JonnyOldBoy

I supposed many have noticed this already but all the training-wear t-shirts have been over stretched prior to the badge being applied hence the material has puckered around the badge making the garment look cheap and badly made. Also the team shirts have been made with incredibly poor seam stitching using loose loop rather than tighter double loops. The reason I am stating this ? Simple,,,, those that claimed our stuff was being made in the same factories ( sweat-shops they said ) as branded stuff like Adidas, Puma and Nike are talking nonsense. These have not been made in factories with the same quality control and quality assembly processes.

top four will be ( in any order ) Chelsea , City , Arsenal and Everton.... Saints will finish 10th , dunno about the rest....

Osvaldo = crap ,, Gaston = crap ,, Osvaldo is worth about £4M tops and Gaston about £6M-ish Both will not have a cat in hells chance of holding down a place under Koeman so we to get rid asap.... and move on. if we get more than £10M in total for both then that is realistic in my books.

have handled one.... its not as good as Umbro/Nike/Puma/Adidas weave... as I suspected the shoulder material is completely different and it makes the shirt seams look dodgy,,,, possibly because its a cheap shirt and there is not a taped under-seam. It will do ,,, but its not a masterpiece imo....

Ask any football fan in Barcelona about MoPo and you will get pretty much the same reaction.... They hate him. WHY ? because they think he is a blagger.... He inherited Adkins Squad and added Dani Osvaldo.... yes he added others, but that for me showed his lack of foresight. Plus he had his favourites and his "pressing game" became headless chicken stuff and our run in was poor. Cork will flourish under Tintin and I expect him to challenge VW for a place since VW can not pass a ball accurately more than 15 yards... that said , some of Corks covering and tracking back have been suspect at times.... shame we can't morph them both into one play , Victor Cork..... [ oh and MoPo will be sacked by February with Spurs languishing 12th-16th in the Div ]

Loads of people won't buy it if its poor quality ,,,, they are not snobs or poor fans , they are just savvy. Our shirt is more expensive than the Bayern Munich shirt .... thats absurd. But good luck to the club , if there are enough people out there who don't care about value in that sense then they have priced it well. It looks nice [ not fabulous , not horrendous ] so at least thats a start...

or people who don't like being ripped off by their own club... with no marketing collateral and sales infrastructure overheads , those shirts should retail for about £20 or do you think Adidas etc etc get advertising space in the media and stadia for free , come on mate , try harder to think things through properly before insulting people and making yourself you stupid..... [ no offence LOL ]

Puma offered to help Saints out of this mire apparently early in the year ( they have a growing presence here in the South , and have sorted out the mess at the Ageas Bowl ) and were told "its too late this year we have already committed to a mickey mouse outfit" .... this would suggest that it was not a "club" decision to dump adidas with no plan B other than to try to market beach tat in the cub shops for a season...

not sure why people struggle with the term total football... its very simple.... you play to a formation based on zones rather than rigid positions and players interchange when required and can stay in any position for as long as required. Many Dutch, Belgian and South American teams play that way and Tintin's way of playing with Feyenoord reaped the rewards. [ it ranges from complete freedom , as in Dutch national sides of the 70s , to 2-3 position freedom as seen in Dutch/Belgian leagues today ] The problem is in the Prem , more teams are happy to sit with men behind the ball to defend and then try and counter..... so zonal play tends to collapse unless you have the patience of a saint... my point was really about tubby Sammy... is he good enough to blend the desire to play more freely with the reality that is the Prem. MoPos "pressing" game was an illusion if you look at the stats, it was just a possession game based on fitness and our home form in the run-in exposed that, lack of goals due to a 2-D approach in my opinion.

Judging by some of Feyenoords performances, Tintin likes to lean towards total football rather than 10 behind the ball or the illusion that is the pressing game.... do people here think we have the players to play like that ? Or will Tintin be shoe-horned into a system that is not natural to him ? Is Sammy Lee good enough a tactician to be able to blend Ronald's style with the realistic requirements of the premier league ?

say what you like about Adidas.... but the red and the black training gear was top quality and even at full price value for money.... The sweat tops were exceptionally good and great for breathable warmth during the winter... I hope I am wrong but those training tops with the cuffs looked dire.... why would you have cuffs like that on a modern pro training sweat ? Yes the adidas playing shirt from last year was poor and possibly our worst shirt ever but the general quality of adidas stuff is fabulous.... so here is the problem. If there are many like me who each year buy a southampton FC badged leisure top ( sweat or T-shirt ) but of course only if its reasonable quality and style then their sales may not be what they hoped. The training wear during the home-brand era was poor so I stayed away. And my kids during that time I seemed to remember wanted to wear red and white to matches but preferred Athletic Bilbao tops that they had... What is totally beyond me is why Saints did not keep Adidas on a reduced contract for the one year with training wear only and then back to full contract the year after... that way they only had to find a shirt maker for their own-brand year in the wilderness... or would that be too embarrassing for adidas !?!? anyway , from the pictures so far , the T-shirts look ok , great for barby tops in the summer and beach wear... the grey half zips look terrible so its even-stevens as they say....

this is a 14/15 kit thread so those who are saying they "don't give a sh1t about the kit" ...... WHY are you wasting finger energy typing stuff here ?? regards the finances of a home spun shirt, the margin will be much great because fans will pay the £45 for the shirt that cost £5 to make with no overheads , but the profit at the end of the season on shirts and merchandising will be lower than had we had a proper apparel company supplying us. This is because the training wear is a lot more popular that people think and from most suppliers would generate good margins for the club.... own brand training wear will be over-priced tat and will sell poorly. So its not a financial success.... its hopefully just a one year embarrassment and the die hards and kids shirt sales will go some way to helping the club.... but you could alway of course by a past-years striped shirt on ebay for a tenner and just post £35 to the club as a gift..... LOL......

Only Saints could muck up an Adidas deal..... Leave it too late to sign on the dotted line so we were given what we were given ( a dire kit ) and then throw toys out of the pram and end up with a kit worse than Half the championship.... what a total and utter **** up... and whose it to blame... ???? well I wonder....

SUPERB summary.... spot on.....

saints megastore is shut for almost 3 weeks for refit so surely it can not be an indy kit..... otherwise it would just be a case of take down the adidas signs.....

Lovren can go.... why the fuss...... he is the most over-rated player at the club......

Me and most of Barcelona.....

MoPo was the most over-rated coach in the Prem.... I know loads of Catalans who think he was a 2 trick pony. So Koeman is a much much better proposition. I hope AL goes for 30M and I hope the other average players we spent stupid money on go too..... then Koeman could have £100M to build a magnificent side in his own mould. Shaw was never worth £30M , no where near it . Sir Rickie has earnt his bench warming days at Liverpool and AL is no where near worth £30M either so if we get it then Bravo... Its time to be very optimistic about the future of our club.... Many Dutch people think Koeman with give us one great season followed by one average season and then one dire season and leave..... so its not all done and dusted but here is hoping we are looking at a steadying ship and a great season with 5 or 6 new faces..... COYRs !!!!

interesting debate... from a cold commercial point of view , an indy shirt is a disaster for the club and a humiliation. Even though it was clear Adidas had no interest in our club ( they could not even get the correct badge colour on some of the training wear ) and gave us the worst shirt in their catalogue.... Sorting out a replacement supplier is fairly straightforward given the club has(had) 3 months notice. There would be suppliers queuing up to take the contract. However..... it would seem that Saints in their wisdom have decided to go it alone and be brand less this coming season ( otherwise why not at least announce who the new kit supplier is ). And this just smells like a club with no real edge when it comes to commercial handshaking. Veho may well be a splendid local company but again I think a trick has been missed here with the opportunity to bring in a globally recognised shirt sponsor to enhance the global reach of a club that says it is aspiring to European football... There are some great smaller suppliers out there who could have helped Saints out of their "predicament" Companies like Hummel etc etc who are small enough and flexible enough to react to a short timescale contract. Looking back over the past 30 years Saints had a pretty dreadful record with kits ( like the blue flames admiral kit with the collars that shrunk and curled ) and were just looking like they had turned the corner with the Umbro deal. It was unfortunate that Umbro was sold and so effectively had to cancel so many contracts and try to re-emerge so that was just bad luck but just how we came make such a mess of the adidas deal is really beyond me....