The Kraken

They REALLY aren't, Dave.

That's 100% true, is it? In every single case? We don't miss out on any sales, at all, by keeping it all hush hush and then providing a short window for sales? There's a damned good reason that season tickets go on sale early at every other club; not only to get the money in the bank, but also to maximise sales. Being as we haven't got a bottomless pit of money and are competing against other clubs with much more resource than us, its a legitimate question to ask why we aren't trying to maximise our sales.

They were going to press on with the Steve Bull stand straight away, but shelved plans for it back in January. Instead they will be spending (some of) the money earmarked on upgrading their training facilities (apparently budgetting £6M plus for it) so they can achieve category 1 status. Interesting to note that the stand just put in will cost £18M.

We already have that option (and have played it) with Guly in the AM role.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2782391,00.html Full article. Radhi Jaidi is taking up a figurehead role.

Why not? Plenty of our players gained new, improved contracts as we moved through the leagues, usually a fair bit before their current deal expired.

Whoever we bring in, I absolutely can't see that it would be done on a "No. 1, No. 2" basis. It will surely be that we bring in a keeper and all talk will be about competition for the first team place. So, with that in mind, it would be Kelvin's place to lose. And there's always the factor that any new keeper may need some time to settle in (as de Gea did at Man United) so it would be a bit stupid to label the new keeper as the new number 1 only to then revert to last year's first choice. It would be crazy to sign a new keeper just as a No. 2, but equally so to deprive KD of the chance to make the spot his own. I think we'll get a keeper equal to or better than KD, but he'll have to earn his place.

Grant Holt has just put in a transfer request at Norwich; the club have quickly rejected it.

You must have missed the part where I said I disagreed with him too, so I'm not exactly following your logic. Internet chum, f*ck me.

Just wondered what caused such a reaction to someone suggesting where one football club might finish in relation to another club next season; seemed a bit over the top to me. You carry on though.

Wow. Do you think you would you would have kicked up such an unnecessary stink if Delldays had predicted we'd finish above West Ham? Close seasons are always going to be about speculation. especially before we know who will sign who. I happen to disagree with DD, I think even if West ham do go up they'll still be in the sh*t financially and won't be massively in he transfer market, BFS I reckon will have to largely work with what he has. Whether that's correct or not, who knows and time will tell, but I don't see why its a point to get all uppity about.

Not out of the question, but bloody difficult. Just bringing one player through per season capable of playing in the first team would be a remarkable achievement. Then getting them to stay for an average of 5 years would be, frankly, astonishing. I don't think you could point to any Premier League club in the past 10 years who has been capable of getting anywhere near that on a year-on-year basis.

A travesty? What I think would be a travesty would be to assume that Kelvin can comfortably make the step up, and not sign another keeper because of that. KD has done brilliantly in the last 2 years, but sentimentality can play no part in professional football. If there is a better option available we'd be utter mugs not to pursue it. And claiming that Joe Hoart doesn't take crosses is daft, he commands his box brilliantly. Which is part of the reason why he is comfortably the nation's top keeper.

No, of course they haven't. I put that team down just to highlight how much the team will need to be backed up by transfers. In reality if we get one graduate per year who can make the first team squad, that will be a fantastic achievement.

Indeed. As I said "academy graduates playing today", so in theory if we kept hold of all our academy players, the best team we could put out for the Premier League.

Everyone raves about our youth system; and it has produced a lot of talent. If we try to rely just on that though we'll have enormous problems. You just need to look at what our best team would be of academy graduates playing today to see that, while we've produced some great players, its not going to provide us with an all-conquering team. Arguably our best lineup could look like this: Michael Poke Chris Baird - Mike Williamson - Martin Cranie - Wayne Bridge Adam Lallana - Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - Andrew Surman - Gareth Bale Leon Best - Theo Walcott Without wishing to enter into a debate about our best ex-academy XI, that team wouldn't hold up to much in the Premier League (even though it has provided us with a huge amount of revenue). Its great to have a youth system to rely upon, but it very much needs to be backed up with a strong transfer policy to achieve any form of success.

Good work Dune. Keep your ear close to the ground for any more snippets of inside information.

If it follows last year's format it will be two 45 minute games, against two different teams.

That's very naive. A manager will know what budget they are working to in terms of transfer fees available and wages to be paid. They will know from agents exactly what they will need to pay in wages, and what their club will have to pay as a transfer fee. And they will need to know all of this so that they can plan for which players they need to bring in, and how many they can afford. The manager will know the details of what the player wants before even meeting him, and therefore will be able to put together a fairly accurate list of how many players he needs, and which ones he'd prefer.

And Kenny had no choice over the players he signed? Or over what he/the club would pay? And his name was Damien Comolli.

By the same token: why are you so bothered that others are seemingly so bothered?

You really are busting your nuts to be pedantic to the MLG degree about the whole "Premiership" thing, aren't you?

The good majority of them? Did you conduct a poll? That must have taken some time.