dmayne7

Dunno. India bat pretty deep and the bowling attack is very inconsistent

Good. Think it's a bit of a nonsense that he's allowed to bat at all, just as it will be if Bashir is allowed to bowl having not fielded. Great player but he's also ridiculously lucky in virtually every innings. Going hard earns you a bit of luck but not to the extent he gets sometimes

Weird scenario. Lots of extenuating circumstances that shouldn't be ignored when it comes to his legacy but some baffling things that override that. Things that don't sit well are how he's front an centre when things go well but nowhere to be seen when things don't work. Looking back at the last time we were into the championship and he some how made all the celebrations about him, which were misguided given the abject failure that 'success' came from.

He's routinely been doing that throughout pre season.

Just don't see him having the game to come deep and hold onto the ball etc.

The format of the game yesterday was a good idea but in practice, it was so turgid. Should have just made it 3 60 min matches/periods because with the drinks breaks it just got a bit silly. Though OHL were probably wanting to do 90's so maybe that wasn't a great idea to pair up at this stage

Just after I replied to you saying he wasn't OTT

BEK shouldn't even be playing as a 10. Word from Genk and Morocco fans was that he is best a bit deeper and that's been backed up by his performances here.

Disagree with that. I think England would have complained for sure and I personally think they should have just added the time on and allowed another over but the manner of it crossed a line. Found it funny at first but then I think India went too far with how they crowded him. Don't forget Pant has already been fined for his conduct (an incident that I've never seen in Cricket), and Gill could be in trouble after his cock up changing the ball and the way he went about it. Whilst both teams have wasted time in the series, India have absolutely done more of that so the hypocrisy made the scenes last night a little bit pathetic. Love a bit of needle and it's why somebody like Siraj is great, even though he's over the top, though doesn't cross a line. So not advocating for India to have just sat there and accepted it, but when you've got 11 guys crowding 1 swearing, shouting etc, it's just a bit silly.

Also throw in the fact that England have gone left field and made players into openers when they haven't really done thar in their careers to date. But your last point is spot on. Too late to be messing around with the lineup unless there was somebody absolutely prodigious. And whilst I'm in the Crawley out camp, i do see the merit in his combination with Duckett as a pair

Great save. Absolutely dreadful from Hamza. He's also suffocating Braybrooke's role by dropping too deep and holding onto the ball for too long.

Well obviously not but he's deliberately whipping it into that area in the hope that might happen if everyone misses. Actually a very good corner taker (rarity in the modern game!)

Ironically, Nelson is everything that Faes wishes he was/thinks he is.

Huh? Struggling to see the relevance to my comment

Stokes is just different. It's why averages don't tell the full story in cricket. His ability to deliver when it matters is second to none.

I know the point you were trying to make but we're way past the stage where we've taken a little more time. They could have made a decision a month ago and you'd hardly be able to say they rushed it.

Kingy said that BDR was not back.

I've probably shared it before and it's nothing revolutionary. They were on a coaching course at the same time (think towards the end of the the title winning season, though I spoke to him in Sept/Oct of the following season) and he had asked Shakey what the secret was to the success. Shakey told him that Claudio was clever in the fact that he made very few changes so the tweaks he made were impactful, but the key thing was that the players were so pissed off that Pearson got sacked they were extra fired up and were determined to try and win the league, or at least have a proper go and show people what a good a team he had built. So nothing that insightful really as it could be meaningless, but think it also underlines how much the players loved Pearson and would also back up stories of things going pear shaped when Ranieri started to change things.

Bit of a strained connection but my brother is mates with the QPR Academy Director. Apparently he was raving about how good Cifuentes was a couple of months ago so hopefully that bodes well. Same guy also knew Shakey a bit and gave an interesting insight into our title win.

Oh yeah, it's a decent list of championship players. Just making the point that we have much better than all of them/or there is no need for them. Full back, even with the above scenario (quite likely), we'd still have: JJ, Thomas, Woyo C then Hamza, Aluko, Joseph etc. We basically need a dynamic centre midfielder and a striker.

Decent players (Holgate aside) but Brownhill would be the only one who would add something to the squad. As it currently stands we need to shift at least one fullback and we've got far more exciting attacking players than Dolan

The first and last point I think. External constraints are largely self inflicted at this point so can't really claim they're external factors outside of the club's control

Crazy how many people were actually ok with that on here.

Makes sense for them because if you've managed Chelsea, then loads of clubs will want you, even if out of employment for ages. Whereas as Championship manager with limited success (done a good job still), is less attractive a proposition plus any compensation could then become prohibitive for the hiring club.

Is he? Seems this question has to be thrown out there all the time but do you know exactly what he is responsible for or what is in his remit? Because if you do, that would make you the only person on here who does since there is 0 transparency on his role. Like everyone, I have absolutely no love for Rudkin and it find it it improbable that he is not useless at his job and massively responsible for lots of what has gone on. But the point is that we don't know for sure but there is a common denominator for all the wrongs; Top. Anyone blaming Rudkin over Top at this point is just being thick.