Over land and sea

I have updated the opening post with the new scholars announced yesterday and the contract extensions announced today. However, today's announcement does not say how long the contracts run, which is unhelpful as far as this thread is concerned! I've made an assumption they are all 2 year deals - unlikely to be too far out!

Post 1 updated with contract extensions for Sam Gallagher and Jack Stephens

https://www.premierleague.com/news/408901 A full retained list has been published on the Premier League site. I have updated the opening post. Highlights Pros offered contracts Stuart Taylor Jake Flannigan Note Jason McCarthy is not on the list of those offered new contracts but is on the list of those retained so either he's already signed a new contract or he wasn't out of contract Scholarships extended Ben Cull Dan Nlundulu Scholars offered pro deals Ben Rowthorn Siph Mdlalose Nathan Tella Pros released Martin Caceres Cuco Martina Harley Willard Lloyd Isgrove Scholars released Neal Osborne Rugare Musendo Connor Langan Archie Thomas

It's not an indication of squad numbers. The quickest way of writing a 1 to 28 list was to use existing numbers and then fill in the gaps with players whose number was higher than 28. Not sure why I put Stephens and Van Dijk at 5 and 6 on that basis - I probably wanted to put a centre half at vacant #6 but why I swapped Gardos out I'm not sure.

If what I have written above is right we currently have 28 players that qualify as over 21 next season and can name only 25 of them in our PL squad. So sales and or loans will be needed if we are to bring new signings in. On the plus side we are in a good position for Home Grown players as 16 of the 28 are home grown. The 28 are: 1. Fraser Forster (Home Grown (HG) Association 1) 2. Cédric Soares 3. Maya Yoshida 4. Jordy Clasie 5. Jack Stephens (HG club 1) 6. Virgil van Dijk 7. Shane Long (HG Association 2) 8. Steven Davis (HG Association 3) 9. Jay Rodriguez (HG Association 4) 10. Charlie Austin (HG Association 5) 11. Dušan Tadić 12. Matt Targett (HG club 2) 13. Alex McCarthy (HG Association 6) 14. Oriol Romeu 15. Florin Gardoș 16. James Ward-Prowse (HG club 3) 17. Sam Gallagher (HG club 4) 18. Harry Reed (HG club 5) 19. Sofiane Boufal 20. Monolo Gabbiadini 21. Ryan Bertrand (HG Association 7) 22. Nathan Redmond (HG Association eight) 23. Pierre Højbjerg 24. Jason McCarthy (HG club 6) 25. Paulo Gazzaniga 26. Jérémy Pied 27. Sam McQueen (HG club 7) 28. Stuart Taylor (HG Association 9) Currently for PL, clubs must name a 25-man squad of players who do not qualify as Under 21, at least 8 of whom must be home grown players who have been registered with any club affiliated with the FA or Welsh FA for three entire seasons or 36 months before turning 21 (or leave empty spots), plus unlimited players who qualify as Under 21s. There is no requirement to split between Association trained and club trained as there is in Europe.

I have updated the opening post. Today's announcement covers only pro players being released. This implies that other pro players who are out of contract are being offered a new deal (Taylor, J McCarthy and Flannigan). Whether they sign then is another matter. Today's announcement does not cover 2nd year scholars out of contract but there are 6 of these. In reality most if not all of these have not featured for the U18s since the early part of 2017 and may already have found new clubs. In early June the Premier League will publish a full list of released and retained players for each PL club. Each player will either be listed as 'retained', 'released' or 'contract offered'. We may need to wait until then for confirmation of the 3 out of contract pros and the 6 2nd year scholars. I strongly suspect this approach is designed to try to avoid headlines such as 'Saints usual big summer exodus begins.'

Ben Cull (2nd year scholar) has announced on Twitter that he's been offered a contract extension. Good news for him after all he's been through.

Updated 25 man squad lists for all PL teams published on the PL website. No surprises. Gabbiadini replaces Fonte in our 23 man squad. There are three additions to the U21 list compared with September: Jonathan Afolabi (seems to have been omitted in error last time!), Mouez Hassen and Kingsley Latham (who started in goal for U23s the other night). http://Www.premierleague.com/news/322804 I suspect next year we will have a full 25 man squad as several who currently qualify as under 21s will not qualify: Matt Targett Sam McQueen Harry Reed Pierre Højbjerg Sam Gallagher Mouez Hussen (if loan extended) Jason McCarthy (if contract extended) Paulo Gazzaniga may also return. Even after you take out all those out of contract we slightly exceed 25

Post 36 updated to show the numbers for the two players signed yesterday.

OP updated with a number of recent developments.

Original post updated with Reed and Hesketh's contract extensions and to note that Ben Rowthorn has been offered a first pro contract (according to his Twitter account). Michael Obafemi's squad number also added though there's a bit of confusion as to whether that is 61 (according to OS) or 62 (according to Sky/ESPN/football squads).

Adam Parkes has signed a pro contract keeping him at the club until he June 2019. Original post udpated.

The updated UEFA site now shows Ben Cull as number 60 even though Will Smallbone wore 60 in the Checkatrade. http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2017/clubs/club=52923/squad/index.html#ui-tabs-tab_TeamsSquad But that's the only example of a different number. The information may be unreliable as it shows Ben Cull as a goalkeeper when he's actually a left back. His brother Alex is a goalkeeper. Good to see Ryan Seager added to the UEFA squad as well - hopefully a sign he's making progress from injury.

I've updated the post 36 to show additional squad numbers as a result of the Checkatrade Trophy - I wonder how high we will get!

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2017/clubs/club=52923/squad/index.html#ui-tabs-tab_TeamsSquad One further addition to the squad numbers now that the Europa League squad has been published - Connor Langan at 61.

Saints Europa League squad UEFA have updated their website with the addition of all our B list players (U21s). Quite an extensive list - most of the Development squad and even a few scholars. There are some players who are ineligible - see my updated post at 105 of this thread.

We could add Valery if we remove someone from the A list during the season but, as things stand, he is ineligible to play in EL. Same goes for about half the scholars and for Gape and Gazza (season long loans) and Pied (omitted from A list due to injury). Not sure about the other two loaned out players (Gallagher and McCarthy) as it depends whether we include them on the B list (not yet published). We may well include McCarthy as his loan is not season long.

Any Under 21 that has been at the club for 2 years or more can be included in a separate B list which has not yet been published. That will include Targett, Reed and the development squad. We can opt to include scholars in the list but only if they have been at the club 2 years (so Yan Valery can't be included).

My link takes you to the page but not my post as I couldn't work out how to do that (I still can't!). So thank you - very helpful. Yes we should have submitted out lists by 1 September so they should be published soon. There shouldn't be any surprises. If my analysis is correct we need to omit three players because we have more than 25 eligible for the A list. I'm assuming Pied (injured), Gape (loaned) plus one other (most likely Lewis). The Europa squad should be published here: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2017/clubs/club=52923/squad/index.html

Nothing official but I saw something on Twitter that he's been given 28

Yes and Josh Debayo is still listed in the U23 list but is no longer at the club. Now the transfer window has closed, I've updated the lists of who qualifies for our 25 man list for the Europa League and the Premier League - the list for the latter was published on the PL website yesterday. See post 105 on page 3 of the Europa League thread. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?56552-Europa-League-2016-2017&p=2353260#post2353260

Less interesting than travel plans and actually going to the games, but I've updated the lists of who qualifies for our 25 man list for the Europa League (and the Premier League - the list for which was published yesterday). See post 105 on page 3 of this thread. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?56552-Europa-League-2016-2017/page3

Line up - entirely U23 apart from goalkeeper. And all apart from McCarthy, Gape and Stephens are U21

The reason so many players have been allocated squad numbers is that we are using squad numbers for the Checkatrade Trophy which is an U21 competition. Some of the U21s with squad numbers are not eligible as U21s for the Europa League and will need to be omitted omitted from the EL squad or included in the main A list. That includes Valery, Lewis, Hojbjerg as welll as O'Connor, Thomas and O'Driscoll. Of the scholars without squad numbers Osborn, Cull, Siu, Gardner, Cull, Hamblin have been at the club for more than two years and are eligible as U21 in the EL - the others haven't been at the club long enough. So I suppose any of these could be added when the EL numbers are confirmed.

Debayo's omission explained - he's been on trial at Leicester for the last few weeks. Although we offered him a contract extension at the end of last season it looks like he hasn't signed one. Not mentioned on the OS and he's still shown in the U23 profiles (which are always pretty unreliable). http://www.allnigeriasoccer.com/read_news.php?nid=19753 http://www.foxestalk.co.uk/forums/topic/100930-lcfc-u21-development-squad-stuff-it-in-here/?page=20 The second article appears to show that Will Wood may also be on trial there, though that appears to be guess work from having a left back trialist called "Wood" and assuming he's from Saints.