Ginko

Nah, that was Sanson. His wife Delilah made him do it.

I think we’ll keep him around initially. With the increase to the number of subs and Gerrard targeting longer runs in the domestic cup competitions, he should get minutes. If we get dumped out of the cups early on again, I think we’ll consider loaning him out.

Either way, we’ve had the Kappa and Cazoo combination for the past two seasons, and I’m pretty sure we were still late to the party last summer. So whereas changing either the sponsor or supplier certainly doesn’t help, our late releases seem to be down to other reasons. Apologies if this has been asked before, but presumably people bring this up at the fan meetings — do the club ever acknowledge it and provide a reason as to why we’re always so late on new kits? If we’re trying to grow our stature as a club it seems like something we should address.

Agreed. The guy’s an ex-England international and Champion’s League-winning captain who has spent most of his life on the training pitch. Whether he directly ‘takes’ training or not, I’m sure he spends plenty of time with the players.

Blimey, I’ve heard of retiring early but that’s a bit excessive.

Here’s the Google translation of the question and answer, so take it with a pinch of salt: If it itches you to play in a Champions team: “They have already asked me. The club is doing well. The season is over and we already have great signings. I'm not thinking of moving yet. I'm thinking of playing for the national team. When all this is over I will sit down with my family. It's not something I have in mind with five months to go before the World Cup." I assume the ‘sit down with my family’ bit is that he wants to spend time with his family after the World Cup, not that he means he’ll talk to them about his next move, necessarily.

Alright Johnny Pickering.

Agreed. The young lads played brilliantly yesterday, I don’t think anyone is knocking that, but the gulf of quality between Barrow and Premier League teams is enormous. Let’s not get too carried away and think that one good game against lower league opposition means they’re ready to make the step up just yet.

Makes sense that we can’t really bring in another midfielder with so many on the books. Hopefully we’re looking to shift Hourihane on at least. Perhaps this is the reason why Smith alluded to no more signings the other day, i.e. we need to make room in the squad before bringing in any more new faces. The ‘we’re happy with what we’ve got’ line may just be Smith being pragmatic with the press — a way of being respectful to the unwanted players in case we are unable to move them on and end up having to play them out of necessity. This is the hope I’m clinging onto, anyway.

Yeah, I’d have thought that would have been one of the main differences between a ‘Stadium’ shirt and a ‘Pro’ shirt, to be honest, but it seems like even Kappa’s stadium shirt sizes are a bit tighter than most other sport’s clothing companies.

I never understand why they leave so many numbers in the twenties blank — I used to think it was in case any big signings come in late in the window so they can have a ‘first-team player number.’ But it doesn’t look like we’re going to be signing many more players, if any, so I guess that’s that theory out the window. Why no one has gone for ‘23’ baffles me too — who wouldn’t want to emulate Michael Jordan? Maybe I’m old.

Don’t think I saw him in that content video the club just put up? Nor Trezeguet for that matter. Probably nothing, but maybe he’s off after all?

Update to this: I just checked on the online store and they’re taking orders for multiple sizes again in the away shirt. I ordered a Large (again, though hopefully this time it doesn’t get lost in transit) and it treated it like a preorder, citing the shipping date as August 31st, so presumably that’s when they’re getting more stock in. Just in case anyone was curious.

I assume they’ll get some in at some point, but not for a while. Both seller and courier were extremely unhelpful. Bell-ends.

Between them the online shop and Hermes couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. I ordered the new away shirt the day it was announced and still haven’t got it. Got in contact with the online shop and they said they’ve sent it out, but since Hermes haven’t scanned it it’s probably lost, and it’s now out of stock in my size so they can only offer me a refund. Tried to get in contact with Hermes but they use a **** ‘digital assistant’ for receiving parcels. The only way to actually talk to a human being is if you’re sending something. Absolute **** clowns, the lot of them.

I’m sure when I was a kid I read something about the reason Yorke wore 18 was because 9 was taken and 1 + 8 = 9. Maybe Angel was doing something similar until 9 became available? I also remember thinking that a striker wearing number 8 was strange at the time.

That one wasn’t too bad and was only ruined by the pinky red sponsor. That being said, I really don’t think claret and black go well together.

To be fair, the normal badge wouldn’t have been so bad on this year’s away, but I think the monochrome badge looks good too. Smart and subtle. So glad they used a monochrome for this shirt. It’s my favourite kit we’ve had for a long time. I play in this shirt every week for 5-a-side and absolutely love it

Yep, could be. I guess we don’t know enough about the club as to what their priorities are for the upcoming season. Here’s hoping you’re right and we get it sorted soon.

Can’t see us getting him if Liverpool are genuinely interested. You’d imagine he’d prefer to stay at Southampton until late on in the window until Liverpool had sold players so they can afford him. Obviously Southampton may want the cash sooner, but perhaps they’re banking on keeping him if Liverpool can’t raise the funds.

Disagree. When we signed Buendia it started to make me think Jack might be off, though I put that down to a bit of pessimism. But when we were in for ESR, that’s when I started to fear the worst, and as soon as that deal was dead, we immediately turned to Bailey and I was pretty certain he was going. I reckon a lot of us knew deep down, but we just didn’t want to believe it could be true.

Same, I really hate it when the normal badge is added to a kit with a completely different colour scheme and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Much prefer the use of the mono badge, and ours looks really smart.

I think he’s already taken the number 20, but perhaps there’s time to change it. You’d think Ings or Bailey might take 10, though.

Wow, completely blindsided by that one! Happy with that, though hopefully it hasn’t cost us too much. Surely we’re not after Tammy now, right?

Ordered the new away top the day it was released, estimated delivery date was Tuesday. It’s now end of play Wednesday and it’s still not here, which would be fine, but why even give an estimate? I’m tracking the parcel with the Hermes and they haven’t even received the parcel themselves! What’s the **** point, really?