The9

Interesting example - in 6th Form as some kind of PE experiment "the boys" agreed to play the school netball team (female, obvs) for charity. We beat them 12-1, despite none of us ever having played netball before and having had all of a week to learn the rules. From this I can conclude that our school's netball team was rubbish. Having said that, not all women's sport is a gash version of men's... I just haven't seen one so far that isn't - though apparently there are one or two sports where physical superiority isn't a factor.

Shane Long not doing his reputation any favours...

Personally I'm not bothered who he sticks his thing in, but a quick look at some of the comments on social media in response to it shows precisely why it IS still important that ignorance around any kind of "difference" is challenged. In the space of about 3 responses I saw the whole gamut, from religious intolerance and pleading for God's forgiveness on his behalf, to paranoia about "the gays" taking over the media and everything, to the whole ancient stereotype "being gay is weakness" stuff. FWIW I also couldn't care less about singing "we can see you holding hands" as I don't actually see it as a negative anyway, but I can see why others think it perpetuates a stereotype and the chant is perceived as derogatory. It's wider than just football, but of course the bemusing stats on "out" gay players put the focus on the sport because it's very difficult to make a case that that's because everyone is completely accepting of it and it just isn't worth mentioning.

Well, we're on board with a person with experience in property development and sporting retail... let's hope the only development is of the stadium into a better stadium and the retail gets the club shedloads of shirt money.

TWO massive banners actually. The original and the one created for the EFL Cup Final. Anyway, thanks to the Liebherrs for a fantastic run. Lets hope we can keep up those standards.

46.21 times more valuable.

Sounds sensible.

Well, it's nice to see someone else saying it, anyway. But for luck, see also fatigue. Having said that, Spurs are clearly doing the same as we have been but at a slightly higher level of expenditure, with predictable results.

Bednarek and maybe Hesketh are the only two of those I'd currently think will trouble the 25 next summer. I suspect Flannigan's status might depend on whether Cedric leaves and obviously his progress. Reed losing his squad number in his absence isn't a particularly good sign for him.

Splitters.

Nicely done.

I note Gazzaniga doesn't have a squad number. *cough*.

We won't use 18 as Reed is only on loan and previous moves show we don't like to allocate out numbers for players who are still under contract to us.

Forster sodding about back to 44, Stephens up to 5, Gardos down to 25, Gallagher has 27, Bednarek a "not starting" 35 and everyone else either the same or irrelevant enough not to notice they've changed (ie the early 30s, Targett aside).

Weird initial list which just underlines how sensible we are with transfers. Hassen and Caceres: short term solutions for injury crises at reserve keeper and centre back, otherwise young players who already have first team experience and look like they have an upside, (McCarthy, Boufal, Hojbjerg, Pied), a keeper to fill the reserves' bench because you don't want to have to keep three top keepers happy (Taylor), and a couple of genuinely good hit-the-ground-running regular starters in Redmond and Gabbiadini. Not to mention that our season basically only had one important game left when the last transfer window closed, so why rush to pay big money to achieve nothing (and we STILL finished as high as we were likely to come Jan 31). I don't see the problem, unless someone's expecting us to shunt £150m on Pogba or something, in which case they're the problem.

We already did that for 5 minutes at the start of the last game against Augsburg (and for about half of last season).

Taylor did surprisingly well in his 45 minutes in France, but someone has to sit on the bench when the other keeper is getting a game, and we have lots of teams.

At best second behind McCarthy.

Thinking we won't put a different team on the pitch on Saturday is just bizarre. Starting side v Augsburg: Forster; Pied, Bednarek, Yoshida, Targett; Romeu, Hojbjerg; Long, Ward-Prowse, Redmond; Austin. Potential starting side v Sevilla (not that I think it will be): Gazzaniga/Taylor; Cedric, Gardos, Stephens, Bertrand; Davis, Clasie; McQueen, Tadic, Boufal; Gabbiadini We could literally start with a completely different XI and there are only a couple of questionable players (mainly at keeper because McCarthy is injured and due to the CB situation).

I'm still expecting us to play in basically the same way but with fresher players than last season and have better results as a consequence. Van Dijk's status (or the status of the £65m) is likely to have a significant impact, though. If we're not scoring many we need to be not conceding many as well. It appears from preseason so far that Pellegrino hasn't managed to find a way to successfully implement much in the way of change, though we'll only fully see when the starters are all on the pitch together and we see if he actually does think JWP can play pushed right up front and what others are told to do to exploit that.

Which everyone and his dog should realise isn't true even now. But we still don't have any midfielders who can take a chance, or apparently pick out the striker so he can actually score one. JWP playing basically as a second striker was useful in terms of pressing, but hopeless in terms of scoring. Having Long on the right at the same time as that was very strange. I will at least say JWP saw the ball very late for that awful miss, as it just went over the defender and he expected him to clear it. In response to various other comments: No, we didn't play My Way. Bednarek is in no way similar to Gardos, who wins headers but can't pass, whilst Bednarek looks good on the ball... but we conceded two headed goals. Pied still looked decent to me, and is comfortably better than Martina in both directions. We ended the match with McQueen at DM, hardly a surprise they ran at us and scored. Romeu was very good but without regular teammates around the split-seconds like "should I close or is someone else doing it" cost us. Højbjerg's passing is one of his worst qualities. I actually left on the 4th goal (it'll be sooner on Sat as my nephew and niece will definitely get bored more quickly). I just put a bet on us to be top on Sept 1, not sure which opposing players will score all the own goals though. We pressed and overloaded up front for a matter of minutes, then basically just stopped attacking in any meaningful way. Redmond can hit the bar all he likes, the problem there is him shooting from there in the first place when he should be passing to someone better placed. We need either a change of lineup to get our two most competent finishers on the pitch at the same time, or sign someone who plays in midfield who can actually hit the target. Didn't think Forster was to blame for any of the goals. Formation flitted between 4-2-3-1/4-2-2-2/4-3-3 depending on JWP when we had the ball and solid, predictable banks of 4 when we didn't, with Augsburg just exploiting the space between the lines all the time. It should have worked but it didn't. Intrigued to see what we look like with the other half of the team in against Sevilla.

Could be that, but we haven't actually given it to him yet.

The urgent need is because of the years of neglect and build-up of cumulative problems. i.e. they never invest in the infrastructure, short-termism rules. No-one remembers winning the "best facilities" cup...

Won't be Long, he won't be on the pitch. Boufal seems like a likely one, mainly because he spends so much time getting hoofed he's adept at avoiding contact and still getting the foul. The trial by video annoys me though, it's just another opportunity for the Premier League to skew things to meet their narrative.

Oh and while I think of it, the new banners finally went up outside St Mary's today. Cartoon stuff, no Van Dijk one FWIW.