More Ive thought about it playing Bellingham at 10, Foden left and TAA in midfield makes sense. Bellingham has a physical dimension the other attacking mids and will give teams a lot more to think about if theyre sitting deep and we're getting the ball in the box. Think the rumoured line up is the right call. TAA needs to sit deep and get pinging the ball around.

Was just at the Albania v Italy game - incredible atmosphere. Probaby more of a home game for Albania than playing in Tirana... About 80% of the stadium red shirts.... What was a shame was after the fantastic build up and getting the early goal both the Albania team and the fans seemed to lose all their intensity. Very easy for the Italians except the last 10 mins... Shame as after the first 10 mins felt like it could be a classic. Chiesa and Barella are quality players though. Anyway great experience and Signal Induna Park is some stadium...

We need to take a page out of Germany's book for me.... Kroos dropping so deep and spreading the play against an ultra defensive side is was so effective... German'ys way of playing is exactly how we should have setup against Iceland. I think thats maybe Southgates plan with Alexander-Arnold. His long passing is the best we have, should get the nod ahead of Mainoo, Wharton or dropping Bellingham into midfield two.

Wow, I can't believe someone is going to buy Wahlstadt for a million euros after the season he had.

Arguably five really as JRC has been in midfield (Tronstad, Travis, JRC, Buckley, Garrett). Im sure one of our loans will be a centre mid too.

Hes been playing injured most of the season... He was very good first year here, so I would expect if he gets himself fit again he will get back to where he was. That Bristol away performance was absolutely unbelievable though. So so so so so bad.

Yeah looking at how the squad has shaken out I would say everyone needs to moderate their expectations a bit... Semis would be a good performance imo. QFs par. Its frustrating as with a top CB to partner Stones and fit left back I think we could have genuinely expected to win. But you look at the defence compared to the other top teams and we will need something extraordinary to get to the final.

I think Southgates a decent manager. Over performed with average squads in the past. That said whats going to kill us at this tournament is our defence. It really looks very makeshift. Think any of the big teams (France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal) will really fancy their chances. That we had a gap at centreback has been known for a while and we have done little about it. And a horrendous run of injuries at left back has left us very weak there.

Every year I say pretty much the same thing.... Any club with limited resources will struggle to sign any more than four players that go straight into the first team squad and three loans. Its not impossible to do more than that, but its rare.... So given we probably need seven signings just to fill out the squad from where we are now i cant really see us selling anyone whose had decent first team minutes (except Szmodics as we will get an offer too good to refuse).

20 million zloty is about £4m quid which would be poor compared to incomings but more than many expect.... Maybe 20 million rupees would be more accurate?

I definitely wouldn't start Gallagher - id play Mainoo or Wharton instead. Or drop Bellingham or Foden deeper and bring Palmer in. I cant see why when we have so many good players why Gallagher would get in. Also not a huge fan of Trippier on the left... But Shaw isnt fit and also not sure about Gomez.

Must all be driven by Waggott / Sunhal bringing back someone they know (Park) and clearing the deck. What will be interesting if the key factor is cost cutting or if it is a genuine turn over of personnel. We will be able to tell by who Park brings in.

Do we really know he's on 20k a week?

I mean thats really not cricket if we made a reasonable offer and he doesnt give us a go even on a short contract

How long has Finneran been with us in the academy? If more than a couple of years he really owes giving us at least a season. He can see from others it helps rather than hinders his career to get Championship games. Though the chaos with Broughton etc going cant make it easy to retain.

Yeah, Garrett's been very disappointing. Really struggled all season. Had a few good games in the cups against lower league opposition but in the Championship just couldn't cut it.

Yeah.... to step up from a prem academy is very tough. There are a few clubs good at it (Liverpool being one) but generally to break through as a youth player is incredibly hard even in the bottom half. Experience is king. Phillips should have stayed for at least another year and establish himself. No way Wharton would be in that England squad if he had gone into a prem academy before playing regular first team for Rovers.

Hope he recovers well, he seems a really good football man and all round decent human being. In terms of his quality as a manager he is a solid Championship guy. Will get you mid table / edge of the playoffs with the sort of funding we had at the time. Issue is that the majority of managers in the Championship will get you that level, he didn't have the something extra to get us over the line. Think Eustace will be quite similar to Mowbray - will hit what is expected on the level of funding provided, not - like JDT or Hughes - exceed it.

He's got some sort of problem with Tomori. He's been left out in a way that I have never seen a player who has won top division titles and reached Champions League knock outs regularly. Must be something like what happened with Ben White? Defence is our weakest area and that we are deliberately leaving out two high performers in Tomori and White is risky...

But what's good is it does feel that they have all been replaced by better players. Only really top one out of that bunch was Sterling, but I would take the set of current forwards as better.

I'm going to England's first game, first time for me at a tournament. Can't wait. If it was up to me I would start : Pickford Walker Stones ?????? Shaw TAA Rice Saka Bellingham Foden Kane Probably as good a front six players as England have ever had. A proper midfielder instead of TAA would be better but you can't deny his quality. Saka, Bellingham, Foden and Kane are probably all in the top 10 forwards in world football, I can't think of a period where we have had that ever? Rice as also kicked on massively, and you wouldn't be surprised if Real or Barca wanted him. Also - unlike the period where we had Scholes, Lampard, Gerrard - the player are well balanced as Foden and Saka are very comfortable playing wide. Back five though has been bad for a while and going backwards. Stones and Walker are solid, but the keeper, left back and the other CB are all worries for me. Its super concerning that we seem to be drifting into Maguire starting after he had a really bad season and more injuries. I am still very confused why someone like Tomori has not been given a chance to bed in. Shaw and Chilwell both unconvincing. Shaw was great but injuries have hurt him badly, and Chilwell has also missed most of the season. Pickford I can live with as he is decent at everything (handling, shot stopping, coming for crosses, distribution) although not brilliant at any either, but great teams need great keepers and while good he is not in the top bracket.... Edit - also with Watkins, Cole Palmer, Grealish, Gordon off the bench there is genuine quality to bring on to change games.

Yeah, it's an okay first XI keeper and striker aside for me. But out of those XI I think every single one has had an extended multi month layoff in the last 12 months with the exception of Tronstad. So i would say we should probably expect everyone except Tronstad to play max 60-70% of games. Some like JRC and Hedges 50% might be a more prudent number. Based on those ratios we need 5 more we see as genuine starters before we even get into having tactical options and youngsters etc. I can't think of one....

Scottish football really needs a third club to step up and compete with Rangers and Celtic. Once you have three on a similar level things can improve a bit (Portugal, Netherlands are three club dominated countries). The gulf is so huge through... probs Hearts are the next best supported but they only get crowds about a third of the old firm.

We've got a good team but football is football...... Portugal, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands all have a lot of quality as well as France. I think it's naïve to think any one of those could not beat England or France on a given day. International football is not like club football where a dominant highly tuned team like Man City or 2010 Barcelona can steam roller everyone. Its more unpredictable. For example the France team that was obviously the best in the world at the time (won the WC in 2018, final in 2022) went out to Switzerland in the quarter of Euro 2020.... Just got to enjoy the ride.

Sad to see Gregg the Egg go, mainly as he was one person who sounded like he had a plan. Probably didnt have too much to do with the Szmodics or Hyam signings though, and Wahlstadt has arguably been our all time worst signing, plus all the McGuire stuff. Plus loans were pretty poor. Its hard to really make a case that he should stay The BBC article makes it sound like Eustace is not happy too.. Feels like its going to be a long long summer...