ant

Quite a chunk to pay for a friendly, especially if you've got kids over the age of 11. I'm always up for watching Saints play but am wavering on this one - the money would probably be better used towards an away day. I suppose the standard should be reasonable since this match is only a week before the new season starts.

After seeing the OP's tweet about this recently, I tried my luck in the club shop by asking for the discount on a home shirt (to no avail). Definitely seems wrong that a purchased 2013-14 season ticket isn't yet valid for discount on 2013-14 kit. I'm of the opinion that it's a deliberate tactic to make impatient people go "sod it, it's only a fiver extra" and just pay up. I've collected our shirts since I was old enough to know what football is but am tempted to give this one a miss now.

Given that the alternative company's coach travel was dirt cheap last year, I imagine the club wouldn't take much of a hit if they organised something like this. Good initiative.

Get paid to (anonymously) act the fool AND watch Saints? Sounds pretty good to me. Mind you, my season ticket's bought and paid for so there's not a lot of point in applying.

There's reports that Villa and Newcastle have expressed interest in Bafetimbi Gomis. Wouldn't say no if we moved in - only one year left on his contract and Lyon are definitely looking to sell. Slightly older than some of the players we've been looking at, though with similar attributes to Lukaku.

I can't wait for the U-turns on Ramirez.

Great stuff. Are you on Twitter by any chance?

I've just moved out to Hedge End but spent the best part of 7 or 8 years drinking at The Hobbit, The Shooting Star (formerly Kolebka), The Dungeon, The Alex and more recently The Rockstone. Overall I have to say I was happy enough. Between The Talking Heads, The Brook, The Joiners and The Cellar, Southampton is really picking up for gigs. When I moved down here you generally had to go to Southsea, Brighton or London for decent bands, but most of them are getting booked here now. Looking at my calendar, there's at least half a dozen Southampton gigs I want to go to in the next couple of months. I don't think the city's quite as bad as has been made out - really it's just disconnected. Random bits and pieces strewn across the place with little thought, not least the hastily-built parts in the areas that were worst affected by the war. With a concerted, focused effort over a few years I genuinely believe it'd be easy to inject some soul into Southampton. Still, at least there's some rhinos dotted about the place now.

Top article. Had a pull through some more stats and it looks like Cork only got one yellow card last season. Pretty remarkable given that he retrieved the ball more times than any other PL player. Also found this site quite interesting: http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/18/Show/-Southampton You can click on each individual player and it gives a breakdown of their characteristics (strengths/weaknesses) and playing style. It's not 100% accurate but overall is surprisingly insightful.

It's safer than driving on the roads so I presume you're going to ask the club to return that new coach as well? From now on we'll only play home games and just take the hit of defaulting away matches.

I'd say we need all three anyway; strength in depth is so important in the PL. Cork, Schneiderlin and Wanyama will all get plenty of playing time. We were found desperately short when Jack was injured at the start of last season and very lucky Morgan lasted the distance.

According to Transfermarkt, our playing staff's value is approximately £84,000,000. Seems inflated to me, but I would say a valuation of roughly £80m for the club's assets combined (including stadium, training facilities, land owned and so on) sounds perfectly reasonable. Even given the money the Liebherr estate has ploughed in and the loans they essentially wrote off, that's one hell of a return for four years of ownership. Assuming we don't inflate our wage bill too far, the bottom doesn't fall out of the subscription TV market and we can stay in the Premier League for a few years, there's every chance the profit margin will continue to rise (albeit at a much slower rate). That's without considering Academy products and the rising stock of our best young first team players.

The pricing's different per section and I did say Wings/Goals. For me the renewal price was £604 - the equivalent cost of separate tickets is £688.

On my Wings/Goals season ticket I save £84, getting around 2.5 games 'free'. Sounds about right, plus there's no faffing with buying individual tickets then.

Sorry Steve, I definitely can't make this one now.

Bleurgh, only available at 1600x900. I asked the club for 1920x1080 versions on Twitter and got no response. Had a look around Google a few weeks ago and there's nothing decent about. I'm going to design my own if I get chance, will post them here if I do.

As I've already said in this thread, I really don't mind the new kit. However it doesn't seem right that season ticket discount apparently doesn't apply in the club stores until the start of August. 2013/14 STs should surely be valid for a 10% deduction on the 2013/14 kit from the day they're issued?

Hmm, I started a thread in the Buy/Sell section about some programmes my dad wants rid of - no interest in them from the members here it seems. Looks like I'll have to take them into this shop then.

It might just be a weird rendering effect but they don't look very round to me.

With 3 months off an athlete is likely to lose around 50% of their aerobic conditioning, so 5% per week sounds about right. If it's a linear loss, the most disciplined players should be reporting at approximately 70% of full fitness.

Sports science in action.

High defensive line, central midfield workhorses and pacey wingers doubling as strikers - Brazil had everything spot on to ensure Spain never got into their hypnotic passing rhythm. Neymar and Hulk caused all sorts of problems for Arbeloa and Alba; Pique and Ramos didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either. There's been a lot of chat about how the current iteration of Brazil is 'under par' (probably by people that take FIFA rankings seriously) but I think their play's been breathtaking at times and there's a great deal of promise for their generation. Strength in depth too. For me the standard of the Confeds has been a joy to watch, especially given the relatively low level of hype. Last night's final compared favourably with just about any World Cup of my lifetime.

Surprise surprise, it looks better worn than draped across a box in a warehouse. I'm fine with both. They're just kits at the end of the day. Stripey socks, stripes (in kind) on the shirt and shorts. I'm sure we can soldier through a season with that. £50 for a shirt is a bit rich mind, ST holder discount or not.

Which is probably what a large percentage of the fanbase will think, right before flocking to buy it. Initial outrage will just as predictably be followed by a mass of shirt sales. For the record I'm quite keen on it.

Ha, I quite like it. Would've worked better with Lotus F1 on the front but not going to throw a wobbly.