The9

Provided we have to fit in 6 extra games before Xmas for some reason and a trip to a different continent midweek for the lolz, yes. This season should be in no way considered comparable to last, which stretched the club's playing resources to their limits. This season's benchmarks for Premier League position should be much higher, just from not having the burden of Europa League games alone.

I'm fairly sure not adding a midfielder was to give Ward-Prowse, Clasie, Reed, Hojbjerg and any academy prospect the chance to develop. That said, Davis is getting on a bit and will start to lose effectiveness other than his awful shot conversion rate soon, so we're going to be looking around for someone.

"Get the place buzzing" "Show a bit of ambition" West Ham's reasons for signing players, everyone.

I am aware of that yes, you are aware that we have to have a certain number of homegrown players in the squad, and a certain number of goalkeepers? Guessing our data-crunchers have worked out that it makes the most sense to buy in homegrown talent in the cheapest positions when we need to do that.

I would suspect there are legally-difficult workarounds, physical and mental fitness being two of them.

FWIW players have to fulfil certain conditions of their employment to prevent being fined by the club. Training is one of those, so he has to be where training is taking place, which last week was Austria.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, if we sell all of our best players "because we won't win anything" they will always want to leave. Tbf even if we don't some of them will just want to get paid more. Actually, I'm not sure winning has anything to do with it, Kante certainly didn't care that Leicester were champions and Chelsea weren't in Europe when he left a year ago. Also, Van Dijk might have won a League Cup last season if he'd been fit...

Doesn't count if you have to pay £89 million to play your "academy product" because you let them go on a free transfer instead of actually putting them in the team. He had 3 sub appearances and they let him go for nothing. Development done by Le Havre until 16 and then by Juventus. Does nicely underline my point about them not needing to worry about generating revenue from selling players, in fact they can afford to take a massive hit just to cover one of their mistakes. We can't afford to do that.

We've already got McCarthy, who has some of the best stats over the past few years and was injured most of last season. Short of signing Hart, which I'm not sure is in line with our usual policies, I'm not sure how we can do much better there. The two we have also count as homegrown.

Yeah, last years were skintight, had a different pattern on the material and an extra panel under the arms. Haven't seen any decent pics of the new ones to see where the differences are for the new one yet. Actually pics 15 and 18 here seem to suggest a similar diagonal vent panel under the arms on the new matchworns too - there are a couple of seams that aren't on the replicas in the red bits around the armpit: https://southamptonfc.com/news/2017-07-16/gallery-st-gallen-southampton-pre-season-friendly

I'd be fine with it tbh. We've got a stronger squad than the most of last season just from having everyone fit, and we should do better just from having fewer matches. However, given the need for parts of the fanbase to see the club doing what they want, maybe it isn't the right sign to be sending out...

We might have signed an exclusive deal which didn't allow for a second sponsor (it wasn't allowed when the deal was signed), and only been able to sell the space to Virgin Media. As for the training kit, they have to do something to make the player-worn stuff different from the replicas or you get nobheads selling it as authentic all over eBay...

If you didn't already know that you're on the wrong thread. See also any clothing with a brand on it and carrier bags when they used to give them away before the law change.

Had assumed all internationals (except Long) were back tomorrow, appears one or two might be back already...

The NEXEN logo is part of Man City's. They're not charging any more for them anyway, it's the same cost as two Prem badges: "The Virgin Media sleeve badges will be available in the Stadium store and Westquay store when purchasing Premier League badges. Fans may choose either two Premier League badges or one Premier League badge and a Virgin Media logo for the same price of £6 (badges only), or £18 when purchased with a name and number. " Mind you, the only reason they've done that is because they've already sold a load of shirts with two Prem badges on. I'm amused that the second post on this thread mentions the sleeve sponsor thing yet it takes them 9 months to bother to tell the fans.

I did notice the kits against St Gallen were suspiciously lacking a left arm Prem badge even though they had the right arm one...

Having a graduate in the team briefly, or as an emergency measure, is not the same as having a successful player good enough to play a significant number of games who can be relied upon week in, week out. Which is what I was talking about. Having players you can actually use. So you'll forgive me for not thinking Fosu-Mensah, Borthwick-Jackson etc are worth discussing. Rashford and Lingard are in the conversation but neither played 30 matches last season when United played over 60. Again, you'll have to remind me the last time they produced a first teamer who played half of their games in a season from their Academy. I suspect it's Januzaj in 2013/14 - where's he now? They're not producing players they can pick for more than half their games in a season, and haven't for 10 years. They might have been "doing it for years" but we're better than them at it at the moment.

Noticed that we only have Prem badges on the right sleeve - left sleeve left blank for clubs to add secondary adverts, so for those who insist on the sleeve patch, don't get two and try and get a discount if they're offering to do both sleeves for the daft amount it costs...

Expected Goals (xG) based on the historical outcomes from shots taken from where he took shots last season: 6.064 Actual Prem goals by Redmond: 7. So he either needs to get in better positions to shoot, or shoot less and create chances for others. Improving his shooting from places where he's unlikely to score anyway won't have much impact. Conversely Long missed the target with more than 10 chances along the edge of the 6 yard box last season... https://public.tableau.com/profile/paul.riley#!/vizhome/PremierLeagueShotDashboard2016-17/PLShotDashboard2016-17 FWIW Aguero is rated 1 for xG and Costa 2. Incidentally, there's a weird piece of info in here - Mark Noble scored a free-kick from INSIDE the area v Saints last season (!). Anyone remember it? Ah!

He looks like a decent L1 signing, 14 goals in 61 goals in Championship, before that only got 13 in Bournemouth's Championship promotion season, but L1 is no Championship. Still not sure how they can afford him tbh.

Fully fit (cardio and not injured to the point of feeling pain) and in full training with the ball (kicking the ball, training with the team, but not necessarily in match situations) doesn't contradict anything Saints have said. Bertrand is one of a number of internationals not back yet.

We've varied how we use numbers enough pre-season before not to read anything at all into it. Looks to me like we've used existing squad numbers and backfilled the gaps with academy players. McQueen is the only player who featured regularly last season who had a different number (18 instead of 38 ) - though according to the OS report Flannigan has Ward-Prowse's 16, which is interesting(ish). Gaps after transfers, agreed loans and player releases were: 6 Fonte, 9 Rodriguez, 12 (Wanyama), 15 Martina, 18 Reed, 25, and 27 and above with a few exceptions (28 is Taylor, still). 6 was Jones, 9 Slattery, 12 Tella, 15 Gallagher, [16 Flannigan], 25 O'Driscoll, 29 Little, 30 Johnson - basically all ties up with the backfilling theory, just missing a 27 and wondering if they packed Ward-Prowse's shirt instead of that for Flannigan.

You'd have loved the Newport County friendly yesterday then. Ten triallists and a centre back who's been injured since September named on the team sheet.

Iriany.

You'll have to remind me the last time they produced a first teamer who played half of their games in a season from their Academy. It's not like Man U have to worry about revenue generation, is it?