Sunbury Fox

Villa play Freiburg in a Europa League final whilst a few years ago we drew Roma under Mourinho in the semi of the Conference League. A perfect illustration of how much stronger these 2 competitions were before UEFA ended the format of clubs dropping from one competition to the next one down. Oh well, will be a very long time before we’re back in Europe again.

Not a dissimilar strike to that Hazard goal.

2 draws tonight and the final day 'drama' will be around who finishes 7th or 8th to get into the Conference League!

Aside from PSG, who are great to watch, Barca are even more kamikaze and very exciting. Bayern also a good watch. Beyond that, however, I agree that the top teams are very dull at the moment. Sadly, I've got a horrible feeling Arsenal will sh1thouse a 1-0 win off a set piece v PSG. For the sake of football, I hope I'm wrong as I really don't want other teams emulating their "style" of play in pursuit of success.

Everton fans should appreciate the fact that they've finally finished above 16th after a decade in which they've been extremely lucky to stay up on a number of occasions.

We don't but Essex have really had the best of the weather. Low cloud when we were batting and bright sunshine when it was their turn.

Think it's very harsh to turn on the same coaches who've overseen real improvements and a couple of trophies in the last few seasons. Was always going to be very tough this season. The score this morning is obviously awful but batting has been very tough all across the country with the cloud cover around. Even Surrey have collapsed v Yorkshire. That said, I agree that we have messed up by signing Patel rather than an overseas pace bowler. But Weatherald has been good as the other overseas player and we can't write off Kelly just yet - he's only just arrived in the UK and wasn't even meant to be playing in this match. Let's hope we can make a good fist of the T20 campaign to raise spirits.

Conditions are perfect for seam bowling and they've got 3 excellent county level seamers who've fully exploited those conditions. The teams we're playing just have more quality than us. I think we'll be lucky to win 1 game. Interesting how much better Glamorgan are doing than us, though. We finished above them last season and also had the better of the draw in Cardiff.

Celtic v Hearts (until the end) was so much better than this borefest. El Plastico.

What's happened to Hearts in the last few days only makes me ever more amazed at the mental strength of our 2015/16 team. The odds are so stacked against smaller clubs.

Yeah, plus they've probably got a better chance of going up now they'll have no points deduction and have what you assume are competent new owners.

Maybe but Hull, Mike and Patel don’t fill you with confidence. Need Holland and Green to be really on it, with the others at least keeping it tight.

Is this a good score or not, do we think?

With Hull and Mike both playing, Essex will be scoring at T20 pace when they bat.

The club is definitely moving in the right direction on the field so happy to stick with Thomas and Taylor. Off it, however, we need to do more to become financially sustainable, including building the supporter base. Given the size of the city, crowds are still very low. The location of the ground doesn't help but, assuming a relocation is not possible, we need to look at investing in the facilities at the ground as a way of attracting more people. For example, it would be great to see some new, higher quality stands including reducing the size of the outfield on the Milligan Road side.

By the way, I was really impressed by Motherwell. Doubt we have any chance of tempting their manager to League One but would love to see us playing brave, high energy, attacking football like that next season.

Disgusting decision.

To be anywhere near competitive at this level, we need to sort out numbers 3 and 4 in the batting line up and get a good quality strike bowler.

Imagine finding out that we were also spying on opponents last season!

Really poor stuff this morning. Had a chance to hold out for a draw after the rain yesterday but then collapse like a pack of a cards. Bear in mind that Sussex are even missing several first team players. Glamorgan are looking much more competitive, even giving Somerset a good game.

And now we've gifted them another wicket with a ridiculous run out. Comprehensively beaten again. Could even be done by lunch.

In the last 3 seasons, 2 wins have been enough for teams to finish 3rd from bottom. In the year before that 1 win was enough! But that requires picking up enough bonus points and holding out for draws in lots of games.

I don't see how we are going to take 20 wickets cheaply enough to win games at this level. I admire that we have some fight and grit but that won't be enough, I fear.

Simpson is up there with Madsen as our biggest nemesis.

Ajaz Patel has been a really poor signing so far. Need your overseas bowlers to make a real difference.