The weather is turning. This could genuinely be the last session of the match I think we find ourselves 30 runs short, and we may rue Root's moment of madness An early wicket to Warner and we are on our way. Huge session of cricket coming up here

If we can get this to a 300 lead I'll still fancy us The rain forecast tomorrow morning will give us every advantage in the morning session We need to try and bat the day out though. Ali and Robinson need to produce something brilliant here imo

I was at Edgbaston yesterday, and the conditions were perfect for the bowlers after the rain delay It is just England's luck. That said, both Duckett and Crawley should have left everything not on the stumps. Everyone could see the massive rain cloud coming over and the wind had started to swirl. Bet that lot couldn't believe their luck The Bairstow stumpings / dropped catches may cost us. We could have had some more hours batting in good conditions. The weather has turned now, and even today in Brum you'd like to be a bowler, so I think the pitch will have a bit more life in it

Good lad Crawley. Needed that Pope getting out to a terrible ball. Other than that a very good morning

The glory days Supernoodles on toast for dinner, 70p Becks for dessert Still a better food and drink offering than at Ewood

Ali extends our batting line up. In theory that middle order can score very high, very quickly The problem is we start 0-1 anyway, as any runs Crawley puts on the board are considered a bonus The biggest travesty is Ben Foakes. A terrific wicket keeper and came in quite handy with the bat last year too. A lot of not outs with 30+ on the board In my opinion, you may as well risk Bairstow opening and drop Crawley and bring in Foakes.

Doogs is a wind up merchant Move on

The minimum they are required to ensure the club does not break financial rules and for the football financial regulators to stay away If they wanted to improve the ground, match day experience, facilities and all commercial aspects of the Rovers they could and could do so without breaking any rules

The truth is that the whole of the Riverside is a good opportunity for development. You could bring the fans close to the pitch and utilise the outside space; wrap the stands together with the BBE and Darwen End and it creates a better, enclosed atmosphere You could keep it single tier and place the commentary / tv gantry above. Underneath there would be plenty of room for food, bars, fanzones and so on It is that malaise has set in. Venkys are huge conglomerate. They are multi billionaires. In Pune they built a temple. They aren't averse to spending, that's for sure, and so the chronic lack of spending on one part of their business can only come from contempt. It should always be remembered that infrastructure and maintenance are exempt from Financial Fair Play. If they wanted to they could encrust the whole of Ewood in gold and the authorities couldn't do a thing. The fact they spend such pitiful amounts points towards their lack of care or regard for the club and surrounding community They are detached from us. We keep waiting for that to change but, as they say, insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results All talk of innovative and ambitious commercial plans, or regeneration of fan zones / stands is fantasy stuff. It will not happen until they have gone

I have been using Chat GPT to draft all sorts of notices for the last few months now. So long as you input the correct data to begin with, then the resulting draft is formatted brilliant It has in the past even added in something I didn't ask. An obligation of a construction subcontractor is that they must 'mitigate any delays'. When I asked ChatGPT to draft a formal notice of delay under each clause it actually left me a blank section for "mitigation", with the words "As per our obligations under the subcontract we have mitigated delays by {insert text here]" This is something the industry regularly misses when claiming for delay time / cost I was mesmerised to be honest, it appeared to have an in-depth knowledge of the suite of contracts I was using

Well we are at an impasse There’s nothing to suggest he struggles to control a game: his defensive work is amongst the best in the league and his successful passes / touches are in the top 10 too. These are all stats that suggest he is in control of the game You obviously watch a lot more of West Ham than me to be able to ignore all of that I will wager he will go to a top club, start every week, and continue to be a starting CM for England for the next 5 years though.

Makelele was never as good on the ball as Rice is now He's nowhere near as limited on the ball as you are making out in my opinion. It did get me thinking though, where does he sit in the PL? The Prem do a good stats table for players tbf.. He had the 10th most successful passes, 12th for touches, 9th most successful tackles and 1st in interceptions. Despite that amount of defensive play he only picked up 5 yellows. He was in the top 10 for most minutes played too. And he won a trophy. I know you don't think stats are a real measure of a player, but they look pretty damn good for a defensive midfielder imo You have kind of reversed a bit from your discussion with Chaddy - maybe when you two talk you are both prone to taking the extreme side of the argument? - where you called Rice average on the ball, and said he struggles to control possession I just don't think that adds up. It certainly doesn't when in an England shirt. He beats players on occasion and keeps the ball ticking nicely. He isn't the player who will break defences consistently but he's the type of player you so desperately miss when he isn't there I don't think you are comparing apples with apples. The idea he can't be "right up there" because he doesn't pull up stats like Rodri, whilst playing for West Ham. I don't think it is a fair assessment. I remember Bellingham saying that it was Rice who allowed him to play the way he did in the WC, specifically the Senegal game. Some players just make others better

Yeah, I don't disagree there is a premium. The EPL has rules regarding domestic players so when a home grown players becomes your club captain then for you to part company the offer has to be worth it. The premium is a symptom of the Premier League's success Chelsea paid just over £30m for Kante back in 2016. Is Rice worth 3x that amount now? If you looked at it in isolation then probably not, but with all the factors of a home grown boy, club captain, full England international and you can start to see the price tag rise I just hope he does not suffer the same fate as Harry Maguire, who has been ridiculed at Utd and in large part due to that English premium. Something tells me Rice won't struggle though and will take the step up when surrounded by much better players, and in a team where they want to keep the ball. It is a lot easier to play CDM in a club that want to retain possession, instead of being dragged around for 90 minutes. He has always looked better in an England shirt because of this imo

Helps when you have two Hollywood stars and a fucking Netflix documentary to be fair JH

I didn't realise that playing in a defensive midfield role meant you had to dictate the game to be considered 'the very best'? It is a very one dimensional view of a defensive midfielder; borne out of the modern day greats like Pirlo and Alonso The whole basis of the post is that Rice must dictate tempo in order to be considered great. Where does this put the likes of Claude Makelele? Or Gennaro Gattuso? These players aren't a "thing of the past" - they are classic holding midfielders who break up play, something you have said Rice is good at You say it like it is a bad thing that Rice might play for clubs like Barca or Madrid to be a water carrier. It isn't. Didier Deschamps made a mighty fine career out of that, so good in fact that the term "water carrier" was coined because of him Likewise, "the Makelele role", a defensive midfielder who broke up play, not exactly a Pirlo on the ball, but made sure that the midfield and defence didn't become disjointed There are plenty of fantastic defensive midfielders who did not need to dictate the game to be classed as one of the very best. This is just critique for the sake of it

Rodgers dropping Soyuncu was an absolute madness They brought in that Faes as a replacement. Imo he is a walking disaster. We walked all over him in the FA Cup and made him look a serious mug. On the flip side, Soyuncu always looked calm and collected, and it appears will get a move to Athletico Madrid. Simeone doesn't sign idiots

I meant for England!!

I hope Rice gets himself to Liverpool. He'll get guaranteed game time under a manager who will really drill into him the art of turning the ball over and then passing forward and direct. Klopp made Henderson a much better player and Rice is naturally better than Henderson The future is bright for the English midfield with him and Bellingham in there

Steve Waggott is a disgrace really. Always has been The truth of the matter is he probably costed out the sign to change the Riverside into the Tony Parkes Stand and then decided against it The man might be between a rock & and a hard place: it's clear who sanctions the spending, and I suspect 98% of all our spending goes on the football side, but just the manner in which he operates in is sickening Just another in a long list of execs that ain't worth a penny

I remember my first beer

The idea that footballers are not fit is an absolute nonsense You don't even need to add detail to the post. It's just stupid talk

And in those 44% of minutes he bagged a lot of goals and assists

Does nobody check this? Fuck sake. It's just amateur.

Antigua have the right idea and let you watch the cricket from a hot tub Getting some hot tubs in the Riverside might liven the place up a bit. Ditch Sodexo and bring in some cocktails and fancy umbrellas. Then I'd put the cameras back in the JW so the world could see what Blackburn has to offer

We had all of this when Aston Villa went down The truth is that the parachute payments will do exactly what they are designed to do: protect Leeds Utd from the careless financial decisions they made to try and compete in the Premier League Leeds will likely follow the same route as Villa. Write off a lot of losses in this years financial accounts and give them breathing room for 2 more years. The parachute money will help them out In that time they will either sell everybody or make their managerial appointment correctly and find their way back to the riches. They are at a significant advantage to the rest of us