The Kraken

Why is that unlikely? Quite a few people have said that's their preferred midfield partnership. Technically speaking I definitely think that's our best partnership. I think Adkins will go with Hammond & Cork though, as Hammond is his skipper and it's often a little bit more than just individual talent that makes it.

So long as you call in as early as you can after tickets are released there really should't be a problem getting tickets. No members' priorities, so they'll go on general sale. The club might tie them in with another game though (so you'd have to buy a ticket for an extra home game as well as the Pompey game).

Also known as the Francis Benali conundrum; the influence you have on other players in the dressing room and on the pitch can far outweigh the individual attributes any certain player may have. I think Schneiderlin is technically better than Hammond; but then Schneiderlin is also IMO too casual and can make too many sloppy mistakes. Also, as skipper Hammond is likely to be a much bigger personality, a very important feature in a closely knit team like ours clearly is.

I'm only looking at the next pre-season game; Barney hasn't really had a massive amount of game time, and Connolly got the whole 90 tonight (as did a few others). Jaidi and Dickson got no game time so would expect to see them, Morgan only got a minor run out, Lambert too. If the squad stays as it is I fully expect us to go with Lambert and Connolly against Leeds though.

Blimey, I think someone's had too much Pro Plus.

I imagine he and Lambert will get a decent run-out in the game, I'm assuming with RL up top with Barney. Could be interesting. Wouldn't fancy NA's job in deciding who to start with for Leeds, it's quite up in the air right now.

I agreed with you back then. Since then we've signed Cork and de Ridder. Hopefully if AOC stays (obviously lots of mileage yet with that), then those two will just have replaced Gobern and Puncheon in numbers, but very much improved the quality of the squad. Rumour is that another centre back is on the way, and, having previously bid £3M plus for Billy Sharp I'd still be a bit surprised if we didn't bring a new striker in. I said 10th - 16th with last season's squad; with the additions so far I'm confident of that 10th place, add in the two I mentioned and I think playoffs are definitely achievable, perhaps even more.

Being as I don't really know who you are, that's somewhat disconcerting.

Yep, pretty slow. Out with the old, in with the old.....

Yes, because that's what everyone wants. Idiot.

How come Gareth Bale played so many games then? Skacel played pretty much all of his first season in his preferred position, and was made to look a lot better than he was by the emergence of the wonderkid playing with him. He seemed to have a fair amount of popularity with the crowd due to his talent at applauding them when running over to take a corner; I think its called David Prutton syndrome.

Apologies MLG, clearly I should have inserted *winky smiley thing* to register my real intent.

That's no benchmark for accuracy.

The saga is set to rumble on!

Or is the main question do we really want to turn away the chance of signing a player who just had a major influence on a team romping away with the title in the league we're about to play in? In favour of an unknown central defender from the Swiss league, or keeping faith with our own stalwart who is about to turn 36 years of age.

I'm just heading off down to the ground to see if I can sneak in; I'll post updates from inside St. Mary's if I can.

Let's hope he's slightly better / more committed than the last Jelle we bought.

I think you know full well that's not what I'm suggesting. I take your point that if he did lift from that other site (which appears very likely) he should not pass it off as his own, or "having a source". But if it's just a lift from another site, and actually has information regarding three transfers which, lets face it, have a better chance than not of actually happening (particularly Jemal and Puncheon), I really don't see the harm of it. It would be a bloody boring forum if this type of discussion was banned.

Do you think that's the first time you've been described as interesting AND plausible?!

Fine, you may not like it. And maybe Shane is pasting from that website, maybe he isn't. I don't read websiotes like that, so if something is on there and it seems in some small way to be plausible, I don't think it's too much out of the usual to post it on here. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. There's no problem in highlighting that the OP has just cut and pasted from another site. But why go overboard, throw your toys out of the pram and demand that the thread be "locked immediately". Some people enjoy reading it, even if we know that it's probably 99% rubbish. And if it turns out to be true (which these things actually sometimes do) then we've all learnt something in advance.

Exactly. I really don't understand why people get so precious about this. This isn't the OS, where only factual information gets posted. Its a message board for passing on rumour and conjecture, no matter how believable or otherwise. I think I'm intelligent enough to take everything at face value until it's confirmed without having the Saints Web white knights ride to my rescue and point out the flaming obvious.

And if you're wrong I assume you'll issue a full apology and retraction?

Get a backbone for Christ's sake. Boo hoo, he's raised my hopes unnessarily, I'm completely incapable of understanding the difference between an internet rumour and fact. Ridiculous.

And he likely will, as much as possible. You could even argue that the first of the 45 minutes sides from Saturday was significantly stronger than the other and had very much the air of a starting line-up about it. But I really don't understand this critiscism of playing all the players for 45 minutes for the first few pre-season games. Pretty much all other teams do it. Take a look at Chelsea's preparation from last pre-season, and you'll see no players getting much more than 45 minutes until the game before the Charity Shield. A quick look at line-ups from teams from the games played around ours on Saturday show exactly the same thing at this stage of pre-season; Liverpool's game at Hull on Saturday, they did the same as us and made 11 changes at half time. I expect the WBA game will again be much the same, then the final pre-season game will be focused on the starting XI.