weedman

This is where I'm at as well. I was confident in him staying but I think there's enough evidence out there now to suggest he probably isn't. Oh well, we've lost good players before, I still think the squad we have is top 6 material without him and an extra £100m to spend on top of the £100m we seem to normally spend now is mega. And again, 10 teams finished above us last season without a Jack Grealish, 16 teams without a Jack Grealish finished above us the season before. He's a great player and all, but he's not Messi

Didn't they also say that Friday? In fact didn't they say the deal was done before the Euros started?

The DM thing is clear really, he wants a DM who is a playmaker 1st, someone who will sit in front of the defence and start the attacks. When he first joined it was Hourihane and he reluctantly switched to Whelan when it wasn't working but was clearly desperate to put him back in for his passing. Its why he always wants to play Luiz instead of Nakamba until his form got so bad he had no choice but to drop him. I think most teams have to decide if they want one type or the other, the players adept at both are the most saught after players in football a lot of the time, and for Dean he would sacrifice the defensive side for the playmaker side. I hope we find a player that can do both and sign them, although I fear the only real options are either spending £50m+ or bringing in a "project" player who could be that guy in a few years, or have Luiz work on improving the defensive part of his game. He is so young with so much potential and if he can realise it we'll genuinely have a star on our hands in that role. Maybe that's the master plan in the next few years?

I think, and I could be wrong, but I think he's saying it's far too soon to be completely writing the guy off based on a small number of games and a horrific injury that we don't know how he's recovered from. Perhaps we should have some patience and give the guy a chance?

And so many owners ago it may as well have happened to Southampton

OK so I just came on here, saw about 100 extra pages and have skimmed through. From what I gather, the deal is now done, the only things left to iron out are the fee, wages, bonuses, contract length, and whether or not Jack actually wants to go? Got it

I wonder what the reaction would be on here if Jack did the same thing?

Admittedly I haven't seen it since the time, but I clearly remember being amazed anyone thought it was a deliberate stamp, it's just clear as day in my memory that as he was jumping over a player (Rooney maybe?) that player starts to get up, which completely throws him off balance while in the air and his foot comes down on Zlatan. The sketchiest bit that I remember is he didn't stop to make sure he's OK straight away like most would but carried on and "played the whistle". It was the same as the one on the Reading player. Clear as day was an accident but there's always people wanting to call it deliberate This one is just effing stupid. The whole point of these games is fitness and he's gone and got himself red carded less than 10 minutes in, stupidity. Although as usual people calling it the end of his career are wildly over exaggerating but you can't just completely ignore it either. It was monumentally stupid and certainly won't be helping his cause with the fans or coaching staff

Which would be ironic as Sterling needs a striker like Kane to flourish, and Kane needs wingers like Sterling to be effective

I personally can't see him going anywhere, and I love that an Aston Villa player has the superstar profile that Jack currently has, but all the bed wetting about him leaving is a bit much. Let's not forget that 10 teams finished above us last season without a Jack Grealish in their team

Look, I'm not saying I'd say no to having 2 or hell, even 3 or 4 quality options for every position, you don't have to argue with me that it would be great to have virtually limitless options. Watkins is our first choice. No doubt. He's as integral to our team as Jack. This means that if he's fit he'll play 38 games next season, that's just what Dean Smith will do. Having a different option off the bench or as a bit of cover if he gets injured is essential, that will not be Tammy Abraham at £40m. He's only moving to a club to be first choice. You make it seem like teams in Europe "act" like they do because they feel like it. They sign more players because you can add an extra 15 games onto their season. Lots of midweek matches and fixture conjestion. Those players simply would not sign for us becuase we cannot offer them the game time. Strutting around telling anyone that'll listen that we're a big club isn't going to magic an extra 15 games onto our season, it's not going to magic up European football that these players want. As for do I want other teams to be stronger, of course not, I'd rather every team is forced to sell their entire first team except us and we win the league by 50 points. But it's not remotely realistic, we're not Man City when they first got taken over, we're not just going around signing players with unlimited money so that other teams can't strengthen. Also also, I'm absolutely not saying that I don't want us to sign an extra £40m striker. That'd be a massive signal of intent for a start, my argument is that we don't have unlimited money, £40 is a big big chunk of our remaining budget, and spunking it on a striker that we don't really need when we're desperately short in other positions is just crazy. If we've got £40m left over after picking up a centre back, a DM improvement on Nakamba and possibly a 10, then we can sign Tammy, I just don't think it's remotely realistic and Tammy would be bottom of the priorities list over those other positions.

I hate this reasoning, being realistic isn't "small club mentality" The top teams play 50/60 games a season, a rotation player can comfortably play 30 games, we aren't there yet and simply believing it won't make it true. Even teams that have had champions league recently have struggled with backups to established 1st choice players. Spurs haven't had a Kane backup for years, same with Leicester and Vardy (although they were a bit better last season). Its not football manager or fifa where you can have 2 highly rated players and swap them round every week, the real world doesn't work like that, simply going round telling people that we're a big club doesn't make it so. If tammy was to come here and we rotated him and Watkins he'd probably end up playing the same games for us as he played for Chelsea last season, what's the point for him? When he can go to a Newcastle or West Ham and play every week?

The finale of Lost was fantastic, emotional and fitting end for all the characters and complete closure for all, to compare it to trash like the Game of Thrones finale is insanity.

This is my point, I don't know, and neither do you. Me saying he's probably fine is as much speculation as you saying he's probably not. The people that know will be himself, Dean Smith, the coaching staff, doctors and physios. And it's their call whether he stays on as our backup or not. Therefore IF they decide that he will be our only backup then that is because he has fully recovered from his injury. While you and I might be sceptical or unsure of how he will be, that doesn't mean that the people making the decisions, the people with full access to all the information, the people who have worked with him every day since he signed, are. If they judge his fitness to be OK, then we have to trust them as they are the only ones who actually know beyond just a guess

I see this a lot, WE don't know how he is after his injury, WE don't know if he'll be the same player when he comes back, but his managers, coaches and physios do know these things. If we rely on him as our backup it's because he has recovered from his injury

You can't really argue that he didn't rotate those players though, I mean over the course of the tournament Grealish, Saka, Sancho, Rashford, Foden and Mount all had minutes playing alongside Kane and Sterling. I don't think the FA will give a shit about style when we've reached a semi and a final in consecutive tournaments, and Southgate has consistently brought the fans together for the tournament, is well liked by just about everyone in football. I think the style will stay roughly the same moving forward and whatever attacking options we have will have to fit into the LW ST or RW roles. For this tournament it was Kane, Sterling and A N Other. Next tournament it could be Grealish, Kane and Saka, who knows, but I think its unlikely he's going to change a winning formula and even more unlikely the people in charge would want him to

Arsenal's PR department if it happens

The idea that it was personal was squashed the minute he was selected for the team. The excuse of "he's not fit enough" was ready made, and if Southgate had a personal vendetta against him he'd have used it Its clearly a tactical decision based on his skillset and/or fitness levels. We can disagree with that decision all we want, but it's a tactical decision that's got us to our first major final since 1966 - 55 years! I've been as critical of Southgate as anyone, and love Jack of course, but his decisions have been entirely vindicated since he's been manager, and if we win on Sunday he'll go down as one of the greatest managers England have ever had, whether us Internet warriors agree with his decisions or not

We signed Buendia as well so I reckon Martinez may be off Glad to see him back though, I really like him as a player and I'm sure there'll be plenty of chances for him to impress as an understudy to Cash

Everyone focusing on the £40m mark is ignoring a pretty important detail here. Tammy featured in more than 20 games last season, we play 1 up front and have Watkins. Why would he move from the club he supports to a club he doesn't for, at best, the same amount of game time?! Without Europe we only play 45 odd games a season, even a nice 50/50 split with Watkins plus the odd "throw them both on if we need a goal" matches he's going to struggle to get the same number of games for us as he will for Chelsea. It would be a poor use of our budget and a terrible move for him to make. He'd be better off at nearly any other team

That is an anomaly, he hangs outside the box and makes things happen, he's not the type of player to get in the box for tap ins, 1 example from his career doesn't change that. Sterling has done it twice in 4 games at the euros and does it on an incredibly regular basis for England (and City, when on form) They're very different players. For example the first goal against Germany doesn't happen without Jack, and doesn't happen without Sterling. If Sterling was still on the left he'd have got the ball and lost it trying to dribble past 4 players, if Jack came on for Sterling then Saka wouldn't have been in the position for the tap in. Go compare a compilation of Jack's goals to Sterling's, he's got virtually no tap ins by comparison, it's not luck, he is a creator that sits deeper and dictates while Sterling is a runner who gets into good positions (but will make the wrong decision if he has any time whatsoever to think about it) With Kane intent on being a midfielder there's no-one except Sterling who actually busts a gut into the box to score

Tbf I was one of those people calling Sterling a donkey. I wouldn't have had him in my 23 let alone 1st name on the team sheet. He has, however, been England's most important player this tournament. He's wasteful and poor on the ball, but he gets in some unbelievable positions and has been a constant threat and I'm now in the "he can't be dropped" contingent. Does Jack get into the positions to score the "easy" goals that Sterling does? Not a chance. He's taken some stick but Southgate is showing all of us "experts" up a bit here, and honestly, for all his flaws, is turning into one of our most successful managers in decades I'd obviously be playing Jack as well as Sterling, but he's clearly not fully fit so it's hardly too crazy a decision to have him fresh off the bench especially when a fair few games have gone into extra time already

Are you John McGinn?