Saint Charlie

Fraser excelled in the '1' of the 1-4-3-3 yet again. His performance equally good in the 1-3-4-1-2 of late which gives us valuable options.

What would you do? For me Forster is an absolute no brainer to extend as soon as we can. He would be a very attractive free transfer aged 30 in 2018 and has more than proven himself as a quality PL goalkeeper. Mane you would obviously extend if you could but it will be nigh on impossible. The others I would leave for now and only potentially consider Tadic, but wouldn't even be hugely shocked if he left this summer. We may feel Long is worth extending if only to slightly protect the high fee investment but its far from crucial at this stage. Pelle - expires summer 2017 Tadic - expires summer 2018 Forster - expires summer 2018 Gardos - expires summer 2018 Long - expires summer 2018 Mane - expires summer 2018 Most of this summers signings signed 5 year contracts which is generally much better and gives us a bit more scope especially as we tend to find it hard to extend the deals of our best players.

Don't need Wanyama, Romeu and Clasie in the starting XI IMO. Especially if Davis is fit.

Get the lad a new contract!

Clasie will come in for Romeu. Davis should come in for JWP if fit, otherwise the same as last night with Austin on the bench if fit.

Thats ridiculous. He wasn't good in front of goal (ditto Long whose touch was poor all night) but both front players put a good shift in.

Pretty funny. On a side note: I am John Cross was close to the action to be able to wrote this up so quickly and accurately....

Halfway through a 4 year deal in the summer - should definitely be looking to tie him down.

Got to be happy with that. Class from Forster and the two CMs especially. Wanyama showed why he is quality. Only frustration was we wasted some pretty presentable forward chances. Missed Davis' composure in final third passing and Long and Mane both wasted good opportunities to break. West Ham game nicely poised.

Arsenal much better now. We need to make more of the breaks we have.

Ref has been good I think and has let us be quite physical with Sanchez and Ozil.

Romeu and Wanyama excellent. We are a miles better team for having Wanyama in it IMO.

Wanyama and Romeu together usually results in Romeu being subbed at HT. Decent lineup though. Hopefully Austin just has a knock. Shame Arsenal have left Mertesacker out.

Our period of advantage was based on a run of momentum, very good and saleable academy players and clever scouting. That advantage has probably been dimished quite significantly now as others have caught up, we have spent the money our players generated etc. Be interesting to see what direction we take over the next 3-5 years in terms of strategy. Certainly suprised we haven't tried to sign more young prospects (U21s) from the UK and around Europe. That would seem to be the best way for us to go IMO combined with smart European recruitment from lesser leagues (Holland, Scotland, Portugal, Austria to name some examples we have used recently).

Agree with this. Perhaps also an attacking central midfielder to compete with Davis. Would go quality over quantity and also wouldn't hurt to bring in a couple of high potential U21s.

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Reckon it will be JWP but that advanced midfield position would be my no 1 aim to improve in the summer.

Some good overseas players around for bext season in various formats: Gayle, Williamson, Rabada, Bravo etc Clarke also making noises about wanting to play in England at some stage.

Suprised anyone would suggest dropping Mane. He is our best attacker and is ideally suited to exploiting the space Arsenal give you because of their attacking style. Austin had a good impact against Utd but don't change what has been working really well.

£2m fee as well. Potentially an absolute steal.

Apparently Norwich trying to sign Maddison.

@MirrorAnderson: Stoke have completed their club record deal for Giannelli Imbula From Porto. The fee is £18.3m and he has signed a five-and-a-half-year deal Koeman confirmed we were in for him last summer. I wonder if he would have been on our list to replace Wanyama? Will be interesting to see how he does.

Agree. Once it became clear in October or so that he wasn't going to be used in the first team then he should have been getting proper games rather than diluted U21 stuff. Hope for his sake something is sorted for him soon or this season might seem a waste of time for him and he may well start getting a bit frustrated about his future here as even if Wanyama goes we will surely replace with someone else.

Still nothing on Reed. He could also move in the loan window, but do find it strange he hasn't already. He is clearly above U21 football yet also not going to get many/any starts at Saints unless we have a lot of sudden injuries. Would have to say this season hasn't really ever started for Reed - he must be gagging for a loan move.