CB Fry

The chances of us sacking him are virtually zero, but that's not the same as the management of the club just bimbling about saying to the fanbase "oh Ronald has got a contract until next June so we'll leave him be until about May 15th next year. Well tell you when he decides he wants to talk to us". You'll remember the outrage about how we were "caught napping/humilated/done over/etc etc" by Toby right? Imagine that. Multiplied by about a million.

It's not about the media, but others are right, it would go on and on all season. It's about players too, it's about planning for the future, and also about the relationship between the manager and the fans. If we go on a stinking run like we have twice this season, what will many fans' perception of him be then? Would Koeman really care if we finished tenth or sixth? Would the players be giving their all for a manager who is halfway out the door? How much of a fu ck will RK give about developing the next generation of young players, and just as importantly, how much of a fu ck do you think fans will think he gives? Players sign for lots of reasons, but one is the manager. Is the next Mane or VVD going to sign for four years when clearly the manager has no intent to? Who on earth would we sign in that January window - why would we give Koeman a penny? This is not Feyenoord and personally I don't really care what Ronald Koeman has done before wiht running contracts down. This is not the Ronald Koeman show, it's Southampton Football Club. I've said the several times, I think he will serve three years and go, but that only works if his last season is not blatantly and unequivocally his last season, he'll need to sign something to kill the story. Strachan was effing murder and than was a few weeks. Imagine an entire season and two transfer windows.

Maybe - but I think as a club we won't let him see his final year out without further commitment. We haven't let any players do that and there is no way the club are going go through an entire season with that much uncertainty. If he wants to complete that third year, he'll need to sign something this summer. Koeman staying on to complete his last year with no commitment beyond is fine and dandy if you happen to be Ronald Koeman but completely useless and counterproductive if you happen to be Southampton Football Club. We won't let it happen.

It's not really a step up, but it clearly isn't a drop down.

We did them a favour by even paying them a fee. There is no way we agreed that. Box of frogs.

It's mainly a match report from a match in the second tier of English football.

Kyle Lafferty scored tonight. So did Lewis Dunk. Can someone please start threads about how brilliant these players would be if only they'd had a chance in the Premier League.

Second class Champions League - even if they win the Champions League they're still a smaller proposition than the big two in Spain and also the likes of Man United. But you're right - they are too big for Koeman.

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Have they got new owners? Even if they have it's much of a muchness really, unless they win the FA Cup and sack Martinez anyway meaning guaranteed Europa League football. Seems unlikely on all counts. Koeman isn't getting a better Prem job than us any time soon, he'll need to win a cup with us or take us to at least sixth to even be considered for the likes of Arsenal. Frankly he is not of a high enough calibre for one of the elite jobs. One day, maybe, he'd take over at Barcelona but driven by sentiment rather than ability and even then I think they've moved on and it won't happen now. Would be a bit like us replacing Koeman with Micky Adams. The moment has passed. I'd say Ronald is very, very similar level to Mark Hughes. And neither of them are going to work anywhere higher than they are now, beyond rotating around big-ish established Premier League clubs, or making a move to a second class Champions League team like Atletico or Wolfsburg or Porto etc etc.

Movement of EU citizens between the EU and post-Brexit UK isn't "on topic"? Are you sure about that? Really sure? What isn't "real" is this horses hit: Well have a bi-lateral agreement for freedom of movement with the EU to keep things almost identical to how they are now as one of the very first items on the first negotiation meeting with the EU after the referendum. They need it, we need it. That's why there won't be queues in Magaluf and we won't be asking German tourists flying in for a walk round York Minster to prove they have "means to support themselves" on their trip.

I think imaginary scenarios are primarily the preserve of the leave campaign. Me being expected to prove I'm not an illegal immigrant and I actually just want to go on a city break to Bruges is clearly not an imaginary problem then.

A tourist visa to go to effing Spain for a week. In this day and age. Christ almighty. For a previous job I had to go to Brussels and Rotterdam semi-regularly - not routine but probably eight times a year or so. Would be an utter ball ache to apply for Visas for that all the time, especially as half of those trips would be on less than a weeks notice. I am sure I am not a special case, I used to get an early flight from East Mids with groups of people from Rolls Royce and Honda, going back and forth week in, week out where a trip to Brussels is no different to a trip to some head office in Milton Keynes.

I wonder if there will be queues round the block at Palma airport while hundreds of pot bellied dorks from Blackpool have to fill in a form to explain how they will "support themselves" during their fortnight's all-inclusive in Magaluf.

Surely the Mail doesn't want Leicester to win the league, they'll be doing all they can to stop that so a big team wins right? That was last year's conspiracy when we were challenging the top four anyway.

He's like Darius Vassell in that regard.

A quick maths check reveals that 14 goals is not "nearly three times as many" as 6 goals. You could just as well have said "over twice as many" which is closer to the truth. I like Danny Wellbeck, he's good but he's England good. I have no idea whether he qualifies as one of the "same old faces" that the manager hasn't "got the balls" to drop though or whether he is a player that the manager hasn't "got the balls" to play. Do you know?

Oh, I quite like him to be fair. But he's a bang average player at international level - this generation's Darius Vassell.

We've got people on this forum without the "balls" to suggest a single player that hasn't been picked that they think should be, so I don't think it's purely an issue for whoever the England manager is.

But if we just drop players without replacing them then we'd end up with six or seven players on the pitch.

Sorry, just reads like a load of vague platitudes to me. I've not made any age arguments apart from to suggest the "why don't you play xxx" tends to be about young players. Being that you've no opened it to all players of any age it seems perplexing that you can't name anyone that would have been better than the "same old names". Who should have gone to Brazil instead of the same old names? Is Lallana a same old name then, or now, or wasn't then and is now or both or neither? And as you are moaning about successive England managers, who are all these players that would have been so much better? Who was better in 2004? 2006? 2008 was a car crash of management but sure you can put a different team out. I'm not asking for wonder kids, but you seem to think we have teams of unpicked players that could have got us into, say, semi finals of tournaments (or last time out into the group stages) but can't name a single one. Surely you are talking about Premier League players and they're all on TV every week so you must have some idea. Your whole approach seems to be pick the England team like Garth Crooks team of the week which may have some merit but I'm not sure. Anyway. I'll give you, for free, the game changer Mark Noble. And Gabby Ablonglahor. Fresh, dynamic, pushing the boundaries stuff. Give me another twelve and we've got a squad for a friendly.

Nah. English players just not that good full stop. It won't be long before its Dele Ali is being slagged off and why do we keep picking the same old names. The current "why don't we pick X" just becomes the future "why do we keep picking them?" The England Euro 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 squads are all better than what we'll be sending to France. And those squads weren't that good. The 2016 squad is better than the last couple of tournaments but that's because we have some marginally better players. I don't subscribe to some notion that the management are refusing to pick a load of English wonder-players because they "haven't got the balls" to drop people. The alternatives have really just not been there. Everyone likes to pile in and complain about Owen, Beckham, Gerrard, Rio and John Terry as was and Rooney now and so on but let's see how Dele Alli''s career pans out and let's see how he's judged when he's 29. I notice already some moaning about Wilshire who at all of 24 is veering towards the "why do we persist with him" camp for some. Brilliant. Anyway we've got some better players in this crop and they've been picked. And theyve been picked by, err, exactly the same manager as we've had for the last two tournaments.

Although Ronnie B wrote it, the real star of Four Candles is Ronnie C. Just brilliant reactions. Possibly my favourite sketch of all time is the one where Ronnie C keeps being thrown down the laundry chute in a hotel. Love it. What a life. RIP.

Wellbeck, Lallana, Walcott all proven to be poor at international level. The rest will prove to be poor at international level, it's just a matter of time and tournaments. Sturridge can barely string fives games in a row. Kane can be as good as Shearer was, that's about it. And everyone was fed up with him by Euro 2000 and everyone soon got fed up with Michael Owen and so on and so on. But Ross Barkley is the next Messi and definitely not the next John Barnes/Steve McManaman/Trevor Sinclair/etc/etc.

We're only about three years away from people grumbling about why oh why are we continuing to stick with the same old same old players like Harry Kane.