S-Clarke

I guess it's not as devastating because we've never seen them play, so we don't know if they're any good at first team level - but it's still quite sad. We'll still make some money on them, but it's not ideal. Gomes never looked like he was going to commit, so that was not a surprise at all. There is a tiny worrying lack of pathway here at the mo I would say - we had an opportunity last season to give Dibling for example more game time, but he barley got a look in. SAA and Maghoma signing for more money (wages) from other clubs probably doesn't go down well with the existing crop either. I think Andy Goldie is improving things though, he's only been in for a year but things are changing for the better from what I've heard. But as with academy setups, changes aren't immediate - it can sometimes take years for the benefits to transfer through to be visible.

I thought it was Woods or Ronnie Edwards, not both. That would be THB, Edwards, Bednarek, Stephens, Woods - got to assume we're losing one of our regulars? Bednarek only has a year left, so the last time to cash in if he won't sign. Stephens is also in the same boat with a year left - although there may be an option to execute in there. Edwards is a very, very talented CB by the way. Very highly rated, very good on the ball and incredibly mature for his age. I watched a fair bit of him a year or so ago as I knew someone who was a Posh fan and at that level he stood out like gold, proper rolls Royce. Getting two EU21 CB's for under £10m is unreal business by the club if it's true.

I think he'd expect to be first choice, and I don't think that's what we're looking for in a CB signing. The club have just committed £20m on a new first choice CB in THB, even though we had him last year we did have to spend out on him to keep him. Any new additional CB now will be squad cover and Wood is probably the most suitable who is 'happy' to be squad cover. A lot depends on what happens with Bednarek though, he's into his final year now - need to see him commit to a new deal or I imagine we'll look for a 2nd first choice CB.

I do somewhat agree, he does strike me as a very loyal guy - but I think he'll know when players need replacing due to the level. As a club we can be ruthless when we need to be, as we showed on our last promotion - we dumped our captain to start with, he went on loan. Out went Sharp, Chaplow, Harding, Butterfield, De Ridder!! (lol). We evolved the starting 11 with Clyne (upgrade on Butterfield), Jay Rod (upgrade on Sharp), Maya (upgrade on Jos), Davis (upgrade on Hammond), Boruc (upgrade on Davis). Mayuka came in as well obviously as the comedy replacement for De Ridder. We didn't spend that much on our last return, just fairly solid and clever additions - mix of experience and some young talent. I would say there are similar vibes to our window this time round. Be interesting to see how it pans out.

Miles better than Manning, upgrade from Day 1 there

Started off well, thought it may have been one of the best ever - but I agree, overall it's turned into a bit of a bilge-fest. The France game was awful, this Portgual game is equally as bad. Slovenia are putting up a good effort, no doubts, but the quality is so bad. My best Euros is still 2004, not been beaten yet.

Just by having a terrible, terrible attitude and commitment to the game. His injury proneness doesn't help either.

A loan at best, or £5-10m if we want to sell. Defo won't make a profit on him. An absolutley terrible bit of scouting by the club, once again. No character profile checking done on him prior to signing. Terrible character around the place in our relegation season apparently. And that's not to mention the guy is made of extra fragile glass, won't ever become anything.

TBF most of our signings have been a disaster. Our young additions of Sulemana, Larios (for other reasons), Mara, Bazunu etc haven't really been worth the money. Bar one or two (Lavia/Tino) our perm signings of all ages have been utterly horrific for years.

Spain look like the Champions-elect to me, hard to see past them at the moment. Best two sides in this entire tournament have been Austria and Spain IMO. Be interesting to see how Austria get on tomorrow, I enjoyed their group games more than any other side.

Not seen this mentioned anywhere else, technically not U18's but still part of the youth setup. New U21 Manager - Southampton seal appointment of recent England youth coach | Daily Echo Bit of a coup given his history.

If you look at our CB's, we've got Stephens, THB and Bednarek - THB and Bednarek are the two main ones you'd imagine. Wood is the young signing to add competition. I'd have preferred Ronnie Edwards, but it's a similar profile in many ways. But I do worry when the team we're grabbing a player off are happy to be rid of them. Jury out if it happens for sure, but he won't be a starter.

I've always liked him, not what I'd call a mega glamorous signing by any means - but we've had a pants pulled down many times with 'glamorous' big fee signings. This dude knows the PL, knows English football and knows relegation battles. We needed better at LB and he undoubtably adds to that area - for free. Very, very sensible pickup. I'd prefer this one over Ryan Sessengon.

With players like Rice they do a lot that's not as standout, I think he's a critical cog. I would also like to see a CM next to him with some mobility, discipline and agility on the ball to open up passing angles, keep us moving forward etc. Mainoo could well be that guy, more so than TAA or Gallagher anyway. If I did have a criticism of Rice it's that he doesn't push the team up, that could be on instruction - not sure, but we really do need our CM's - like the Spain CM's - to push the team up field so we don't end up camped with CM's so close to the CB's, as we see a fair bit with Rice. It then becomes a slog to get out as the oppo have everyone behind the ball, and we're all the way back at our goal. The other issue we need to sort as everyone is saying is the left side. We've gone square pegs down that entire left hand side and it doesn't work. You could play Foden coming in from the left 'IF' he had a left footed wing back behind him, but because he doesn't the left side is completely irrelevant and he never gets the space created - as there's no one overlapping. Similar criticism you could say for the right side as Walker has been pretty naff, so to please every single pundit you have to get 'Trent (TM)' at RWB - but obviously at the huge risk of being cut open defensively, as he's shit at defending - but as Walker hasn't been much better, we might as well change it.

That midfield is a bit mental, you have 3 players there who all like to go forward and don't have a disciplined bone in their body. As soon as we are broken on there will be zero cover and you've got everyone and their gran running at a pretty slow back 3 there. When you look at Spain you have two disciplined CM's, water carrier is probably a bit disrespectful to their role, but they hold their positions well and know how to play CM. Rodri and Fabian have been excellent at it. Rodri is one of the best 6's in the entire planet, I don't see any better tbh. There is nothing wrong with Rice as a player, you have to play him to provide a bit of discipline in there. The biggest positive change you could make would be some left footers down the left hand side, it's unbelievable how unbalanced we are and that slows the game down massively.

There's nothing wrong with arrogance or having an ego per-say, but there's a line you can cross. Ronaldo/Zlatan etc did it on the pitch, so they can have as big an ego as they want - their careers are littered with wins. Then you have the other angle - Balotelli, Richarlison, Pogba etc. They had the ego, the arrogance, but never backed it up on the pitch so they were seen as a prick. Bellingham is on that line at the moment. He's still very, very young and will have some maturing to do. I hope he follows the Ronaldo/Zlatan direction rather than the others.

I wouldn't say £20-25m is going low ball, if the eventual value is £30m. You'd be a terrible negotiator. ''Sir, the value of the item is £50. What can you offer'' ''I bid £200''

If it happens, I think we're planning for O'Riley to be our statement signing of the window. He would be an excellent addition to our midfield, a pretty substantial upgrade to Smallbone in that position. We identified him last summer, somewhat unrealistically I'll add...but his contract was running down at that point and he wasn't off the back of the season he's just had. Martin and O'Riley are pretty close, can imagine there have been chats in the background over a period of time. If we can give Celtic what they want then he'll be ours.

Just on the other angle to this, why the fuck are Chelsea buying Kerion Dewsbury-Hall for £35m? Like, what sort of magical scouting recipe have they conducted to conclude he is the missing peice in attacking midfield when they already have Palmer, Mudryk, Gallagher, Lavia, Casadi, Chuckwumbka, Caidedo, Enzo who can all operate in that 8 or number 10 attacking midfield role. They are doing my nut in. There is no strategy there whatsoever.

Football is bonkers!

You can't be happy with watching that though! It's not possible for us to win a tournament by playing this bad, it is really awful - we just keep delaying the inevitable. It's been a really poor show. A decent side will turn us over without sweat, we all know it. We're just lucky that the draw has even fallen for us. Easily the luckiest team in the Euros up to now!

The most undeserved quarter final place I think I've ever seen. We were even fortunate to have got to the last 16! The performance for 99% was just inept, not good enough, not even close. Coached all wrong, players all over the place, shape all over the place. Load of utter shit. The way we managed the 2nd half of extra time was unacceptable really, everything about it was unacceptable. Feel for Slovakia, they deserved to win that by a couple.

We are clearly just sinking deep to defend this out, as per instruction. We had a chance to take this ET by the throat and just kill Slovakia whilst they were down and were chasing it, it's what the top teams do. We've somehow let them back into it. Honestly, we are, so, so badly coached it's untrue.

Never take off your goal scorer, no matter how bad he is playing. Management 101 for me. So at least he got that right.

This is hilarious actually. Slovakia have gone mentally, you can tell. Their body language is shot. Put them to the sword now. Feels a bit harsh as they did it all correctly for 95 mins. Football is such an odd game at times.