andoru

Wonder if they'll do a Man Utd, blame the kit and come out in a different kit in the second half.

Anyone else surprised Newcastle have been allowed to play in their home strip? It's a bit tricky telling the two sides apart at times, and I think Shane Long had trouble with it about ten minutes ago when he passed to a Newcastle player. Both teams have white stripes and black shorts. Anyway, looking fairly good so far. I missed the first 8 mins because of some stupid delay with the TV here, so didn't see the first Pelle goal. Would love to see him grab his hat-trick though. Just need to make sure we don't fall asleep at the back. Couple of good saves from Forster kept us in it. The first one especially. Newcastle should really have scored that one.

How sad. Also can't help feel the timing was off with the ice bucket BS going on as well.

He's gone for a 2-0 win for us this time. http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/29163212

That's the least we should be giving. So far he's raised about £1 for every Saints fan who went to the JPT final. Given that most people have donated at least a tenner, that means a lot of people are yet to give a thing. Come on people. Have one pint less down the pub after work tomorrow night and sent the money Benali's way.

Pretty much every fan in India supports Man United. It's clear they have a long way to go to learn anything about football.

To the tune of 'One man went to mow, went to mow a meadow' Two men from Japan Signed for Southampton But Chung has gone And Maya's on the bench now we've signed Florin P.S. I actually have nothing against Maya, and hoped Tadanari Lee would come good as well. Lived in Japan before. Will always have a soft spot for the Japanese.

Television is a lot more accurate than an individual running with a flag, trying to look at two places at once (where the ball is played from and where the intended receiver is at that exact moment).

I was discussing this very point over lunch. My thoughts are that you can see whether there was a handball or not, but that there would still be interpretation by the official. Managers would just have to accept that. At least they had a chance to look at it. As for your point about offside, I'm afraid I don't get that at all. Offside is one of the easiest things to see with TV replay.

I believe the idea is to only allow a challenge during natural stoppages in play, not to allow managers to stop the game with the challenge. Assuming the challenges are for things like disallowed goals (or wrongly allowed goals), this wouldn't be an issue as the game would stop anyway. I can see some problems if managers are going to challenge for free kicks not given, as presumably the game would have continued and could do so for quite some time before the ball goes out of play. I'm in favour of the idea, but perhaps only for dubious goals and incidents inside the penalty box (e.g handballs).

You can target a player without approaching them. That's what the scouts do. They go out, find players they think will make a good addition to the squad, and then add them to the list of players the club would like to sign.

Very good point. Obviously the idea was to have more English players playing football each week, but soon we'll end up with the very best of them on top money at 'big' clubs, while only the more average Englishmen are getting regular football. If City were smart, they'd go out and buy a bunch of aging English players from league two, double their money to 1k a week. They'd be getting a bargain way of meeting their homegrown quota, while the players would likely appreciate the extra cash before they are due to retire.

Or: We've got Alderweireld and we know how his name's spelled. T-O-B-Y! Toby Alderweireld!

Just looked on his website. Says about £42,000 donated so far. That's a little disappointing, isn't it? His target is a million.

We don't know how his name's spelled, but we've got Alderweireld!

I don't think I was ever condemning the board, although I certainly admit to panicking and questioning what was going on. Am I going to apologise? No. Why? Because I went on the information available to me at the time. That information was basically that we'd sold five of our best players with none in. I'm not going to second guess myself now. I had an opinion at that time, formed from what I knew and what the board told us, and I'm not going to take it back. The board have come good, but it doesn't mean things were handled well two months ago.

Disappointed with this one. He's never been a 90-minute man for us, but I always thought he made a handy substitute. Remember when he came on against West Brom last season and picked out Lallana with that brilliant left-footed pass on the turn. He chipped it inch-perfectly to Adam's feet and he scored. For moments like that, I'd have liked us to hold onto him.

This scoring lark is easy for us now.

A couple of good chances so far this half. Looking a lot more threatening.

Get in! Was just writing about how poor and unimaginative we have been up front, just like last week, then we score. My point still stands though. We need more cutting edge. Everything peters out in the final third.

Clearly not a question for you then. Why did you bother even opening the thread? Some of us still follow the fortunes of our former players. Leave the thread for us.

For those who care, how do you think Lallana, Lambert and Lovren will do against the likes of Real Madrid, and Chambers against Borussia Dortmund, etc? Personally I look forward to seeing Dejan get skinned by the likes of Ronaldo and Bale, although I wouldn't begrudge Ricky a goal at the Bernabeu.

22 first-team appearances for Saints. Nothing. 2 first-team appearances for Arsenal. England call up. Clyne. Still ignored.

The issue is affected by something that happened 25 years ago, and largely ignores the situation today. Since plenty of people continue to stand, surely it makes sense to ensure they are safe while doing so? The events of Hillsborough don't really come into it. I've never felt very comfortable standing behind a plastic seat that's barely knee high. It's too easy to trip over one when you move, e.g. while celebrating. I remember as a kid standing in the family terraces at the Dell, behind the metal barriers. As long as crowd numbers are controlled, it's perfectly safe standing in such a place.