The Kraken

Luke Shaw will the latest acid test. If we can keep him until he's in his 20s then we might be onto something. Anyway for me its a little irrelevant trying to stave off the big boys; its making sure we don't lose players to the tier two type sides such as Everton, Newcastle, Villa and previously Sunderland. We've lost the likes of Beattie, Kachloul etc to those clubs in the past, if we can cut that out as being seen by the player as a significant upwards move then that'll have more benefit in fighting a losing battle against the top 4.

And I've got no problem with that way of thinking. Look at the current batch of Saints graduates and your "1 a year" assertion isn't too far off. Its been a really good turnaround of players. Expecting us to hold onto those players? Much more difficult. As soon as top 4, Champions league clubs come in we're really, really up against it. And it will be the exception rather than the norm if we can keep those at bay. We've had a brilliant youth system for many years, if we can just look to continue and develop that I'd be absolutely delighted. Putting limits and unrealistic targets on it is a bit pointless IMO.

So we only had to keep hold of £80M rated Gareth Bale. And England stars Walcott and Chamberlayne. So close.

And these were the words from Les Reed in 2011, so I think the original sentiment was actually correct. "We’ve got an ambition to be not just a Premier League club but a competitive Premier League club,’ says Reed. ‘If we want half our team to come from the academy, which we do, the recruitment needs to be the best, and the development plan for each individual needs to be excellent, as do the facilities, the sports science and the technical quality of the coaching."

Kind of a pointless stat then, really. To "graduate" from the academy it means that you've been through the youth team and then been selected first team squad through that. So "graduation" in itself is the art of being selected for the first team squad. Unless they're saying they want half the Under 18 team to "graduate", its pretty much unquantifiable.

Anything less than the play-offs would be a massive failure for them. Their chief-exec keeps banging on about his limited budget, but its still well up in the top 5 of 6 of the division. even if they'd have been given -10 they'd have had a decent chance of promotion. And div 3 has three automatic promotion spots, top 7 gets you into the play-offs. To miss out on that would be an epic f*ck up. I don't think they'll win the division but pretty sure they'll get one of the automatic spots, their budget alone dictates that they'll do ok.

The whole "policy" of having half a squad full of academy graduates is a pipe-dream anyway. A great ambition to have, but neither a ground-breaking one (every PL would like to do it if they could) nor a terribly realistic one. A PL bench with 7 players gives a squad size of 18, that means at any time we'd need 9 players good enough to play for the first team. Even to fill half a team we'd need 5 of 6 academy grads; a very tough ask at any time. But then I think the talk of the "policy" was just talk anyway. Saints have always had an excellent history down the decades of bringing youth team players through, a continuation of that would be just fine.

Good. Competition for places is exactly what we need. Cork got taken off fairly early in games towards the end of the season, if anything he looked weary from a long campaign. Fair play to Schneiderlin for keeping the performance levels up to then end. Having three players to be able rotate is sensible for a side looking to push on and improve, and also gives us more potential for midfield variation against different sides.

It was great for a year, the second year was great as we got out of it. Doing more than 2 years in the lower leagues would have been a chore, the relief to get out of it when we did was enormous. The Championship, I'm still of the opinion that that was my favourite year as a Saints fan, although common logic will dictate that you strive to be in the highest division you can. That lot should have a laugh for a year or two down there, and I'm sure they will. But if they languish in League 2 for any time (or even League 1 for that matter) the novelty will wear off pretty quickly.

The Premier League and Europe were also a great thing to be in, when they were there. Not any more though. Oh no. Boring. Really boring, and only for plastic fans. Division 4 is only place to be for real fans.

Frontrow.eu used to be frontrow.com but changed after legal difficulties, so I'm sure something similar will happen again. And its not as if there's a shortage of streaming sites. Its a bit like Napster being shut down; just for show, it'll make little difference whatsoever.

the only saving grace would be black shorts and white/red socks. Sadly it simply will be all red. Dear lord, our identity and branding changed overnight.

Colin, you are Cortese's dream customer!

The best protest is not to buy it. That is a protest that would work, never mind a pointless Facebook campaign that will achieve nothing.

Considering I knew it was an all red kit, that shirt is even worse than I was hoping for. F*ck me. I just hope no one buys it, it's scandalously poor. Sadly there are enough people who will buy it come what may, despite it just bring an 80s Adidas t shirt with a p*ss poor looking badge.

Well he clearly hasn't learnt anything from being sentenced to more than 6 years prison for it in his life, so I don't think a spot of community work will make much difference. Especially as he'll likely just be intent to do it in the buff yet again.

Well feck me. I don't think I'd have ever got that. Good question though.

Need a clue.

Edit: never mind!

He sounds like an idiot.

Dammit. I was going to put forward Steve Guppy, but he's a one cap wonder.

Steve Finnan.

It is more than from years back but I don't have a problem with it. No-one forces you to buy the shirt, and if people stopped buying shirts then the change every year wouldn't happen. So it satisfies demand. And you can't really complain if you buy an item of clothing and a year later it needs replacing.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Nope, those links seem to be broken for me.

Also, wasn't in November time and not a summer competition? I have no idea why the atmosphere was muted. All Saints Day?