MFletcher

Centre backs at full back with full backs on the bench. It really is inexplicable.

Ten more years in charge of England for Hodgson please.

There's a stronger argument for dropping Agger than there is for dropping Skrtel.

Congratulations to all involved in the Hodgson snub today, an excellent follow-up to the result.

It would still be illegal in some countries.

I'd be very pleased indeed if we sign both of them, central defence would be sorted for years. I'd still like a boss attacking player as well.

Relative to Brad Jones, Shay Given is Lev Yashin.

I'd love Torres to come back, although it's partly because I still harbour the insane hope he could recapture his old form.

If we were prepared to spend circa £25M+ on Willian, then surely the money is there for the manager to go and buy other players he wants? I don't really understand why it seems to have disappeared on him.

Johnson played centre back for West Ham in the second half of 2002/03. They did get relegated at the end of it, but at least he has some experience. I'm not sure I'd trust any of the younger players against van Persie.

Regardless of how good he is, he's on a hiding to nothing here if he's not allowed to buy anyone. The dealings thus far, if there's no 'big' purchase before the end of the window, should represent a significant turning point in the quiet acceptance of the FSG rule thus far. I've criticised the manager plenty of times over the last year, but what can any of us expect him to do in the coming year if he's going into this season without the prospect of building on last year's very good finish to the year?

Moses on loan and signing no-one else would be highly demoralising. They're bound to want to sell us at some stage, and surely they'd get more if we're an established CL club with the consistent revenue streams that generates. I don't really know what they'd get out of trying to hover around sixth for years, which is what we'll be doing if we don't let the manager actually go and sign the players we need.

You would need to note the respective run-ins for each club, at which point you'll see that Spurs had a handy run-in and Newcastle didn't, making it incredibly unlikely that the latter would finish ahead of the former by the end of the league. On the final day, they needed to beat Everton away and hope Spurs lost at home to a Fulham side who couldn't win away regularly. It was never going to happen, regardless of how "close" you might think they came. I'm sure we could come "close", but it really doesn't matter if you don't go and actually push on from it.

Newcastle didn't "nearly" get into the CL. It was a very good run they put together, but at no point did it look as if they were actually going to finish there. They threatened it only in the sense that media narrative dictated they did. I don't think anyone seriously expected them to actually get over the line and, as it turned out, it petered out in the manner expected.

The jump from seventh to fourth is considerable. We haven't challenged for fourth in years. We haven't discernibly improved the first XI. United, City and Chelsea will finish in the top three. This leaves us having to finish ahead of both Spurs and Arsenal. In the case of the latter, everyone has prophesied failure to qualify for the CL for years now, and yet they always manage to put together a run when they need to. That and they've almost certainly qualified for the competition this year which will surely lead to some sort of activity in the market in the last week. With Spurs, they're set to lose Bale. They have, however, signed some very good players to replace him. Their squad was good as it was, but they've added Paulinho, Soldado and will have tens of millions to spend from the insane Bale fee they're set to receive. We've done nothing to suggest we're going to improve by the margin required, and that both Spurs and Arsenal will recede to the level required, for us to overtake them. This isn't a case of a lack of optimism, it's an objective appraisal of where things unfortunately stand. If we go out and buy three players by next week, we can maybe revise the season's expectations.