Redslo

Is it just me or is it also unprofessional and reprehensible for Hodges to communicate this through the media? If he wants Clyne to shape up and accept his backup position shouldn't he tell him that privately?

http://www.soka25east.com/ is now my go to source for Football news from central east Africa although I am disappointed that they do not appear to cover the Somalia national football team. Edit: Just to clarify. I have linked the web site in my favorites and I will check back to see if it has anything interesting. I am not entirely joking.

It's a deal.

Depends on what you mean by "starlet" and "fail." If by starlet you mean anyone at a football academy about whom good things were ever said, then yes they will fail. If you mean the ones who stood out as among the best at age 14, then it depends on what you mean by fail. I think that having a career as a professional footballer is not failure and I suspect that most of the best 14 year olds at good academies will achieve that. But I don't know for sure and I do not know how to approach figuring that out. (Maybe I should review academy rosters from 10 years ago and search for contemporaneous rave reviews of young players and then find out where they are now. Frankly, this seems like the sort of thing The9 is good at.) On the other hand, if by fail you mean not making it as a regular in the Premier League, then you are right. I continue to be befuddled by why you are so offended that I accurately calculated the number of points needed to be mathematically safe in the middle of the season and came up with a number that everyone new would drop as the season progressed.

I agree. I do think the actual moment we qualify for the Champions League for the first time will be right up there. And the Europa Cup provides us with chances for moments this coming season as well.

You're right. I will forgive you for disliking his speeches if you will forgive me for not disliking them.

Sorry about misspelling his name. (I also misspelled misspelled but autocorrect fixed it for me.) Pulis being Welsh is only slightly foreign and he would count as home grown if he were a player. That being said, I think he would (assuming he performs as he normally does) get the most out of the English squad and would figure out how to put together a defense. Before long fans would be chanting "boring boring England" and they won international matches against top clubs. I guess he got his wish today. There is really nothing wrong with taking a lucky win--it is targeting a lucky win against an inferior team that is the problem. Don't hold your breath. The next possible one will be Southampton's qualification for the Champions League. To be fair, the USA has done as well or better than England in the last two world cups. We have not done as well in the Euro, but we often win the Gold Cup which is what we have. Next years Copa American 100th anniversary tournament may tell us more, unless it is canceled because of its connection to the FIFA scandal. None. But they have certainly outperformed England overall. I have no idea if that is true, but it would be nice, if it is true, if some player would come out and publically say that it is happening. And given that their reviews always come up with stupid ideas, it won't matter to the success of the English team if things do change. Lets hope not.

But they are not so conveniently grouped for easy rewatching.

Agree. None of us know that yet. But he does keep talking about big projects which cannot yet be disclosed. From his recent interview as transcribed by me (and my secretary) http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/2015/06/i-transcribed-ralph-kruegers-interview.html : We have had an amazingly successful season in North America. The main carrier, NBC, put a special on “The Southampton Way” out there on January 1, which became a viral, passed around product for football fans I have been back there just a few weeks ago to feel it out and we are so respected. And our brand value where we have broken into one of the top twenty football brands in the world and that’s an amazing accomplishment for Southampton football club. Part of that is our growth in North America—our popularity. We are working on projects which we still can’t reveal that will show how we are spreading the value of the club into that market which is just so hungry for football, for them/soccer. I have to say that I was very proud to be a part of this organization when I was over there in many different corporate situations. If you mention Southampton now, everybody knows where it is, who it is. Us being that high in the table for that long this year was a brand building opportunity for the club and now we need to respect the difficulties in staying there and get ready for that challenge.

Freddy Adu has played in at least 189 professional games. Cherno Samba has played in at least 27 professional games. Tom Taiwo has played in at least 200 professional games. John Bostock has played in at least 104 professional games. Gael Kakuta has played in at least 100 professional games. (Source for all this is Wikipedia.) While I am sure they all hoped for more, they have all had respectable careers and made a living playing the game they, presumably, enjoy. Of these folks, I have only seen Adu play and I can't help but think that he would have become a much better player if he had signed for Southampton, rather than DC United at age 15. Of course, this was not possible as Manchester United considered signing him before he turned 18 and he could not get a work permit. That being said, he did fairly well at DC United given his age and his career really didn't start going downhill until his series of unsuccessful loans after he signed for Beneficia, but I digress. My point is that if someone shows outstanding talent at age 14 they have a very good chance of becoming a professional footballer and their chance of being a very good player is much better than average. Think of all the people who are playing football world wide at age 14. Only the best are still playing in their 20s and virtually all of them would have been identified as very good prospects at age 14.

Very bland.

England needs to appoint Tony Pullis as their next manager.

I think you should feel free to make more statements in an approved bland style. Why restrain yourself?

For what is it worth, about six or seven times in the past several weeks, I have rewatched Mane's hat trick just before going to bed. And at 2:50 am, I just did it again and off to bed I go.

He is still under contract. We would have to pay off the contract to release him so we might as well retain him. Besides, unlike Osvaldo, he has not burned his bridges so he can report to training camp and give it a shot.

But his connecting to the rest of the world is intended to bring in revenue to improve the club and make winning more likely and relegation less likely. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't care either so long as I can watch the games on American TV or my ipad.

The last time I cared about the English team was when Lambert first made the team. Before that was when they played the USA in the world cup and my caring was negative. That is a game I would watch. That sounds about right to me. I will dvr it and watch part just to see.

That seems a rather narrow view to adopt, but undoubtedly you don't care what I think and I only care a little that you don't care.

Just for the record, a majority of the English speaking world probably does not find the way he speaks grating and I suspect speaking to the USA and Canada is a significant part of his job. I have no idea how he is received in Australia, New Zealand, and then I was going to list some others so I googled it and was stunned at the list of English speaking countries in order of English speaking population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population That being said I think his job was to communicate clearly with the board, Katharina Liebherr, and North America. I suspect he is doing fine on all three tasks.

I don't think it is fair to call Gardos a bad signing. In effect, he replaced Hooiveld, Stephens, or Turnbull. He was better than the first (if not as charismatic). He was probably better than the latter two who were, in any case, better off playing full time on loan where they did very well.

I would agree, but only if he would not be a dressing room problem if he doesn't work out. Clearly, for example, Mayuka has not been a problem where as Osvaldo was.

In listing those four, I think I expressed myself poorly. What I meant is that the other 10 possibilities are either not good enough for us according to FM or other factors make them very unlikely signings in my opinion. If I were really relying on FM numbers Mattia Destro would be a top choice, but I think he is unlikely and I am not convinced (from limited research admittedly) that he is as good as FM says. Club trained players for Swansea are home grown English players so I don't think they can complain. (And now my curiosity has taken hold and I have to figure out if they are home grown for Wales purposes too. Update: a literal reading of the UEFA rules says no. However, the EPL's specifically include Welsh trained players. I wonder if this is a real difference and whether it has ever mattered. This link is peripherally relevant. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/cardiff-city-should-consider-pursuing-9304316 ) I was going to do defensive midfielders next.

From my blog: Chelsea has only three home grown players: Cesc Fabregas, Gary Cahill, and John Terry. Only John Terry is club trained. Under the new rules Fabregas is no longer home grown. Since Chelsea is already operating five short of the permitted number of home grown players maybe they would be willing to do that under the new rules , but If they wanted to completely fill their roster they would need ten more home grown players—one of whom must be club trained. http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/2015/04/greg-dyke-and-his-terrible-horrible-no.html Under 21s are not registered on the first team so much as they are eligible to play even though they are not registered. Or this.

Changed my mind.

maybe they should be thinking that there is something wrong with their managers rather than our players.