, Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale in more recent seasons" http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/AcademyHistory Even ignoring their convenient revisionism, I remember it being called the Academy from at least 2003 onwards, and it could have been a name change to coincide with the move to St Mary's, can't really remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if the name had been in use for over 10 years.

I get your point about capacity reduction, as you'd lose all the rows along the side stands between the current front of the stand and the hypothetical goal line, and all the rows along the end stands which there wouldn't be room for with touchline tight stands - as well as a load of seats in the corner where the "corner pieces" would also be a smaller curve. But if what we'd wanted was the intimacy of The Dell with a similar number of spectators as St Mary's they'd just have built the stands higher and further upwards to attain the same capacity. It's the UEFA international grading and safety regulations that's the reason it's not a "touch-tight" arena.

I would like it known that I have seen local children in a relay race around the perimeter of the pitch (aka "running track") during half time. So clearly Redknapp WAS having a go at us directly, and isn't just (for once) saying exactly what everyone else thinks about stadia with running tracks (like for instance the horrible Withdean and Newport County's ground in the Conference) rather than talking a load of garbage. Personally I'm surprised we haven't converted the middle of each stand into a velodrome as well. Barcelona have a basketball team, why shouldn't we diversify ? Also, I have completely lost my mind. CYH?

Actually thanks to the subjective nature of assessing player abilities and the legal minefield in PROVING the reasons behind a team's selection that any court case would raise, I think they can probably implement whatever discriminatory policies they want in their squad selection, provided they're not discriminating on those grounds in things like office jobs etc. Even Bilbao have started broadening their recruitment to include those with basque relatives or residents now, more in line with the realities of surviving in Primera Liga than any sudden disposal of tradition though. It was EU employment legislation that led to the faff of a solution that currently exists regarding squad composition anyway, Platini wanted to be more militant with restrictions but legal and political mindsets regarding the free movement of trade within the EU prevented it. Don't forget that he played a sizeable chunk of his career in the "restricted to 2 foreigners per team" Italian League in the 1980s - and the problems English teams had with UEFA foreigner rules when first returning to UEFA competitions in 1990/1 compared to their unregulated heyday of the late 70s/early 80s.

The whole transfer market is going to be interesting to watch in the next few seasons with the "wages as a percentage of turnover" regulations and UEFA's insistence on financial stability (LOL@Skate Cheats) as a pre-requisite of playing in European competitions, and FIFA's newly-found ability to financially administer transfer deals possibly leading to more transparency all round.

I think we'd probably get in trouble for importing 25 basque players.

Athletic Bilbao ?

It's also about hanging onto those players when they get successful - it's fine "imagining Bridge had stayed" but he left in a close season when we were a decent top-half Prem side with a UEFA Cup appearance to look forward to ! Generally though I think we're in agreement. It's not going to be easy, but it is something that might be achieved - I just don't think it's necessarily a goal to be aspiring to unless the youth recruitment rules change in the opposite direction to the way they seem to be going, which would make bringing your local players through a significant factor in success. As it stands at the moment, the Prem are trying to deregulate the regional rules - i.e. protecting themselves against teams outside the Prem with successful youth policies by hoovering up the talent from everywhere and stemming the likelihood of talented players coming from other teams' academies very early on. If Chelsea sign the best 5,000 kids from wherever in the UK on the off-chance that 2 of them will be Champions League level, where does that leave clubs who aren't able to offer a Premier League opportunity ? Waiting for drop outs rather than being able to develop them from youth themselves, that's where.

Fair enough, so let's have a look at how many Sotonians have played for Saints in the past 30 years, and the birthplaces of the kids currently in the academy to see how realistic THAT is without embarking on a policy of signing locals rather than necessarily the best players for that position... of course then there's a question about whether you mean the Premier League 'home grown' definition which is a much wider category. As a quick Google, Oscar Gobern, Steve Basham and Scott Bevan would qualify - but I'm going to have to leave that list up to someone else !

Also, if you look at the progress of the kids who were actually playing in the top level Academy side circa 2003 when we were a successful Prem side, only Baird and Walcott are currently at Prem level - most of the successes are at Championship level, and there are loads who are playing below that. Bale was also a young kid in that structure that long ago, but we were long gone from the Prem when he got in the side, and Surman, Best and Blackstock have all had a whiff of top-level football either with Saints or after leaving, but they don't look likely to stick there. So even when we had the infrastructure in place and a first team relatively successful at the top level we still didn't actually produce much in the way of enduring Premier League talent, it's a big jump from that to a team of home-grown kids coming through.