The9

I've got a minute or two spare... So, Watford, and Palace - teams with crowds traditionally around the 15-20k mark - just like Portsmouth. Over 20k capacities - unlike Portsmouth. Brighton - regular second tier side with occasional brief top division spells - just like Portsmouth. New ground and over 20k capacity - unlike Portsmouth. Swansea - long time lower league club with crowds around 20k when in the top tier - just like Portsmouth. New ground and over 20k capacity - unlike Portsmouth. Bournemouth - long time lower league club with sellout crowds only when in the top tier - just like Portsmouth. New ground - unlike Portsmouth. Saints - lol, 16 years of average crowds at least 5k more than the highest capacity of Fratton every season, only 7 seasons of the past 67 spent below them, ground capacity currently nearly twice theirs... As for "huge catchment area"... they've got the A3 corridor up to Guildford which is 90% fields before you hit the Chelsea fans, all the way to Fareham in the west, and now Brighton are in the Premier League, they're not getting past Chichester in the east. Are they mental? And lets not get started on that "borrowed" comment, either. Their money wasn't "borrowed", it was outright stolen from the tax man and the hordes of creditors.

I agree with the first sentence, have no problem how people want to enjoy their football though.

Colour version is much worse than the monochrome one. Bleh.

Not sure why anyone would give the remotest toss about the method of lighting.

Seems fairly clear to me we're offering 5 and 6 year deals to ensure that any saleable assets we're ready to move on still have plenty of time left on their contracts to ensure as high a price as possible. Also seems pretty sensible. Lack of competition for places seems a pretty unlikely demotivator given how little competition there was in previous seasons.

I like the current badge. The round one above is the only redesign attempt I've ever remotely considered to be a viable alternative - and even with that one the tree looks absolute shat. As for the horrific training kit, there's a reason they've knocked 20% off the price already - I haven't seen a single supporter wearing any of it even on match day, still loads of last season's stuff around though.

Christ, I've actually met him through work, a few times. Occasionally see him on the train, had no idea he was even political, never mind an MP. I'm fairly sure he's not into football either... Oh and re: the floodlights, Fratton was the first ground to play a Football League match under floodlights, the first English ground to have permanent floodlights was... The Dell. (Though only because the FL refused to allow Arsenal to do so in the 1930s). Everton was dugouts wasn't it? http://www.football-stadiums.co.uk/articles/history-of-floodlights-in-football/

I'm still fairly sure Saints' side playing as badly as they did yesterday would have comfortably beaten AFC Wimbledon yesterday...

Teeeeeeeeeechnically the last season with the "Prem" badge was the first season as fan owned in L2. Their first Sondico shirt was adorned with the older badge before the rebrand they'd clearly planned whilst faffing about during the (last) L1 relegation season. Here they are against the mighty Newport County (which can really only be in L2 ). Remember this guy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/11/10/short-corners-may-be-widely-despised-but-they-are-helping-teams/ https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/mar/27/in-defence-of-the-corner-a-much-maligned-set-piece With approximately a 3% chance of scoring from any corner across the entire division, I'm not particularly bothered whether we look like scoring from them or not tbh. The only thing strange about our corner tactics is that we cross the ball all the time in open play when two of our best headers are at the other end of the pitch.

For full disclosure, I saw a bloke in a Skate tracksuit top on Hedge End Station yesterday. Obviously it was the badge from the last seasons in the Premier League and before the L1 relegation (2008-2013), not the one they've been using for the last 3 years.

To be fair we have still looked pretty bad defensively whilst only conceding two... Swansea were never going to score no matter who they were playing. I wouldn't start him either, but I'd have him on the bench to show signs of reintegration and allow a few people to get it out of their system during the sub warm up... Of course the problem we have now is 5 decent centre-backs we want to give game time to and only 3 slots. I guess Stephens could cover DM and RB...

This thread has been absolutely super for rapidly augmenting my ignore list. Three added... one removed (pal).

Van Dijk's only got to strop until he's got 3 years of his contract left, when the Webster Ruling means he can buy himself out of his contract. If he's over 28 it's only 2 years. Also, we can't fine him his full wages every week, we can only fine him the maximum allowable under his contract, which is standard as 2 weeks' wages per month thanks to the PFA. Anyway, first team training, so that's good.

Long had the worst finishing rate of all our strikers last season and mostly tends to play when we need a counterattacking threat out wide who can defend. However, in 2014/15 and 2015/16 he outranked his xG so maybe he does just need a few games, as he was cack last season when playing sporadically. Would you play Boufal in the hole behind?

Will be interested to see if we play Yoshida alongside Hoedt, fairly sure they're both left sided CBs, we've been there before...

Equally it's clear many fans are idiots, and same goes there.

Colin's ITK moment.

God no, my kit's for matchdays and lazing around the house only, you'd never catch me in a football shirt unless I was going to or from a match. Even when I was younger it was only ever for training. I will readily admit to being sat on the sofa in last season's training sweatshirt and shorts right now though. It's the ones wearing their kits (Saints or otherwise) around town during their team's match I can't work out, whether the match is home or away. Mind you I'm usually there so I only really see that from Arsenal and Man U fans - though didn't go to the Wolves game last week due to a pre-existing commitment and saw a couple of people in town shirted up well after kick off. Strange.

Very good question. This is Portsmouth though. Not much to shout about.

Some of them will. A lot of them won't.

Because agents deal with day to day stuff about personal appearances and image rights etc as well as just transfers.

Though to get it back to the point, having the best centre backs we can will help offset our poxy finishing nicely, which hopefully will be one of the main reasons we've decided to keep Van Dijk.

I tend to try and take a long view of this stuff and the whole "well managed" argument is based on four to ten year comparisons, so no, I wouldn't be revising my opinion much. There's a range of where everyone is likely to sit and Leicester was an outlier in 2016 and nearer their average either side. Our recent seasons suggest we're nearer 60 points than 45, and our recent finishing stats suggest we can't possibly be consistently that bad at finishing for another season.

Yup, he can meet his contractual requirements by training, including with the U23s, U8s or whatever if that's what the club tells him to do, but if we select him for a match and he doesn't have a medical exemption, he's getting fined half of his wages on a monthly basis.