Tom28

I called Omar Rowe as a future star last season and was surprised he wasn't taken on the pre season tour. Perhaps they were looking for a bit more consistency from him. This season he's definitely more consistent. I wouldn't be surprised to see him start for the first team at some point later in the season in the Premier League. I may even go have a cheeky bet that he'll play for England during his career. I think he's that good. Like you say, great pace, ball control, and skill too, which he had last season but what he's added this season is an end product. He's scoring for fun and he's setting a few up too.

Some ITK information on this topic... EA offered Saints £160k per annum for a partnership deal ( really all they wanted was Maya from their Japanese front cover ). Cortese insists that partnership deals must be £250k minimum and so he rejected this deal 6 months ago. Looks like he's backed down - may have something to do with the fact that the shirt deal didn't happen (he turned down two offers of £1.5m+ per annum despite the aap3 contract only bringing in £300k this season). Some of his business decisions seem very odd. Must have a master plan. I can see why he would reject the shirt deal if he felt that a good season this season would push us into the £5m+ bracket, or more if we made it into Europe, and so he's willing to lose £1m this season in order to get a booster contract next season. The EA contract seems to be a backtrack from his own rules...can only assume we need the cash coming in and to be fair, EA is a good partner to have.

From the comments Hodgson has made I'm not convinced he'll even get a game. If Rooney and Defoe are fit, they will play, Welbeck from the bench and Lambert will get 15-20 mins if he's lucky and if he doesn't score that will be the end of his England career I fear. Hodgson is a muppet. I will reverse that opinion if he starts Lambert....

Scored last night for Internacional in a 1-1 draw. (Disclaimer: I used Google Translate to read a news article about the game so there's every chance that's not a correct translation).

Just had two calls from two excited friends, who don't know one another, who both are hearing we've signed Damiao. It's all over twitter apparently, but I'm not on twitter. Can anyone on here see any of that or where the rumours began?

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere but what are the likes of Dean Hammond, Steve De Ridder, Billy Sharp, Aaron Martin and Jonathan Forte doing whilst the First Team are away? Their names have been erased from the Saints website; it's like we've removed any evidence that they are still affiliated with the club!

To put Fulham and Saints into perspective, one of the prospective shirt sponsors Saints were talking to we're FXPro. FXPro pay £10m a season to Fulham; they weren't prepared to pay more than £1.5m to Saints. Don't think for one second Saints is valued anywhere near to Fulham.

My sources (one ex club and another just a regular supporter without being ITK) reckon we are looking at bringing in Oscar Cardozo from Benfica. Having looked him up, it could be plausible...he's fallen out with the Benfica manager and the manager has said either the player goes or he goes. Decent goal scoring record. 6 foot four, 30 so a little on the old side, but so is SRL and he's playing his best football at 30. Transfermarkt values him at £15.5m but at 30 years old and with Benfica wanting to get rid, maybe we could get him for less. Lots of agent talk about him going here there and everywhere but you'd expect that given his situation-if his agent is talking about Juventus, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City all interested in signing him then you know he's trying to drive up the price so he gets a nice pay day. The reality is, Benfica want rid and will probably sell him at a cut price. One of the more realistic rumours ive heard anyway so thought I would share.

Pointless thread. Red Bull aren't going to be our new sponsor. They're not even in discussions. So you can relax.

No, sorry I don't, except that drinks brands are not in the running. And neither does my source. He's a former employee.

Just confirmed what I told you about 3 weeks ago. Its Adidas, and the home kit is solid red, with a very small amount of white, and the away kit is black and gold. And there will be a new sponsor. And it won't be Red Bull or Bacardi, or Grey Goose or any other drinks brand.

Miralem Pjanic.

Well, apart from being wrong, that's pretty accurate. It's Adidas.

Maybe because Liverpool were offering him a trial and we wanted to get in there first?

There's a little bit of white. I like them both. Very smart.

Looks like the cat is out the bag anyway... Adidas Solid Red home kit. Black and Gold away kit.

He's winding you up. I didn't PM anyone. I don't know who the players are I'm afraid.

Yeah

I have it on good authority that Cortese has been away on business the last two weeks tying up deals for players. Italy and Spain. And it was a successful mission. He's not going anywhere. I also know what the kit is for next season, home and away. All I'll say is home kit won't go down well but I like it; away kit was a big surprise and not sure if I like it or not!!

Anyone know why Morgan isn't playing?

Define "Contradiction".

Lukaku. Easily. He was immense. Break the bank to sign him.

Shaw is out. Won't be back until Sunderland at the earliest but I suspect won't be back this season unless we get dragged back into the relegation battle. Time to see what we've got in Targett. Boruc Clyne Fonte Yoshida Targett Cork Schneiderlin Lallana Davis Rodriguez Lambert Subs: Davis, Forren, Hooiveld, JWP, Guly, Mayuka, Puncheon

In the game I watched, Fox was caught out of position time and time again. And offered nothing going forward. Useless. His last appearance in a Saints shirt. Will be a Reading player next season.

Truly awful display. It was 1-0 but that flattered Saints. No creativity or composure on the ball whatsover. Turnbull had a good game (he had to otherwise it could have been 4 or 5). Stephens looked decent too. Sinclair had some decent moments when he played as the central striker but faded when he moved out to the wing. Harrison Reed looked like a tidy player in centre midfield but mainly just sideways and backwards passing. Isgrove and Rowe were awful. Ariyibi when he came on was worse than that. Gape could probably count his successful passes on one hand. Same goes for Moore who was really disappointing in the number 10 role. Mugabe looked nervous (first run out for the U21's I think) after coming on for Chambers early on. Young played out of position at left back was solid but offered nothing going forward. Sam Gallagher came on up front for the last 20 minutes - he's a unit but never really got into the game. Cropper looked dodgy - some awful kicks. Despite the number of Utd chances, he didn't really have too many saves to make as they kept missing the target. All in all, pretty disappointing. I can't recall one effort on goal. I can only recall one decent piece of interplay between Reed and Sinclair and Sinclair was just dispossessed as he was about to shoot. 90 minutes I wont get back.