trousers

If LD Sports is completely unconnected to Gao then surely no-one in the higher echelons of the club can be surprised they've turned out to be bogus given the obvious fabrication and amateurism that their website purveyed at the time (and still does to a certain degree)...? #squirrel

So LD Sports aren't a Gao shell company, they're a completely separate entity...? Or is it Gao that has scarpered...?

Love Kumar and Corden. Very funny guys

I wonder if it was Ralph that gave the players permission to go abroad or would that decision have been made elsewhere in the club? Ralph obviously won't be chuffed if the decision wasn't his. As LeG says... "Typical Saints" to get something like this wrong, if it is indeed quarantine issues stopping some players taking part in pre season training

More thinking out loud.... could the problem be the sheer size of the database? We do have 14 years worth of crud afterall! Maybe the answer is to archive all content off to some storage unit in the sky and start again from afresh? Yours clutching-at-straws-ly

I don't go back quite that far (work wise) but part of my training for a large bank in 1986 did involve punched card programming

Yep... their whole kit launch was with no sponsor... all a tad curious.... https://www.rcdespanyol.com/es/actualidad/las-nuevas-equipaciones-20-21-presentadas/_n:11426/

Somewhat untypical of the club to only release a few 'first day of training' photos. Pretty sure we usually get a bumper bundle of 'day 1' photos. I guess they might blame it on Covid but even so, pre-season publicity has definitely got off to a much more subdued pace than usual IMO. Probably nothing whatsoever to read into this of course

I'm possibly in "teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" territory here (so apologies in advance to @stevegrant if this sounds patronising, it's not intended to) but if its a case of troubleshooting bugs and/or quirks in the software, then couldn't Steve put out an appeal to the SWF massive to see if anyone can help him get to the bottom of things rather than him having to taken the entire burden of resolution on his own shoulders? 'Many hands make light work' as they say in cliche land. Just thinking out loud.... (and being an IT bod myself, although more of an old fashioned one - 1980s vintage , I know you can also have 'too many cooks spoiling the broth' when it comes to problem troubleshooting if people start stepping on each other's toes.)

Keep your eye on the training photos @LeG said, so here goes...

I probably could have made up a really funny punchline there if we were just about to sign Beattie... #oneforthekids

And what about Maureen Lipman?

And what about Maureen Lipman?

Why the blimmin' Nora is Danny Ings trending..?

"First summer signing" for Spurs apparently... Erm... Didn't they sign that squad player from us recently...?

Have you tried your local library? https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries

Winners: Man Utd Relegated: WBA, Fulham, Burnley Saints: 1 place / 2 points below whatever "madness" is declared as this season

Salisu crocked or unfit (same difference) is my reading-between-the-lines on this one too. The pieces of the jigsaw seem to fit. Edit: maybe we weren't able to do our usual rigorous pre-signing medical procedures due to Covid-19 restrictions, so took a bit of a punt ? (more reading-between-the-lines)

Aye, probably, although he did add: "... and that's not just because of my own personal situation, its about what's going on at the club as a whole" (paraphrasing / words to that effect)

So, either training kicks off tomorrow or he's taking up marijuana...?

Good interview with him on the OS: https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/2020-08-17/video-james-ward-prowse-new-contract-southampton-football-club Interesting that he says a couple of times that this is the "most excited" he's been pre-season for several years given where the club is now. Don't think he'd be talking in such exhuberent terms if there were issues about ownership, squad budget, etc, hanging over the club. What with this and Ralph signing a new deal recently too, surely this gives some kind of indication that something promising is happening on the ownership side of things? (Reading between the lines I know.....)

Do we know when the first day of pre-season training is? Thought it might be today?

Cheers for the update @LeG I think people were somewhat intrigued by your "typical Saints" remark when you mentioned we might need to buy another CB. It gave the impression something unexpected had happened in the CB department, and that it might therefore have involved someone other than Vestergaard (given it wouldn't be that unexpected if he left)

Love Russell Howard. Very funny (despite being a tad left wing)

QCCTfr.mp4