onlyonejackwalker

They hate playing us up there. But i cant see it this time round. They will score. We won't. 2-0.

Fucking dynamite. Seriously well done. A quite brilliant achievement! Happy Christmas to you all.

The fans form part of my thinking as well. As usual, the best sporting fans in the world. Who on earth gave those players permission to go on the raz mid series? They had only played 6 / 7 days at that point. Badly i might add. Yup. Mcullum and Stokes. The ones you wish to keep. Mcullums record. 44 tests - 25 wins - 17 defeats - 2 draws. Won 10 out of the first 11. Won 15, lost 16, drawn 2 of the last 33. Decent improvenent against the average teams. Little improvement against India and Australia. Bashing up Afganistan, Bangladesh, the West Indies and Outer Mongolia. All English fans want positive, aggressive cricket. I would rather lose trying to win anyday. But these players have no filter. Carte blanche to do as they please. No one ever gets dropped. Once they get these central contracts we are stuck with them for two years. I believe our players were undercooked and not prepared and are better than they have shown to date. And that is the fault of those in charge. The ones you wish to keep. Stop rewarding failure.

For me, nothing less than sweeping changes will now suffice. Because there is simply nothing good to have come out of the first three games. So theres absolutely nothing to lose. And nothing to gain by repeating the process with these players. Root made a ton. Archer got a 5 for and bowled at 90+ and made a 50. Stokes showed true grit, with bat and ball. All of which we expected. The bare minimum from those three. What else did we get? Wood got injured. Crawley got past 50 a couple of times. Brook hit a few sixes. Duckett and Pope collapsed. We dropped catches. All of which we expected. The series is over in eleven short days. Of which we enjoyed maybe four. Eleven days. Its pitiful. Which has far wider implications than just irritating me. The travelling English fans. The Aussie fans that bought tickets. The Aussie venues. The TV companies. Corporate and hospitality. Grass roots. Promotion of the game. Millions of pounds have been lost. Touring England teams used to have 4 x 4 day warm up games before the first test. Acclimatising to the timezones, weather, pitches, humidity, conditions, different ball. You know, like being professional! This lot are going on a 6 day bender when 2-0 down. They are slovenly and it shows. There's something badly wrong and rotten about the set up. No standards, no responsility and no accountabiliy. Failure is constantly rewarded. I'm really disappinted.

We did finish above Derby. Well above. We finished 7th, they scraped survival. Still missing him, bless. You'll get over it.

I'm pretty sure De Neve was advertised as a winger not full back.

That back four looks amazing compared to what we have now. Its going to be a tough period ahead. Rovers 1 Millwall 2.

It's much more likely to be Ribeiro anyway. He let the cross pass him by, then inexplicably let the ball dribble out for a corner.

Pleasing result for St Mirren.

The big error was the 2nd goal. Two of our simpletons ushered the ball out for a corner to them! I've never seen anything like it.

We had a good 10 minutes after half time then totally collapsed. Too many poor performances. Subs came 5 minutes too late. Portsmouth deserved the win.

We've just allowed a ball to go out for a corner instead of the keeper picking it up or the full back clearing it. Absolutely pathetic.

More likely to concede. Struggling to get up the pitch.

Brilliant.

Its all Rovers so far. A bit more quality / composure and we would be 2 up.

We worked very hard that half to protect our goal. I'm expecting them to throw everything at us. Tidy little finish on the break.

With a fully fit Aussie squad and a fully fit English squad, very few of our team make a combined eleven based on the stats. Especially away from home. Therefore it was imperative to focus on and do the basics extremely well. Which we have failed to do spectacularly. Our fitness and concentration has been very poor across all disciplines. Our specialist batting has been pathetic, our fielding and catching atrocious and our bowling lacks consistency, guile, options and penetration. Only Stokes and Root have performed to any sort of par, but we needed much more from both in the abscence of any sort of contribution from the majority. I don't see how this improves for the remaining tests. My only hope is it doesn't totally disintegrate. The Aussies will get better and we will become more tired, demoralised and jaded. From this point on Crawley, Duckett, Pope and Smith are playing for their future. Brook needs to stop believing his own hype. Root and Stokes as usual need to be world class. I am cutting the bowlers some slack as only getting 35 overs rest between innings and trying to constantly defend 150 is depressing watching on tv, let alone trying to pull it off. Yes we were crap before Bazball. Yes we are crap now. And......? Scooping, switch hitting, charging the bowler, driving on the up, hooking, hitting across the line, hitting in the air should all be banned unless youve got 100 on the board, or match curcumstances dictate. And instead of getting pissed on a beach, practice your fucking catching instead.

They struggle to score, we struggle to keep clean sheets. Their form isn't great, our away form is good. We struggle to score two. Im predicting a score draw. 1-1. Which is not a lot of use to either of us. We most certainly don't want to lose, nor experience a 96th minute calamity. COYB.

Why did it take until the shit was truly hitting the fan for us to start playing attritional cricket? We lost 6 wickets in 32 overs. Then Stoke and Jacks put on 96 in 37 overs. Stokes scored 50 from 150, Jacks 41 from 92. They survived 3 hours, left a lot alone, only drove at half volleys, played mostly on the floor. I don't agree this is a poor Australian team. We aren't seriously testing them and they've got gears to go up in my view. This is the culmination of two or three years of sloppy, slapdash cricket. You can't suddenly refine your technique against the very best. It was probably worth the gamble trying to transport one day cricket into the test arena. But enough is enough. Th8s series is over afyer 6 days of cricket. Its been entertaining at times, but only because Root has dug in and rescued us time and time again. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. .... Well done to Crawley this test. He is obviously not an opener, but the test selectors know better than me. I don't dislike him as a batsmen, just hate him opening. I'd love to see him at 5 or 6 against tired bowlers and an older ball. If his aversge still remained at 30, then bin him for good. Robin Smith averaged nearly 50 in home tests and over 40 when jettisoned. Because he struggled against spin. Why not give him 30 extra tests to work it out? What a bad decision that was, poor bloke. RIP big man.

Embarrassing. Venkys Rovers 2025.

Firstly, catch your catches, win your matches. Second, stop wafting outside off stump with zero foot movement. Third, pitch it up, hitting the top of off stump. Fourth, play each ball on its merits. Five, occupy the crease, protect your castle. Six, take the shine off the ball, tire out the bowlers. Seven, play straight. Eight, hit the ball on the ground. Nine, adapt to match circumstamces. Ten, (see number one) support your bowlers.

Results not currently going well elsewhere, so another away win would be very pleasing.

Historically a business was valued at 3.5x its yearly profits. That grew in some instances to 6x its profits post covid. We lose circa 20 million per year. Whatever you pay, add 400k a week on immediately if buying the Rovers. The decent thing would be to release the club at no charge to someone willing to fund the debt and invest.

What price would they ask for? What price would be fair? Ashley has just had a £ 20 million bid for Wednesday turned down. There is an argument to state that the club is largely worthless. But normal rules dont seem to apply to football.