SKD

JWP is probably the slowest player in our team. He's certainly not going to bomb forward and beat his man Think he'd probably do alright at WB though, give us the option to hit an early cross.

Oh without a doubt (my post wasn't a 'Wish we still had Cortese' one).. The main point was that we never actually replaced him.

San Diego, without a doubt.

I still think Huddersfield will drop (I can't see them wining another game, possibly pick up a couple of draws at best), it will just be out of us or Stoke that go with them... Given our fixtures and performances all season, I think it'll be us.

If you had to pick it would be Austin, but I have a funny feeling that there won't be an awards night this year.

I can, this has been coming the day Cortese left and that Kat decided she didn't need to replace him. I've been waiting for our ridiculous transfer strategy to bite us on the backside.

Yep, dreadful. Wouldn’t even go if it was free.

They have a very good chance of going up. We have a very good chance of going down. Not sure it’s delusion, to be fair.

Is Maddison really that unrealistic though? As I’ve pointed out, financially we will be one of the strongest (if not the strongest when you consider player sells) in that division. Flint isn’t a bad shout, again one we could potentially attract and one who would improve our starting 11. Sessegnon and Cairney, you’re right, no chance.

I can’t see anything other than us going down now, so the board have a number of months to prepare for it. Hopefully we can persuade the likes of Austin, Romeu, Yoshida and McCarthy to stay and ship out pretty much the rest of the first team. The new manager will be crucial, we need someone who has experience in the championship and knows exactly who and what they want (someone suggest Warnock, which wouldn’t be terrible if I’m honest) With all our sales and payments from dropping out of the PL we should have the financial clout to attract the best at that level (and we should have a pretty decent reputation as well). Dependent on who goes up, I’d like to see a squad something like this: GK: McCarthy / new (back up) Def: new RB / Yoshida / New CB / Jones / Targett / McQueen Mid: Romeu / Reed / JWP / Aron Gunnarsson (Cardiff) / Davis Forwards: Sims / Hesketh / Austin / Redmond / new RW / James Maddison (Norwich) or Vydra (Derby) For me, next year will be about making sure we don’t ‘do a Sunderland’ And then push for promotion the following season.

True and not true... he did create a very good ‘feel factor’ around the playing squad.

Whilst I think you’re spot on with 90% of this, I cannot agree with the last part. Especially the bit about them not being ‘man enough to do so’. Players like Boufal and Tadic (both clearly quality players, btw) are confidence players. I don’t think people appreciate the mood in the dressing room when Puel left, it was pretty much rock bottom and unfortunately MP wasn’t good enough to improve that. In my mind we have enough quality in our squad to comfortably be mid- upper-mid table but as a group they are all ridiculously low on confidence. However, ultimately no matter how many excuses you make, I think Tadic is spot on in that the players are to blame. There’s just a terrible feeling around the club at the moment, from top to bottom.

Les Reeds lapdog.

Not even sure Stephens is good enough to play CB in the championship if I’m honest, terrible defender.

Thought we played okay today. A bit unlucky, things just aren’t going our way this year

In fairness, as I understand it (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong), a number of tickets are always made available to applicants - they aren't therefore taking away from the fans of either club that gets there... In fact they're probably helping them by making more available through re-sell.

Possibly, but football is also a contact sport, if going shoulder to shoulder with Young 'Knocks you off balance', that doesn't make it a foul. The foul occurred when Tarkowski stood on his foot. I'd argue that his foot was in a completely natural position and it was the Italians foot that wasn't, causing Tarkowski to step on it (I'm not convinced that the step on his foot caused him to fall either). Also, the Italian was never getting on the end of his touch. This is one of those occasions where slowing it down made it look worse than it was. By the letter of the law perhaps it was a pen, but I would be very upset if that was given against Saints when playing in the Semi Final.

Nothing will change as long as people continue to pay the prices they set. The only thing I could see working is a complete boycott of every semi final game, but that's not going to happen. I also think it's a joke that the semi's are at Wembley, completely takes the feeling of getting there away, IMO.

A panel of officials (other refs) watch the game in a location away from the stadium - they then alert the ref that a possible mistake has been made and then it is down to the official in charge of the game to decide if a mistake has been made. Ultimately, technology or not, you still have the human aspect of the official in charge deciding if his decision is correct / incorrect and as we have seen in many case an offence isn't always that clear cut (last night being a clear example of that - whilst there was contact, I personally think that was a harsh to give a penalty).

That's it... With a game on a Friday night in a place like Dam' there was always going to be trouble. I got back Last night and managed to avoid all of the shenanigans, but as I understand it a Dutch 'ultra's' and their police force weren't exactly saints. I'm convinced Russia will be fine other than the odd kick off away from the main crowds, which you would get here or anywhere in Europe. I don't get all the negativity around following / supporting England - I've been doing it regularly for about 4/5 years and absolutely love it.

I agree, but is he worth keeping if he plays 15 games and scores 10 goals? Yes, IMO. What the new manager will have to do, whoever that is and whatever division we're in, is manage Austin effectively (I.e play him for a couple of games, rest him etc...). He has the ability to score enough goals to keep / send us up. Of course there is the argument that he is very well paid and for that you would expect him to be playing a large % of our games. On the balance, I would 100% keep him

Well after such an awful injury, there is no guarantee how he will recover... id hold judgement on Coleman. A couple of years ago, yes, he was better.

How many games has Coleman played since his leg was snapped in half? Serious questions.

Walker, tripper, Bellerín. Clyne (when’s he’s not sticking gear up his nose) and probably Azpilicueta (although he seems to be playing CB atm) are also better. There’s not much between Cedric, Valencia and Moses, although Moses is more of a winger.

The same can be said about every single player in our squad. Cedric is a good player, up in the top 5 RB’s in the league, IMO.