Redslo

I play football manager a lot and agree with you.

Might be a real boost to the under 21 team.

He probably doesn't devote that much time to it.

That would be an innovative business model. Instead, of selling tickets to home games--hold auditions. Give the tickets to the most vocal, energetic, and supportive fans. Pay bonuses for good cheering and player support.

Quality humor there.

Guess I did miss the point of Pygmalion. I thought Henry Higgins had the accent.

Yes. But it might mean that someone could not afford it who might otherwise be able to afford a season ticket.

I guess I must have completely missed the point of Pygmalion.

If we qualify for Europe, the season tickets including group phases will be much higher than they would otherwise. I thought I should state the obvious.

Time was properly added on for Targett's injury.

I thought we took 20 shots.

Sure there is. People at the bottom have little or no leverage to negotiate their salaries and, therefore, are subject to being underpaid and exploited. Responsible employers do not do that.

Footballers making signing decisions purely on money is also somewhat dubious given how many of them end up bankrupt anyway. They think they are setting themselves and their family up for life and then they make bad investments or fall for weird tax avoidance schemes when they no longer earn that kind of money. I doubt Kane will move this summer but you are probably right about Ings and Austin. Maybe we should make Bertand part of our recruitment team to let them know what it is really like to be at a big club.

I think, but am not 100 percent certain, that was kind of his point.

That is how it used to work. I have summarized how it currently works here: http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/2015/01/european-qualification-rules-for.html

I found this Will a domestic club be provided with any compensation when this occurs? Following agreements between FIFA, UEFA and the European Clubs Association (ECA) when players playing for clubs are injured on international duty during major tournaments then the national governing body will be required to compensate the club which the player plays for. Does this only apply to injuries in national tournaments? The limitations on this rule are that it only applies to injuries suffered in the final stages of an international football tournament and not the qualifying stages. Therefore if a player playing for England is injured during the World Cup the Football Association will have to compensate the domestic club but would not have to if the match was part of the qualifying stages of the World Cup. Here is the link: http://www.inbrief.co.uk/football-law/international-game-injuries.htm I have not checked his work with my own research and the amount of the compensation is not clarified.

That is exactly where we are now and, with Financial Fair Play, even rich owners can't do anything about it. That was one of the points of my blog post on the subject. http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/2015/01/financial-fair-play-friend-or-foe.html That problem is compounded by the fact that when a club like Southampton does develop and play an English player, if he is any good, the richer clubs buy him up and give him less playing time. Even allowing for injuries, of the four Southampton English players who were sold last summer only Chambers got more playing time at his new club--and that assumes that we would not have converted Chambers into a center back instead of buying Gardos. For that matter Oxlade-Chamberlin would have gotten a lot more playing time if he had stayed at Southampton.

I want to make sure I understand. All forms of English cheering and singing for the football teams is always high quality but all forms of American cheering for their soccer teams are bad--and one of the worst things about them is that we cheer in an American accent? Just curious--are they any British accents that don't work for football cheering and are inherently rubbish? Are they any British football fans who are not knowledgeable or tolerable? If MLS takes off in a big way, which may be in the process of happening--but maybe not with the player's strike that might be about to happen--it will be reflective of an increase in the number of and the knowledge of American soccer fans. Of course, our teams are limited by the quality of the international club competition in which we have to compete. Make the USA and Mexico eligible for the champions league and things would change rapidly. (Not that I think that should or will happen.) That seems more reasonable but, no doubt, if I heard you say it out loud your accent might change my opinion.

Remember, the fans started singing it during World Cup qualifying where it was quite reasonable.

True, although I think that in terms of money wasted, Osvaldo dwarves everything else combined by a wide margin since Ramirez was not a complete waste and the others were much less expensive. As best I can figure it out, these are the transfer fees plus salary (in millions of pounds) for entire length of the contract for all our incoming Premier League transfers: Player - Fee-Total salary - Total - Fee Received - Net Profit Bertrand - 11.7 -7.3 - 19.0 Clyne - 2.8 -5.6 - 8.5 Davis, S. - 0.9 -7.1 - 8.0 Forren - 3.1 - 0.9 - 4.0 - 1.8 - minus 2.2 Forster - 11.0 - 8.3 - 19.3 Gardos - 6.0 - 6.2 - 12.2 Gazzaniga - 2.8 - 2.9 - 5.7 Long - 13.1 - 10.4 - 23.5 Lovren - 8.8 - 2.1 - 10.9 - 22.3 - 11.4 Mane - 13.2 - 9.4 -22.6 Mayuka - 3.5 - 6.0 - 9.5 Pelle -8.8 - 5.8 - 14.6 Ramirez - 13.4 - 11.4 -24.8 Rodriguez - 7.6 - 5.8 - 13.4 Osvaldo - 13.3 - 11.2 - 24.5 Tadic - 12.3 - 8.7 -21.0 Wanyama -12.8 - 7.1 - 19.9 Yoshida - 2.5 - 4.7 - 7.2 These number only include the original contract. Forren's salary was only for six months. Lovren's is for a year. My sources are transfermarkt for the transfer fees and Football Manager for the salaries. I assumed we are paying Bertrand the same salary he made at Chelsea--this is pure speculation on my part. http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-southampton/alletransfers/verein/180 Edit: the formatting disappeared. I will try to fix this. This is the best I can do and I have to go to bed.

I have my suspicions, but I don't dare speak for Bearsy. I would play Elia at left wing back and hope for good carnage.

It was pretty catchy, if a bit delusional at times.

In the NFL loud home fans also provide a tactical advantage in making it harder for the visiting team to change plays quickly at the line of scrimmage. That gives each team an incentive to sell out their home games.

I do. But I also throw in Spurs, West Brom, and Liverpool, but I give back the Chelsea point..

You may be right. I have purchased the last four years' financials from company house and was going to do some kind of blog article covering the financial history of the Liebherr era after this year's financials are released. I will look at it from that perspective at that time.