The Kraken

Owen, Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard and Shearer have all been voted in the top three of the world player of the year. By their peers. Which suggest they absolutely meet your benchmark of being "included in a squad of say 22 at any given time." They made a squad of 3. That's before you even get to talking about other English players who have may have made that 22.

Lampard came second in the ballon d'or in 2005, so it would suggest his peers considered he was one of the world's best at one point. Gerrard was also third that year, so same for him too.

Define "world class".

Actually, I was correct. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/fixtures-results/u21-fixtures/ Most games played during the week and during the day, it would seem.

Yeah fair point, not sure where I've got that from, even the U18s play predominantly weekends. No idea if this will work but, if the PL are getting interested, then they must think there's potential to it. Certainly the bigger clubs might get some considerable TV interest. But West Brom v Sunderland reserves on the box isn't going to tick too many boxes for the neutral, you'd have thought. It's worth a try, I suppose. I always thought it was a shame the U21 league developed as it did, it kind of nosedived a little in recent years. The gates we got in the PL were testament to the fact that there was an interest there. Could it be rekindled? Maybe. Online viewing also could, like you say, prove popular for a niche market.

Current kick off times are often during the day in the week, and so aren't (in the main) conducive to big gates or big TV audiences. Moving those to the evenings and making them a regular fixture might change that. We've had gates of 10K against Arsenal and Spurs in the past for reserve games at St. Mary's, so there's clearly something to work with. Whether it will do what the PL are saying/hoping it will do, we'll see.

U23 (plus 4 over age players) instead of U21. Broadcast from the stadiums. Prime time kick off times for public viewing. It's the reserve league but with the Premier League marketing team thrown at it.

Am I the only one that thinks a B league might not necessarily be such a great thing? The current set-up isn't ideal, but it allows the development of players without a burden on the actual results. Results of games are important but nowhere as near as much as progressing the talents of the players. A competitive league could disrupt that. Still, I imagine LR knows hell of a lot more about it than I do so perhaps those fears are unfounded.

Fair enough, and a good answer (albeit one I don't agree with, but that's football). I personally would rather we qualified and worried about next season, next season. I don't fear relegation any more, in fact I loved the lower leagues (although 2 years in League 1 was just about enough). I'd rather we took whatever "success" we can along the way; whether that's a cup and/or a European campaign. The only other goal is Champions League, and I think that's enormously unlikely, so we may as well have a little fun on the way, even if it does mean we don't hit the heights of the top ten every season. It's worth the risk IMO, as otherwise I genuinely don't see the point.

Serious question. If qualifying for the Europa League is a poisoned chalice that you'd rather we didn't qualify for; exactly what are your hopes for Saints for the next, say, 5 or 10 years? What do you aspire to?

I'd guess the argument is that he'll pretty much guarantee he'll have various fallback loan options, so he can take the gamble. Huge wages at City which will last for the duration of his contract, and he's taken the punt of playing for a top side and the recognition that brings. Milner for instance wouldn't have anywhere near as many caps as he does without playing for City, he's the model for which that type of transfer has worked out, on a personal level. Sinclair not so much, but he's still playing Premier League, he'll move to another PL club if WBA go down, and he's probably multiplied his annual salary by a huge amount. It's why I'd take out loans between PL clubs, and put limits on numbers of outgoing loans. In the first place, players might actually think twice before moving. And top PL clubs might actually think twice about hoovering up all the talent if they know that they'll be stuck with a load of high earners on their books that they can't offset by shipping them straight back out. The whole system is f*cked but nobody seems to be in a hurry to repair it.

Sadly I think that is a massive part of it. They can afford to take a punt on a huge array of talent knowing that they can then loan them out to save money and recall any ones (very few) that actually look promising enough to make the first team. It's a scattergun approach of little finesse but where the big clubs can dominate matters. Chelsea 27 players out on loan. Man United 15. Liverpool 14. Arsenal 14. How can anyone within football argue that is good for the game?

Yep. Apparently Chelsea have 27 players out on loan. 27! That's insane.

PL clubs perhaps don't need it, but historically it has worked well for players to go out on loan to the lower leagues, particularly young players. So I don't have too much of a problem with that. Loaning between clubs in the same division is an utter joke.

Loans are ok, its the loans between clubs in the same division that are problem (specifically such as Lukaku). I've no problem with loans between clubs in different divisions but between clubs in the same division makes no sense and is open to abuse of the system in many ways.

He wasn't, you're right. But he should have been. Top quality player.

You left out Lee Molyneux FFS. He got a hat-trick yesterday.

I can't even get texts or make/receive calls, which is a minor pain when various friends are in attendance but scattered around the ground. But then I'm trundling along on 3G in any case. I guess the hardware architecture is pretty expensive, but I'm slightly surprised more clubs haven't got matchday wireless systems and running already. The potential for teaming arrangements with online bookies would in itself make a fairly attractive proposition, I'd have thought.

Are you stuck in the 80s?

That's Man United out of the running then.

Half time, checking on other scores, checking bets. And funnily enough I'm actually able to do more than 1 thing at a time other than dedicate 100% of my attention at all times to the game in play.

About time. In this day and age it's daft that you can't get any sort of phone connection when at a game. My 3G signal just goes to pot, its completely worthless during the 90 minutes and at half time.

Straw man me up.

I can see Man United getting rid of RvP and bringing in Lallana. A front three of Rooney, Mata and Lallana is pretty tasty. Just hope that Moyes doesn't get given significant money to spend; it would now clearly take a huge amount to take Lallana away.

I dunno pal; is somebody stopping you from discussing all these other "real" topics?