S-Clarke

If that's a valid argument, then they should stop fucking around the week after the season sending players half way around the world to play a friendly against each other. The ''too many games'' argument died a death as soon as they did that. Holds no grounds anymore.

Bit like the Harry Kane experiment under Woy, he was on all corners. Think it was WC 14.

Interesting comparison. Look at 04 and the players who are playing for the big sides, compared to the bunch now. Especially the back 4. Not to discredit Palace as they've been great, but when the biggest team call up for the England squad is Crystal Palace players then you know it's dropped off a bit. The defence this year scares this crap out of me, it's no better than average.

If you live your life being bitter about the past, you'll never move on. Time to put that to bed.

I think that's fair, I wouldn't trust him totally at PL level as first choice. It would be strange to see us dump our captain, but we did it before with Hammond....it's not unheard of. Clubs need to be ruthless sometimes and we did start by chopping Armstrong from the squad, so who knows what our approach is going to be. I don't think he'll go to Plymouth if he leaves though, there will be a team like PNE or Sheff U, Burnley etc who'd surely have him.

He was all over the place for Brighton this season as well, they had one of the worst records in the league at the back. I think his time is drawing to the end at the top end. I think he's firmly 4th or so choice though, he's just there to make up the numbers. Gomez and Konza will be in front of him.

But, but, but...he'd be getting managed by Rooney!!! Stephens does only have a year left on his contract, so there is a decision to make this summer. My hunch is that he'll extend with us, the romantic fan may look at a homecoming to Plymouth but it's simply not realistic I don't think.

TUI is based on an entirely different forum platform though, It's probably just a limitation of how Invision does it. Something for their developers to sort in future releases maybe.

Guehi is a decent player to be fair, I'd go with him and Stones as the two. Ralph really wanted him a few seasons ago, but we picked Salisu instead (as he was a bit cheaper).

Take heart in the fact that we won't be starting in the position Everton, Forest, Leicester etc have to start in. They can't even think about additions until they sell their best players first. Leicester are going to be on a double back foot with a weaker side, transfer embargo, no manager and minus points. I feel a bit for them. It will be one hell of a story if they manage to stay up. Window isn't even open yet, once the Euro's is over it will all ramp up.

My main argument is that he needs lots of minutes and lots of games to build back up, I don't think he'll get that from day 1 here. He's not done enough to be our starting first choice CF next season, if he does start then something has gone horrifically wrong in our recruitment. I think our plan is to sign new strikers, so come the end of the window I think we may look at a loan - just to get him back match fit again. It's for his benefit as well as ours really. If he keeps making sporadic appearances here and there he'll keep getting knocks, given the time he's been out. (As we've seen).

The problem with Ross is that I fail to see how he will be able to get up to speed and get the mins he needs for us next season, we will get a new first choice striker or 2 without question - so Ross will have to be in and around the squad, I don't think that'll help someone who hasn't played in any decent regularity for at least 18 months. I think for his sake so he can build his body back up again, he needs to play every week - get him out on loan and we can then asses him the next summer. That would be my call if I was in charge.

I think most fans would take JWP back, not that it's an option. He is a proven PL midfielder of which we have absolutely zero as it stands. He can then carry on from where he paused and his FK record.

Don't disagree at all, I just look at the names of our CB options then and what they'd achieved, compared to now - Dunk and Konza. Massive regression at CB., need some quality coming through at CB sharpish, otherwise the generation of Bellingham/Saka/Foden/Palmer/Kane etc will be all a bit pointless. THB has a great shout of being the next England CB if he progresses with us.

I see a lot of pundits claiming this is the strongest ever team England have gone into a tournament with, not sure I buy that. Maybe in terms of depth in certain positions (i.e players who could all claim a starting birth) but as a team-wide effort it's not. I look back to our 2004/2006 teams. Sol Campbell, Rio, Ashley Cole, Terry, Neville, Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Beckham, Scholes, Owen - in every position we had a world star. Fair enough they couldn't form a team, but as individual players across the entire 11 that is way stronger than what we have now. Compare Terry and Rio to Lewis Dunk and Ezri Konza for starters.

Only one I'm surprised by is Dunk or Gomez for Jarrad Branthwaite - he should have been in ahead of one of those two. The rest kind of makes sense. Picked on form for a change rather than past endeavours. (i.e Sterling/Henderson)

I can understand why Maddison was dropped, if it was based on the first half of this season he'd be a shoe in - but since Christmas (and his injury) he has been dogshit for Spurs, even their fans are wondering what happened to him. I was surprised he was initially called up really. I think with the likes of Saka, Foden, Eze, Palmer, Gordon we have more than enough in those attacking wide areas - so losing Grealish and Maddison makes sense to me.

Nice one, you'll enjoy it. This is the first season for a while where I won't be getting a season ticket, primarily financial reasons as I've just purchased my first house - so penny pinching is of the highest order atm and out goes the fun things for a few years. I'll probably go to the odd game though.

Yeah, probably. What you'd get is a 'Premier, Premier League' and the rest in what would be the 'new' Championship. Anyone decent in the 'new' championship would get poached by the premier, premier league. And obviously all players would then aspire to play in the premier premier league, obviously because of it's competitiveness and not the $$$. I wouldn't be against letting them battle it out in their own league though, it would close the gap between the rest and maybe even the leagues below and it would all be a bit more compeatative. I enjoyed the Championship last season, it's nice going into a league where you have a shot of maybe doing something, rather than being in a league where you're just food and drink for the top 6. Don't get me wrong I'm glad we're there, for the club it's imperative financially, but it won't be as enjoyable from a footballing perspective next year. If you could guarantee that we'd continue as a top Championship team and be fine financially, always pushing up the top end and coming 1st or 2nd, but never actually getting promoted, I'd probably take that.

I saw that on social media as well, rather amusingly one of the comments from our 'fan' questioned why we are letting someone so important go for free. Thus the club is 'clearly asset stripping' and we're skint, or something equally daft. Someone doesn't understand contracts I guess.

There was chatter about VAR maybe being binned next season, but it's here to stay. The big boys have spoken and they don't want it scrapped, so little old clubs will have to suck it up. There is talk of them 'tweaking it' some more though, so I guess we have that to look forward to again next year! This year has been so much more authentic without VAR.

I'd imagine we'll hear regarding Lallana in July, his Brighton contract doesn't actually expire until the end of this month.

If you think those names are uninspiring, just imagine who we'd have been linked with without promotion! Doesn't bear thinking about.

That's quite muted given the rest of the crap he's done in his life, assault, fraud, prison time - you name it. Should definitely be in the team. I want to say Valery did something bad, but I can't remember exactly what. It might not have been criminal and more personal.

He was third choice at Newcastle for a reason, became a bit of a banter figure for them when everyone else was getting injured. They preferred to use Dubrabva when Pope was out. Not sure we should be signing 8th placed PL teams third choice keepers tbh.