The9

He wore 23 for Saints to begin with, was happy with that until his injury, chose 44 presumably for something like "For-Forster", and was decent, went to 1 when Kelvin retired, was not so good and has now returned to his "lucky" 44. Tbf I think he is significantly worse at getting to low shots than he was before his injury, and equally as good at putting his 6'8" frame in the way of things straight at him as he's ever been.

Not sure that would help much - I plan the entire season's likely games to attend when the fixtures come out, but the reality is often nothing like the expectation, and tv changes are often the reason for that. We've been planning to go to the north west the weekend of the Liverpool game for ages without committing to anything, whether it was for Saints at Anfield or Accrington v Newport, but simply aren't going now, whereas (ironically), had the Liverpool game moved to the Sunday we'd have definitely gone and done the double-header.

I'd be interested to see what he'd do for the first team, McCarthy had decent save stats the last time he had a run in a first team. I'd be interested to see how many shots on goal Saints are allowing compared to the past 4 seasons to see if the defensive problem is as obvious as it looks or whether we're just allowing a lot more efforts. Unfortunately I cba to check, because I've basically completely disengaged from this season so far (1/3 aways, 4/6 homes) and am putting more effort into watching a relatively successful side playing hoofball in League Two (3/11 aways, 1/5 homes). [rant]We've gone from mostly attacking, pacy, creative and terrible at finishing last season with occasional bouts of lethargy, to uncreative, jaded, negative and terrible at finishing in this. Literally couldn't believe the article on the OS last week suggesting the players were struggling to adapt to a new system, when to all intents and purposes they're doing exactly the same thing as the lowest points of last season, but with sporadic spells of playing a DM massively out of position behind the striker for no apparent reason. We're predictable and pathetically easy to defend against at the moment. Couple of tweaks this weekend but still tedious nevertheless - I don't mind us being defensive if we look like we might score at some point but the balance is completely off right now. As with last season, I don't think the manager has much to do with it, but Watford game aside they sure as hell can't point to a hectic schedule as a reason.[end rant]

Arguably he's the second best.

Worryingly that's (IMO) the BEST piece of training kit we have this season, and even that looks like a Sainsbury's uniform. So imagine how bad the rest of it is.

Disappointed there's not a FM18 thread yet so we can all post exactly the same stuff again.

More likely they'll slightly change their recruitment model to acknowledge the employment tribunal ruling, and get another licence pretty quickly. They can also appeal.

I'd be intrigued to know what you think has changed on the pitch for Saints since March last season... seems fairly obvious to me that the club's system is independent of the manager and at this stage there's not much if anything different. Seeing the same problems too, albeit without the fixture pile-up to increase the impact.

Tbf I did know that, was worth it for the sake of the joke.

Indeed. Thought I'd let someone else do the legwork for a change.

Not still at Virgin then?

Perfectly possible to be passionate and vocal without being a nobhead and going on the pitch, big ole logical fallacy at play here.

The Saints Forum. Saints Forever before that.

Funny that, I thought he wasn't getting to it.

It's already a yellow card, like numerous other things that used to be but somehow aren't now just because refs don't bother implementing them.

Forster has always been great at saving stuff straight at his body from relatively close range. It's the stuff where he has to move he has trouble with, and he probably wasn't getting to the shot that whistled low past his right hand post had it been on target, which suggested no change on that front. From the eye test I'd expect that his save stats are far more heavily impacted by how near him the shot is to begin with than any other Premier League keeper.

Exactly 1 key pass per game so far this season (i.e. a pass that resulted in an attempt on goal) in 166 minutes so far, no assists yet: Previous seasons: 2016/17: 1.4 key passes per game in PL, 2.2 in Europa (4 total assists, included in the key pass stats) 2015/16: 1.0 kppg (1 assist) 2014/15: 1.4 kppg (6 assists) 2013/14: 1.1 kppg (2 assists) 2012/13: 0.7 kppg (0 assists) https://www.whoscored.com/Players/105172/Show/James-Ward-Prowse

Not sure why the north end of the Kingsland/Northam corner couldn't be used, other than it needs reinforcement/segregation to be put in.

I'll add "getting rid of music from before and during the game" to the list too, half the time now pre-match songs don't get going because something is blaring over the top of it, same with the natural maintenance of volume after a goal - interrupted by music.

Still early enough to see the impact of the Europa League on Everton though.

Definitely "we're". I've become remarkably good at deciphering absolute nonsense on the internet since it became the gold standard of communication.

I think you'll find the hierarchy goes something like "people still watch the BBC?" and "I don't own a television" after that.

2015 UK stats for distribution of parent ages... (categories U20, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44 and 45+)

http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-popular-is-your-birthday/ certainly borne out by this.