qwertyell

Depends how far ahead our planning has been. If we've long had the replacements and reinforcements lined up and ready to go and were just waiting on the funds to trigger the pre-agreed fees, then yes. If we're just staggering around aimlessly in the market with money burning a hole in our pocket - and every club knowing we're both flushed and desperate - then no. Not sure why anyone cares if Vestergaard leaves. Apart from around 15 games at the start of last season, he's been total garbage during his time at the club. Can Prowse be replaced? Probably not his set piece quality, but the other aspects to his game aren't unique at all. Hard working sideways passers are ten a penny. Ings is the one who'll be the big miss - but he's leaving one way or another anyhow, so we might as well get a fee for him that can be reinvested.

Not the best run in - 5 defeats in the final 8, minimum. Apr 2 Leeds United (a)Apr 9 Chelsea (h)Apr 16 Arsenal (h)Apr 23 Brighton & Hove Albion (a)Apr 30 Crystal Palace (h)May 7 Brentford (a)May 15 Liverpool (h)May 22 Leicester City (a) That Brighton, Palace, Brentford triple header will be make or break.

He's already said he doesn't want to return to Dortmund, so their buy back clause is somewhat redundant. Not sure he views his previous experience there with any affection.

Not true. After a slow start he became an integral player in an Inter side that just won Serie A. Sadly, that'll almost certainly be his last achievement as a player, but there are more important things in life.

Walcott (RW/Bench/Tella's football friend) is our first signing. And so far, our last signing. Exciting times.

He's skinny with a beard. Neither attributes are particularly useful in keeping the ball out of the net.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're limited to just two domestic loans - but overseas loans don't count towards that. So Lookman from Leipzig on a loan would be a fairly painless roll of the dice without wasting a domestic loan slot. He's decent. Bit of a pea heart, but who isn't these days?

Good luck to him. Seems a decent lad. Just has no presence at all. It was like having a ghost between the sticks.

Roberto Carlos: 5' 6" Phillipp Lahm: 5' 7" Bixente Lizarazu: 5' 7" Dennis Irwin: 5' 7" I shouldn't worry about it too much. Quality players find a way. We struggled with Cedric because he was shit. His height had nothing to do with it.

I don't see any scenario where Southgate is starting Grealish, Foden and Mount. He's not known for his adventure. Two out of three at most. If he plays a 433, the midfield will be Rice, Phillips/Henderson and Mount. The front three will be Kane, Rashford and Sterling/Foden/Grealish If he plays 343, the midfield two will be Rice and Phillips/Henderson. The front three will be Kane, Mount and A.N. Other (probably between Rashford and Sterling as there's no pace up top otherwise).

I'm loving the reimagining of Prowse on here as a game changing impact sub. He's not even an impact starter for us most weeks. England struggling, Southgate looks down the bench and sees Grealish, Sancho, Sterling, Foden, Saka, Calvert-Lewin, Bellingham... and thinks "nah, this one's set up for Prowsey". Maguire's not going to be fit for possibly the entire group stage. Taking another CB is the obvious option. Not taking a badly injured player in the first place would be a better option, but England have done that more often than not in my lifetime. And it's never worked. But still they persist...

Because he was 24 and needed to be someone's first choice LB. Also, we were (and still are) skint, and £15m-odd for a back up player helped fund Adams' transfer.

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.