The Kraken

Banana skin averted, another chance for the team to play together, but perhaps another example of how far we've got to go to get anywhere near last season's fluidity. Damn goo see a strong line-up, and great to see Pelle get the reward he deserved. It will be a long road but this was a decent step (albeit against very limited opposition).

Because it did its job and made the correct decision. To prove your point, can you outline how GLT made today's decision worse? I'll help you out. You can't. You've just got this one wrong. GLT is a good thing. Technology or otherwise for different mistakes is something completely different.

So how did GLT get in the way of the" correct" result being given. What flaw was actually exposed in what the technology can do?

Great work on laughing at your own joke.

What a hit. Great goal.

What a hit. Great goal.

Yep, agree with this. We don't have our high intensity style of last season.

Yep, agree with this. We don't have our high intensity style of last season.

Talksport just reported the deal at £2M. No idea where they got that figure from but good business if true.

How do you work that out? The club tweeted about 14K tickets sold beforehand, and the total attendance was 17K or so. Hardly a huge proportional extra.

As it was on various occasions last season, especially with no Lambert. Another striker is very much a priority.

Exeter 1 Portsmyth 0, Tom Nichols 27.

Pretty much sums it up IMO. Trying to shoehorn him into the England side as a holding midfielder just didn't work against decent opposition. He got away with it at Liverpool because of their attacking ability, but the Chelsea c*ck up and Palace 3-3 highlighted deficiencies when it came to the crunch.

One of the tragedies of mondboard lore is that the Ted Bates Statue thread never made it over from the old site. Genuine laugh out loud moments on every page, an absolute classic.

The Ted Bates statue fiasco is testament to what happens when you gather a bunch of well meaning simpletons towards a common cause. Also I think the advent of the internet has given fans a voice, it's a medium that wasn't available when SISA came about, and forming a fans group was the only way to get that sort of mass opinion across.

In terms of age, he's not "that" young. He's only a couple of months younger than Luke Shaw. That said, Shaw was a phenomenon. If Targett can be at least a decent second choice this season it will be an achievement. Any more a massive bonus.

The irony of droning on about a lack of class and dignity by submitting a hate-fuelled expletive-laden rant about a chap you've never even met. Top work.

Yes, I'm sure you're right that we'll sign zero other new players by the time the seaso kicks off. It will definitely be none. Speculating otherwise is silly. You're 100% right of course (as ever). Thanks for putting me right. I was only hoping we'd sign some players, but now you've said that we haven't, things are much clearer.

The U21s just got thrashed 5-1 by Carlisle. Perhaps a small indication of the level of quality. Not averse to a short term loan in the slightest (as long as we have enough cover at the club to make up for it). In any case, the club know what they're doing when it comes to youth development, so we'll of course defer to their better judgement, whatever the final outcome.

Yep, agree with this. If (as seems very likely) Osvaldo is off, then we need to bring it at least 2 new strikers. Sam Gallagher is young and tried hard, but at the back end of last season he showed that he's not ready yet for regular Premier League football. No shame in that at all, at such an age. Mayuka might come back but he can't really be seen as a genuine starting option. Pelle isn't ideal due to his age, but we definitely need a first choice striker to come straight in and hit the ground running and he loks the most likely target. Can Ings do that too? I'm not convinced either way, I simply don't know enough about him. There's also the possibility we may face a change in formation to a 3-5-2, as Koeman has done it before. So if he does go for that, we'd need far more than the Lambert-Gallagher available combo we had last year. Although, such a formation would probably allow JRod to play in a forward role again when he returns. Even so, we'd probably need to have 3-4 genuine starting forwards vying for the places to make it work over a season. Pre-season will be very interesting. First to see our clutch of new players, and second to see how they line up. If we do go for the 3-5-2 option which Holland have re-invented then I think that could be very interesting indeed (although we would need to improve the centre back options).

Technically could be potential problems against a few sides. Should be ok in most cases, but you could argue a case for quite a few sides: Aston Villa, Burnley and West Ham. All dark maroon with blue in the tops, so the red of the stripes and the dark blue may not be ideal. Palace, red and blue. QPR, can't wear the blue away, would red and white stripes offer enough contrast against blue and white hoops? Newcastle and West Brom, both dark/white stripes so both our kits could cause issues. We'd probably be ok in most instances, to be fair, but it might indicate a potential need for a third kit. Especially against Palace and QPR.

Hmmm. I'm not really a fan, to be honest. I think it looks smart, and I certainly don't dislike it. Just something about it that I'm not a huge fan of, can't really put my finger on. Not remotely bothered though; it's an away kit for a year or so. Although it seems quite fitted, so it will be quite interesting to see what some of the XXL brigade look like after they squeeze themselves into their own oversized versions.

Good memories. We were absolutely dirge at times in those two seasons; sometime great but for the most part quite terrible. But I always look back fondly on those days, even though it was clearly so often so very disappointing. Despite Saints being a bit sh*t, I always found the contrast to the Premier League to be very refreshing and the match-going experience was still something completely different to what we had gotten used to in the top league for so long. The Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday routine of a 46 game season in the Championship is still one of the things that makes it a fantastic division. Palace 1-4 on opening day of 07-08, I'll always remember that one, I was in a corporate box with friends of both sides and it was eye opening! But looking back, utterly hilarious. The Sheffield United staying up game last game of the season, still my favourite game at St. Mary's (I prefer it even to both promotion pitch invasions). 08-09 was very dark for most of the time, but still some cracking memories including the 3-2 Preston away fight back, 3 wins in a row in feb to give some hope before the final capitulation, and of course the massive upturn in crowds and anticipation once Rupert had finally been ousted. Happy days.

Even at this very early stage in the window, this is a very good indication of how the closed-shop nature of the top few clubs in the Premier League is only going to get worse. Man City have yet to get properly in gear too.

What could have been if Adidas were still on board and went with stripes. Hideous. Pretty naff design. Club badge far too low. Ridiculously cheap looking panel sponsor. Basically, utterly sh*t.