Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan

I'm sure they'll wear the lovely mash-up kit right?

a giant Benali sticker?

Footage from training showing McCarthy and Lis training together, wonder if with Bazunu injured initially they are 1 and 2 for the start of the season

New contracts for Collett, Mott, Milne, Peake and Purfield I'd happily have those 5 start as a back 5, so that seems to be a good sign. I'd expect more gametime for Dean and Thompson as things stand too. Interesting business at London City Lionesses, they seem to have substantial backing and have swooped for the ex-PSG manager

I suppose Rangers are in that appealing middle ground of being able to splash a bit more money, and offer more gametime than low level WSL teams

Think i'd rather that than have some of the horrible fixtures amongst that list. Seems a lot of pre-season for some teams is about getting as much revenue from tourist trap games. Spurs play Bayern twice in one week, once in South Korea and once in London. Not sure what help it will be for Palace, Wolves and West Ham to play a mini tournament in America either

it does seem we've tried every combination at this point. Orr and Middleton certainly the pair I'd expect to make the opening spots theirs (when both fit) and I think if they improve as expected we'd be in safe hands.

One safe night's sleep when Forster had a blinder against Arsenal, otherwise the poor chap hasn't rested properly since Niemi

She must have a WSL offer, she is a regular for England u21s and a Saints fan so can't see that she would leave otherwise.

Ella Pusey is the same, was banging in goals but now works as a chiropractor. Rafferty is an interesting one, because she has WSL experience from before joining us but really struggled with injuries. She seems back to her best now, so wonder if a better contract offer has come in. She was playing international football last week so doesn't seem to be retiring!

I've always thought (through very rose-tinted glasses) that if Sven had taken Beattie instead of Vassell we would have won the Euros. Vassell was a striker based on runs in-behind which he wasn't getting off the bench, whereas Beattie had a more all-rounded game that would have been a better fit coming off the bench to play in congested boxes. He also definitely wouldn't have missed the penalty to see us go out...

Prest was reverse sweeping and hitting Nathan Lyon for 6, he can't be doing much wrong to manage that

Not sure there will be any wins/losses across either division, so only bonus points will change the tables at this stage

Orr, Middleton, Gubbins, Vince, Prest, Dawson, Brown, Holland, Fuller, Abbott, Abbas Wheal as 12th man? Would be one change only from the last game of last season, with Orr coming in to open in place of Albert.

I imagine she'll be off next season to a WSL team, along with Pike. If the men's team don't get promoted we might find the two teams in the same position where the obvious top players are picked off and we're left rebuilding again.

The loan army return and we re-start with: Lis Payne ABK DCC Perraud Lyanco Alcaraz Vokins Ballard Tall Paul Merry

I worry about his injury record, seems to be mounting up now for someone so young, hopefully he gets a run of games for us this season

And if we can spot that, opposing teams can easily try and exploit it. We can't have a keeper with an obvious weakness and expect to succeed. When you get to a certain level it will be exposed, as we saw with Kelvin and his near post when we got promoted

It probably is time the whole system had a bit of an overhaul. Expand the WSL to a few more teams, and boost the Championship too, for professional setups there aren't actually very many games across the season, and the pyramid as a whole would improve.

They started this a bit early today

Agreed, in most formats we'll play one spinner and that will be Dawson. Hopefully some more games and consistency reignites his career a bit, odd to think he has played an ashes test!

Really liked his runs in behind at the weekend, seemed to work well that he moved the ball forward then bombed on past it. Particularly clear for Brooks' goal when he runs past, drags the defender with him and leaves a big space for Brooks to work into. More of that please.

Not me personally, but in March 2020 we lost 1 nil to Newcastle at home following Valery letting Saint-Maximin score. A chap a few rows in front of us threw his plastic card season ticket onto the pitch in anger, and then the rest of the season was played behind closed doors anyway.

Agreed, as poor as Charles was on the ball, he was getting into the right places when we were defending most of the time. Smallbone definitely can't play that role. Downes truly is crucial to this system.

Same defender who sent Edozie flying by bodychecking him- which gave us the free kick we got the third from