S-Clarke

It's only 6 months initial though. My thoughts are that the club see him as a potential player to provide full back cover, and they're giving him a chance to prove that. People may say that's a cheapo way of approaching it, but that's where we are at if we're honest.

Sadly it didn't really work for us because we pissed that once in a generation transfer fee up the wall on a load of complete and utter shit. Criminal what we did with the VVD money to be honest. It should have been the basis to allow us to go on and evolve like Leicester for example, but sadly we had Ross Wilson and Les Reed running the charade.

I just don't think we have a pot to piss in to be honest, it feels as if anything we do is fully dictated by what we can bring in or save on the wage bill first. That's why I think it's a positive that we've lost guys like Hoedt, Gunn and possibly Lemina soon - that should free up some space in the wage department, but for outright transfer fee's I think we're going to need a strategic 'big' sale in order to start moving. If we do it right...then we have a chance to evolve the squad a bit, but if we do it wrong and choose poor players again then we're probably done for.

I think he's on our radar, along with Armstrong. But it's impossible to see how we can afford either without shifting Ings first.

Sadly that's another club in and around us who will now have the tools to leave us way behind squad investment wise.

Sadly this is the result of years and years of terrible squad management. It will take some time to get back to where we were but I'd like to think we are making some 'baby steps' back in the right direction, it just takes some time and it will be overall several windows because we have no money. We just have to hope we continue to keep our head above the water really. Great to see Sam involved though, must be tough for him personally so I'm glad the club are keeping him around.

Hey, just trying to be positive! I think the club have learnt their lessons from January and I doubt they'll put us in that position again. The only reason to feel a little nervous is if we are truly skint beyond what we even believe, but we'll find out.

Wasn't that Obafemi? I've only seen Obafemi linked to that one.

I think we needed to shed the players not good enough tbh. That should allow us the space to replace those with better, so hopefully...if all goes to plan, we'll have a better more rounded squad next season. Still 7 or so weeks to go, but I think we need at least one big sale before we can do what we really need to. But shedding the players not good enough is step 1 of creating the wage space.

At which point he said it was the club policy. He's the guy setting these policies and structures, all to do with the merging of the B Team with the first team and get them interlinked etc. I guess maybe that comment/intention was made when it wasn't clear how absolutely hopeless most of the lower age groups are at the moment.

No, not at all. Shouldn't ignore it and I don't think people are. That guy at Savills today - fine example of what this attention is doing, it's weeding the more naive types away. The sad thing is that there are still people out there, I don't particularly think it's all to do with education, I just think some people are born as absolute knobs and that's how they get a kick out of life. If they're not throwing vile racist abuse to get a kick, they're calling out disabled people or taking the micky out of anyone who could be seen as vulnerable. Social media does fan the flames though, it's a horrible place and it's why I don't bother with it (bar these forums). I think one method that could be put in place to help is to make it less easy to register, maybe a little bit more verification and validation upon sign up - but these are very tricky and challenging things to do, but something like that needs to be looked at as you can easily spin up another account tomorrow without any identity verification. It shouldn't be so easy to hide behind a blank alias with no picture in my opinion.

Yeah, in that sense - but there will be no earner here as you've alluded to. We'll be paying the wage I imagine and I can't see Lincoln giving us any notable fee. My view is that at 22 you've got to be making an impact at a club in order to get a long-term deal. He's done nothing for us. Now he's signed a long term deal, loaned out to L1. It's the same as the Kayne Ramsay deal, another player who is clearly not going to make it at this level that we're giving contracts to, then giving away to L1 clubs whilst we pick up the tab. Maybe the club are as nervous as us with regards to our future and they feel he could be a decent lower league player for us in the years to come???

Probably because it became pretty obvious that no one in the world, in any profession, is ever going to pay a single person circa £700,000 a week anymore. He was in a corner.

It's a strange one, our policy seems to change with the wind. Last season it was pretty clear ''We will not loan out players who have a future here, we don't see the benefit of players we want to keep learning the way of another club''. Now it's ''give a new player a contract, then loan them out''. What is the the policy here? Club still seems a little all over the place to be honest.

I think it's right to make a point of those who post the abhorrent trash on social media, I think it's got better (in the sense that the more obvious types have reduced.) but given there is heightened attention to it now even a few posts by spam accounts will get the headlines too. The sad thing is that the individuals posting above are most likely duff accounts, people sat behind spam accounts posting whatever they want. They'll close that account down tomorrow, start a new one up and get themselves a new VPN IP and away they go. Sadly the internet is a scary place and the tools for anonymising make it very easy for these few trolls to accomplish what they want. I wouldn't say they are even posting out of pure racial hatred either, it's just to get a rise and some attention. The same types are also busy on other peoples accounts fat shaming people or taking the piss out of disabilities etc. The internet and social media is a dark, dark murky place. It's very hard to police due to the laws within different countries and the ways you can anonymise yourself, but I think the approach of highlighting is going to weed out the more naive social media users - but sadly you will always have those trolls who specialise in setting up multiple accounts every day, just to bash others for a rise.

There was confusion at the start when JWP missed out, but I will say that Kalvin Phillips vindicated that decision and he added much more than JWP would have. None of the CM's are great and that's the problem, but JWP wouldn't have added anything tbh. We didn't lose the match because JWP didn't go, we lost because we missed 3 penalties in a row. Italy kept their heads and got what they deserved.

Better squad? You've got some high expectations of some of this squad. People are optimistic about it because it has Sancho, Foden, Grealish, Sterling, Kane etc....but the problem lies in other areas where teams like Italy, France, Spain are just levels above us - still. We benefited from the way the draw landed, but with our entire squad and weaknesses we did great to get to a final and a semi final last year. Let's not kid ourselves that this English squad is up there with France or Belgium etc, as it's no where near. On that basis to get us within spot kicks of a tournament win is huge. He's managed our shortcomings as well as he could.

Lots of chatter about Jankewitz to be honest, but I've never really seen it. He was part of an utterly dross B team this season, didn't stick out at all. Played okish in an U21 tournament but apart from that I never saw anything to suggest he starts in our midfield at this level. He seemed to get a bit too big for his boots, stuff has seemingly gone on that we don't know about either. I think he was overhyped based on nothing really. Let's see how this pans out in the next few years.

My view is that he's sticking around, we've decided to keep him and pulled off off the market in my opinion. Gives us more depth, but I kinda agree with you in the sense that it's pointless depth as he's proven he's not cut out for this league. But it's another body.

I get that view, in the sense of play to your strengths etc. But we just don't have enough in other areas to do that, as I just feel we'd be picked off too easily against top teams. If we could control the game then we could unleash the likes of Foden, Grealish etc, but we'd struggle to get the ball to them against the better sides in all honesty. In that sense I get Southgate's approach, it's pragmatic because he knows we are lacking in other areas.

Best game could be between two - that amazing afternoon where there were two 3-3's in normal time (Spain v Croatia, France v Switzerland) I'll go France v Switzerland, as that also saw the game of the tournament from Pogba. Can only comment on the one's I watched, but England v Scotland was pretty bad. England v Czech was equally poor in entertainment alone.

Forgetting about the England game for a moment, what a great tournament overall. Lots of goals, lots of great games, come backs, extra time wins etc. It's been my favourite Euro's since 2004 for the sheer drama and attacking quality on show. Best team were easily Italy, but I also thought Denmark were a breath of fresh air - ignoring the first two games. The only thing I didn't really like was the pan Europe approach, I prefer a Euro's when it's in a single country. Glad it's going back to that model for 2024. But overall it's been a fantastic month of football after a year of rubbish.

Bit of a strange one. Lots of fanfare when he first joined, talk of big clubs wanting him last year. But he's ended up at young boys. Not sure he's cut out for it, but we'll see. It does seem as if you cross Ralph at any point then you never come back.

Yep, exactlyy, it was my fear after the Denmark game - as I thought for the majority of that game Hoj and Delaney had our number. Rice and Phillips are almost identical types of player. We need someone else in there alongside them to drive, because based on that showing we are light years behind the top teams in that central midfield department. It was our undoing against Croatia in 2018 as well. JWP isn't the answer either by the way! He'd have been equally over run in there. If only we had a Jorginiho or Verrati type who have the ability to run a game. We don't have anyone who can do that. Not sure Bellingham will be that sort of player, not seen enough of him. But central midfield worries me as I don't see much there long-term.

There aren't many, if any, better number 9's in the world. Just look at his stats. We just didn't paly him right, he was dropping too deep and not getting into the 6 yard box, so he gets very few chances to have a shot. 4 goals at this tournament though and just 1 goal away from being the top goal scorer for England in tournaments. He's as good as we've had up top since ever, we just need to work out how to get the best out of him in games like today.