VectisSaint

Suggests we will sign two keepers, we can't go through the season, including the PL2 and ELT with 2 senior keepers (assuming we sign McCarthy) and one u18, however good Lewis might be. Maybe it will just be another young keeper, unless we are going to rely on Kelv coming out of retirement in case of emergency.

McQueen looks like he will be in the squad, has looked accomplished, apart from one error against Twente. Actually looks better thsn Targett now he is playing in his original position. Stephens is clearly ready, probably no worse thsn Gardos. Isgrove makes no impression. Valery looks good, probably decent backup for Cedric. Jones is good, but probably needs another year or so. Afraid Sam G is mot up to it, and not sure about OO. Reed looks good for a while, then disappears. Haven't seen anythimg from snyone else that would indicate they are ready. Hopefully Seager can make an impression when he recovers.

OK, I'll go with that, and save my massive thumbs up until the current board have improved 5 seasons on the trot I was happy to acknowledge their achievements after 4 though (even 3 would be remarkable, were it to happen).

We improved 4 seasons in a row with the previous board, and 2 (that's 6 not 7) with the current board. Will give a massive thumbs up when the current board match their predecessors

Only an issue if you seriously believe u21 teams will make it to the final. Highly unlikely in my opinion. Decent L1 or even top L2 teams who are playing together week in/week out will beat u21 teams who have been brought together purely for these games. Would be quite surprised if any u21 teams even make it to the semis. If it had been the u23 teams, as in PL2, then maybe things would have been different. Good to see Cheltenham Town in the Northern Group, unless Cheltenham has been relocated overnight.

It did when I wrote that.

I know, but you said in all 3 pre-seasons since he joined us. This is only his second pre-season since he joined.

He signed for us after pre-season in 2014 (14 August). Leverkusen friendly was on 9 August. We played Liverpool on the 17th in the first league match and he was on the bench on the 30th August (West Ham away).

Arguably, but certainly while Gardos is injured. I would expect: Forster, Cedric, Fonte, VVD, Bertrand, Clasie, Romeu, Davis, Redmond, Tadic, Long Subs, Gazza (or new GK), Stephens, Yoshida, Targett, Hojbjerg, Austin, JRod [using this site at the moment is absolute ****]

With George Curtis as their head coach.

You said "press", by what stretch of the imagination is Townsend "press". Media, OK. Does he write for a paper? Can he even write?

Really, always think of the **** as Villa, through and through.

Pshycologically a good team consists of 7 Road Sweepers and 4 Concert Violinists, if you are really lucky you get one lead violinist (according to Lawrie when Alan Ball died, "Alan started life as a road sweeper but became the best lead violinist Southampton ever had" - arguable of course, but neither MLT or Micky were ever road sweepers)

The new Saints TV Channel, exclusive to Virgin. Next we will have a radio station and then the catering will be the best in the world.

Can't guarantee it, but I suspect only Registered Users will be getting these problems. Thats because Full Users don't get the adverts. Its the adverts that contain the links to porno sites and so on. The adverts generate income (from GoogleAds) and the income is surprisingly high (I know because I run web sites with GoogleAds), probably significantly more than is generated by the £5 annual fee. Thing is the ads can be configured, so that only certain categories of ads are displayed, you can filter out crap like dating sites, definitely porno and so on. Steve needs to do some admin configuration work and then this problem ought to be resolved. Its particularly bad if you are using your smartphone where it is easier to fat finger and click on ads by mistake. This really needs sorting, I've stopped accessing the site from my smartphone because it seems easy to get infected messages. I could of course pay my £5 again but while certain users remain on here and continue their abusive posting I refuse to do so. But soon the site will lose more and more of its income because it is not being managed properly.

Guess that depends if he plays or not. Noted that he doesn't appear in any of the training pictures/videos (as far as I can see) taken since the club returned from the USA. No news why he didn't travel, and yet he was back in full training before the end of last season. So what has happened? he is a nice guy so hope he comes back, but personally think we have decent back up for him anyway in Stephens and Turnbull.

You must have known about this on Tuesday. League and Clubs have kept it very much under wraps until tonight. Kudos/ITK points. Question is why we have not entered the International Cup? 12 of the 24 PL2 teams have "entered" (Aston Villa, Chelsea, Derby County, Everton, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Middlesbrough, Norwich City, Reading, Sunderland, Swansea City). You would have thought it would have been based on the league position last year, but seemingly not. The only Division 1 teams not in the International Cup are Arsenal, Man City and Saints. Thinking this may be part of the reason why some teams have declined their invitation to the Football League Trophy.

Derry, do you know this is true, or are you basing this on MLG's reply on Monday on the Dom Gape thread? MLG is usually right, but I have searched evrywhere for news that this has changed and found nothing to support it. The change was one of those mooted by Greg Dyke back in 2014 (together with B teams), but other than that there is no reference to it. All the PL clubs including Saints seem to be preparing for an u21 league (although no fixtures yet around), as well the EFL Trophy is u21. Surely if this change to u23 was happening the clubs would be playing u23 friendlies as a build up. Genuinely interested to know, u23 is probably the right way to go, but just can't find any evidence of this actually happening yet.

Beginning to think you may have made this up...

Two words - growth spurt.

Are you sure about this? Never seen or heard about this change that was mooted by Greg Dyke back in 2014 along with other changes. All the Clubs, including Saints, seem to be preparing for an u21 competition this season (though there are no fixtures out yet) and u21 also coincides with the Football League Trophy rules (albeit with slightly different dates for the definition of u21). If you are right (and you usually are) I'm genuinely interested to know why this has not been publicised more widely, where it is confirmed and why the club is preparing for u21 football this season. [unable to come back on this earlier as I had used up my 3 posts for the day]

Dom was in the reckoning though, even Koeman gave him a PL debut against Everton in 2014 (sub for Long), albeit very short one. He got a new contract last year until 2017 and was captain of the u21s last season. Why did we bother extending his contract last season and then making him u21 captain? Of course he is no longer u21, so something has to give I guess. Sometimes think we hang on to some of our youngsters too long, we should probably be more ruthless.

You sure, his name appears just below Mugabi's, about the 6th post down: Josh Ezewele, Bevis Mugabi, Snorre Nilsen, Trialist X Josh Wakefield, Joe Lea, Dominic Gape,

Thinking that the introduction of safe standing would also mean cheaper tickets is naive at best. If anything I could imagine clubs charging more to compensate for the additional investment. Also can imagine that the safe standing areas would quickly sell out to the 20-40s age group and kids would not get a look in. I'm very much in favour of safe standing though. Even at my advanced age, stood through the whole games at Man City and Arsenal last season (with no stewards even attempting to ask us to sit), and do prefer it generally.

No. Wealth is relative of course, but I think growing up on a council estate on Guernsey would not mean they were "very well off".