qwertyell

How many do we need? I think the squad suggests Southgate is committing to 3-4-3, in which case there's only a need for two central midfielders. Five in the squad, therefore, is plenty of cover. He'll use one of his right backs as a right centre back in a three. If everyone's fit, the line up for the first match will be something like: Pickford; Walker, Stones, Maguire; James, Rice, Henderson, Chillwell; Rashford/Sterling/Foden, Kane, Mount. Pretty negative, but that's Southgate in a nutshell.

Supposed to be quite decent - think he was part of some England age group squads (although the article says he's represented Serbia now).

To be fair, Lahoz is the Spanish Mike Dean domestically - a drama queen who makes everything about himself - and is rated about as highly over there as the Dean Machine is over here. Loves to give straight reds for back chat. I think everyone was a bit surprised at how well he reffed the game. I particularly liked how clearly and decisively he dismissed the City handball claim in a manner that anyone watching could understand: "Body onto arm: no handball. Now shut the fuck up and get on with it."

Nope. Foden, Mount, Grealish, Sancho are way ahead for me. Possibly even Lingard. If he wasn't on the brink of burning out after carrying Arsenal all season, I'd have Saka in the mix too.

Pep fucked that. He's been obsessed all season with playing without strikers, but imagine going into the biggest match in your club's history and deciding out of nowhere to play a one-man midfield. Not just any man - their leading scorer. A tactical masterstroke that both yielded the midfield to the opposition but also neutered his chief goal threat as instead of making late runs into the opposition box, he spent the whole game running back towards his own goal. Meanwhile star player De Bruyne was consistently 50 yards away from where the ball was at, twiddling his thumbs waiting for a quality pass that would never come from a one-man midfield that couldn't outmanoeuvre Chelsea's press. It's hard to think how the manager could've set City up worse. Tuchel must've been laughing his ass off - they nullified themselves without him having to do anything special. They just lined up how they usually do. I'm sure the England manager will be chuffed that his two likely starting wide attackers, Rashford and Sterling, threw in 3/10 performances this week in major finals. I wonder if he has the balls to cut Sterling from the final 26 entirely. He's been appalling for six months. Which makes it even more baffling that Pep decided to sacrifice his dominant midfield to accommodate him for a final. Still only won the Champions League twice - both times when the only tactic required was get the ball to peak Messi - in spite of the massive resources available to him at three clubs. What a genius.

PR signing Walcott will be in there somewhere.

I don't think it'd be great move for us, timing wise. If he does well he'll come back with only a year on his contract and holding all the aces regarding his future. If he does poorly, it's another year of his development wasted and we then have a difficult decision to make to either renew his contract or try and sell him with his value greatly depreciated. Bottom line, we either back him this summer to fulfil his potential with us, or we sell him.

It would probably depend on if he phoned it in for the second half of the season for them too.

It's all relative, isn't it? The drop off between our "best" players and the deadwood isn't exactly the difference between Harry Kane and Troy Parrott. Our squad is uniformly shite. Only Danny Ings is substantially better than the rest of his peers. Aside from around 10 games at the start of the season, Vestergaard hasn't even been better than Jack Stephens during his Saints career. The idea that anyone would consider him one of our best players is both absurd and possibly depressingly accurate. But he'd still be no real loss - yet the money we might get for him and potentially reinvest in a player or two who can move their legs could help the side move forward.

No-one did before the first 16 or so games of the season. Since his injury lay off he's reverted to being pretty poor.

Portuguese media reporting he's La Liga bound.

Who's off then? Ward-Prowse? CM isn't a priority position (JWP, Romeu, Diallo, Armstrong, Smallbone, Jankewitz - if he stays), and we've not got much money to throw around. Raise funds selling Prowse, replace him on the cheap and invest the rest improving other positions?

Started okay. Got injured. Returned a few months later and did okay. Then the first choice keeper got fit again and that was that. Played one of Stoke's last 10 matches - in which he was, let's say, not overly impressive... I don't think Stoke fans - the handful that can communicate using language - were entirely convinced by Gunny's skills.

Out of contract in June. Had a strong season in Portugal in a poor team. Competition for his signature will be fierce, though - think I read the other day around 30 clubs have registered an interest.

Who could have predicted our policy of signing Palace, City and Newcastle's (before he went to Scotland's semi-retirement league) third choice keepers would result in a collection of shite? I read we're now being linked with Lazio's reserve keeper...

Lot of huff and puff but shite in the final third. Found ourselves with someone running at the heart of their defence several times but lacked the composure and quality to play the right pass. Probably shot our bolt now. Maybe put Djenepo and Walcott on in the second half... What have we done to deserve another game of Efan Ekoku and his weird grievance against all things Saints related on commentary?

Passing's gone to shit. Plenty of endeavour, but dubious quality. Leeds getting on top now.

Guehi's a Chelsea player, incidentally. Doubt they'll sell cheap - if at all. Potential loan option.

Poor game management at 2-0. Instead of bossing the game we suddenly let Fulham in behind us four times in a row - they finally scored on the fourth occasion. Midfield stopped pressing and the defensive line didn't adapt. A bit like Spurs at the start of the season. Fortunately the goal woke us back up again and we got on the front foot and went after the third - which we should've been doing all along. Nice moment for Tella and you could see the confidence boost it gave to his whole game. Needs more minutes. Back to back wins. Heady days.

You're right - that is funny. Didn't know that. The mind boggles. He's not a player that makes any sense for us. (Guaranteed man of the match performance this afternoon in a Fulham stroll now...)

This rumour popped up last summer too, and amounted to nothing - as it most likely will this summer. I can't believe for one minute that our recruitment team haven't noted his absolute unsuitability to Hasenhuttl's playing style. Loftus-Cheek is a good player on the ball, but he simply cannot press out of possession. It's not that the lad doesn't try, but he's just got no engine, never has had. He's a stroller. If you make him run, he's out on his feet in less than an hour. I'd be amazed if there's anything in this. We've only got room for two PL loans - we're not wasting one on this guy.

Timeline's all wrong. News of Jankewitz (or his agent) asking for a transfer didn't break until right after the FA Cup game with Shrewsbury where the manager gave starts to two academy teenagers in midfield ahead of him (who have also barely been seen since). The reported reason for the request was that he didn't see a pathway into the team any more and with interest from the Eredivise it would be better for his development to be there rather than stagnating in Academy football. His agent has said nothing in public since the United game. Jankewitz himself hasn't spoken at all on the subject. At no point has anyone "given it large about how he should be playing" outside of your own imagination. And especially not in your timeline. "...he's part of a catalyst for the whole season going to shit." We lost one game. Either side of it we lost a further 12-13 games. If you're placing any responsibility for that on the shoulders of a teenager's 2 minute cameo, I think you're looking for a scapegoat rather than answers.

Wasn't even as good as that. Ten-a-penny left back. That being said, Efan Ekoku's been getting our games lately - and I don't know what historical crimes we've done to upset the lad, but he seems to really have a gnawing dislike for us. Any praise is through gritted teeth. He gave Danny Ings man of the match the other night whilst simultaneously claiming he could've given it to Benteke. A guy scores two goals in a 3-1 win - and he wants to give MotM to a bloke on the losing team who barely had a kick after the first 10 minutes.

He was loaned to Hoffenheim by Mourinho with the brief to learn how to play left back week in week out. No idea how he's gone, but he's at least been getting games. Looked miles out of his depth at Spurs. Too feeble defensively to play left back; too timid on the ball to play left wing. But, you know, he's only 20 so it's not like he's a write off. A loan is probably the only serious option available to us.

Nigeria. Thanks for the update - some interesting snippets.