The Kraken

Yes, I have one.

Launched around 1st July.

Good for you. Personally, I would find that almost exactly the same as our current kit, and therefore pretty sh*t. There we go. Opinions.

No; there was a just a previous poster on here who regularly arrived on posts telling people they shouldn't be worried about things that he, well, wasn't worried about. I sensed your post was running along the same lines. And of course some new kits are "horrible". The Cardiff one is disgusting; so is the Boro one. The West Ham one IMO is very nice, as are a lot of the templates. Its called having an opinion and expressing it. Kind of what message boards are for, really.

Yes, they quite obviously do. Are you here to tell us that everyone shouldn't really be bothered again?

I'm not sure I can see myself in a scenario where a permanent change to an all-red Saints kit is acceptable to me. It'll always just be a very cheap and needless decision in my eyes and, while it won't make the slightest bit of of difference of course, I would never buy such a kit. I don't mind changing tradition when there's a decent reason for it, or if its backed by the fanbase, but going to all-red seems to just be on one man's whim and I can't get on board with that. Its extremely minor in my list of priorities for supporting Saints, but its still on the list. There we go. My prediction is that we'll definitely have the reverse of the West Ham away kit, so predominantly red with bits of white including the 3 adidas stripes on the shoulders which will be offered up as our "traditional stripes".

I bucked the trend

Welcome back Bear-features xx

There was a thread on here the other day where some guy had challenged his Man United supporting mate that Saints had a better "all time academy XI" than Man U. Turns out, of course, not even close. It was a silly boast. Also another recent thread pouring scorn on an article highlighting West Ham's academy success, ignoring their 20 years of success in bringing all manner of international players through. we've got a very good academy. One to be proud of. One we should develop further. You won't find anyone in their right mind who would debate those facts. What we don't have is the best academy in the country/world, in terms if history. We also don't have a blank sheet if paper to create a blueprint for all other clubs to follow, that's a naive and arrogant thought. We do have a good backup of youth coming through and an obligation to give opportunities to youngsters. I'll choose to not get that confused with bring a magic wand that we've never had before and is the secret to European success and showing other clubs how it should be done.

Indeed, and a damned good idea it is too, following a well laid blueprint that they and indeed we have been successful at for decades.

At the risk of labouring the point.....I completely agree with this part. Always have. Always will. I just disagreed with your notion of "setting a blueprint" or however you decided to describe it, as I don't think it holds true. Especially so as we ourselves this season have let some of our academy grads go out on loan to get some experience, something which you point at other clubs for doing in a seemingly negative fashion. We should definitely aim to continue being a side that brings through a decent array of talent. I just can't quite get absorbed by the notion that we'll be blazing a trail and setting records in doing so; plenty of other clubs have a decent record of bringing players through too.

Yeah, I really don't buy that line, sorry. It just doesn't seem to ring true. Maybe at the very top level they get farmed out, but that's hardly surprising given the level of player clubs need to churn out to have something better than they can buy. PL clubs haven't been investing tens of millions into their academies for no reason. The investment in bringing through youth and better coaching from younger levels is at an all time high. Villa are rightly getting plaudits for their approach to it, amongst various others.

As I said above, we must give it a go, we'd be stupid not to. Just your comment of "being the blueprint" struck me as the unrealistic part. We're not blazing a trail of inventiveness, we're seeking to maximise our academy system as we have done in the past (as I said with that remarkable late 80s team where almost half the team were sometimes made up of youth graduates) and as many other clubs are ploughing millions into doing right now. Also I'm not sure if I agree with your comment that "clubs at this level rarely give youth a chance", in fact I wonder if in this day and age its actually becoming more and more common than in bygone days.

Of course there's nothing wrong with it; its just that it often gets portrayed as an idea that other clubs either haven't thought of or won't be capable of. Saints as a club have a rich history of bringing youth through (remember the late 90s teams of the Wallace brothers, Le Tissier, Shearer, Benali et al. Yes we should try to emulate it; we should also remember that us and every other club in the division is trying to do the exact same right now, so "being the blueprint" is a bit naïve thinking IMO.

Do you think that other clubs have not previously thought of it? It seems like you're suggesting its a whole new novel approach that no other club has considered before.

Being as the expectation level is for our next to kit to be as sh*t at the current mess, then I guess its a case of "look at what you could have won". Probably a bit pointless, but also shows that its actually pretty easy to design a kit that finds favour with a decent proportion of the fanbase.

Of course it's relevant what Moyes did. If not, why highlight them as a top 6 club in the first place? If Everton change their style completely then it's entirely speculation as to whether Lambert could fit in. From their previous form and style finishing last season in the top 6, no I just don't see them integrating Lambert into that.

No I don't, as i see it they don't seem to use that type of player up front, they go for someone more mobile with Fellaini a bit more Lambert like behind.

I'd agree with the original list except for Lambert. Love having him but I think our whole ethos of building our game around him would hold us back from being a top 6 side. He's clearly good enough for the PL and as a starting choice for a mid table side, but not a starting slot for a top 6 side IMO.

Could the aap3 logo be a bit bigger maybe? Our fans on Neptune can't quite make it out from there.

He could also play, in fact he was absolutely brilliant for us, but Casey always loved a tackle and was an enforcer for the younger generation of Le Tissier, the Wallaces, Shearer etc coming through. I'd have backed him against Hurlock any day; it was a sad day when Branfoot saw Jimmy as a threat to his authority and binned him out. A really great bloke, too.

That was only after I sent you that PM about him in February.

Funnily enough I saw him yesterday while walking along Wembley Way. I'd seen the recent pictures of him but it's still absolutely staggering how huge he is now.

That's all it would take, though. Bringing out a red shirt this season kind of made sense; there's only so much you can do with traditional stripes, and if you keep churning them out year on year I doubt that's as good a sales strategy as mixing it about. Even if the red shirt was seen as totally sh*t by some, it was novel and different and I can see that plenty probably bought one for that novelty factor. The test will come if we find we have indeed been subject to a rebranding and we have an all-red kit again this year. Its very much a lite-version of what Cardiff have been through, and a situation I'd much prefer to avoid. But if it does happen, the only way we're getting stripes back on the agenda is if people wholesale refuse to accept the re-branding and don't buy the kit. Its the only protest we have of any note whatsoever; but I think fans' ambivalence to the whole affair will get the better of them in the long run.

I hope its the opposite, and rather than buying the shirt last season because it was a novelty, this time round we'd actually have some significant opposition to it as a future re-branding. Sadly I can't see that being the case, there's plenty of fans who'll buy the shirt come what may.