Exiled_Rover

The money is in white ball cricket. You have white ball specialists like Sneed who have turned down a red ball contract with Somerset (and has never played a first class match) cos it's peanuts compared to the money he can make in T20 comps around the world. That's just the way the game has gone - those gritty, technically sound batsmen are a thing of the past it seems.

Undav would have easily scored 10 in half a season if we'd got him in January. You've just highlighted the problem there - our current strikers couldn't score in a brothel.

Based on the fact: Niall Ennis has 30 senior career goals and 18 assists. Vale and Leonard (combined) have scored 3. Their fans were disappointed to see him leave ("oh he's tripled his wages!"). Sondre Tronstad was integral to a Vitesse team that qualified for Europe. He was in some Eredivisie teams of the year that season. He has played for his country and their fans were sad to see him leave. Arnór Sigurdsson has 31 senior goals, 17 assists and would be playing Champions League football for CSKA Moscow if Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine. He's an Icelandic international who has scored at the Bernabéu against Real Madrid. When was the last time we could say that about summer signings in their mid-20s? As I said, we still need 3-4 more - evidently so does the manager. Ideally I'd love a RB (backup), a ST (starter) and a RW (starter) and for S. Wharton to buck his ideas up.

You can't tell me JRC is playing RB there. He has to play CM (or further forward) this season, he has the potential to grab games by the scruff of the neck.

My honest expectations are a Playoffs finish with us pushing for automatic promotion. I was very pleased with the progress we made last year under JDT - we could be talking about PL football this season if we'd got a semi-decent striker over the line in January, we were that close with the rag-tag squad our previous manager left behind. I've been pleasantly surprised by the early transfer business we've done so far - the three we've brought in significantly improve our squad. In order to meet my expectations, however, we need 3-4 more (2 of which have to be for the attack) starting quality players, which I suspect will require sales to fund. The squad has quite a bit of deadwood so I'm hopeful they can be shipped out for a fee. If we don't make those signings then we'll finish mid table as we simply won't score enough goals again. Hopefully Broughton finishes what he's started this summer.

This ref is an absolute clown.

Never a penalty in a million years. VAR is absolutely fucking awful.

I won't go point for point, but the nations that compete for titles have strength in depth. We've got PL starters in our U21s - I don't see a problem here.

In a season of fine margins you don't want 4+ games to drift by before you bring in reinforcements. They should be in for the majority of the pre-season so you can hit the ground running.

Colwill is leagues above this level - what a classy CB.

As I said on my comment about the video of the players getting off the team bus - they did not look thrilled to be there. I'd guess most were just going through the motions to build up some match fitness.

Probably why they're being linked to LBs in the transfer window then.

We need a starting CF and a starting RW at a bare minimum. Ideally you'd bring in a #10 to back up Szmodics (or steal his job). You have to contribute to the wages of loanees, so that budget will be extremely tight if we do this right.

Did Dolan have a poor season last year? 5 goals and 5 assists whilst playing all over the front line - not bad for a 20 year old. Vale was completely anonymous, mind.

Ask him how Batty looks.

There's a lot of very bored looking Spanish girlfriends in the stands for this U21 Final: "Fancy a weekend break to Georgia, honey?" LOL! Also Kane had better be immortal because they're playing Gibbs-White and Smith-Rowe upfront. Where have all the big, athletic strikers in England gone?!

He still has to get paid - you think a 32 year old POTS is coming in for peanuts?

I don't mind the Batth signing - it's always good to bring in quality - but if funds are tight and we're clearly 2 short up front it seems odd.

Hopefully he's convincing enough to stop the Batth transfer and allow those funds to be allocated elsewhere.

Still playing JRC at RB. Interesting...

Good lord they look thrilled to be there.

It's not just Livingstone, although he's been particular poor this season - how he's captain I'll never know - but you don't see top teams relying on a 37 year old Croft, Vilas, Jones or Wells (who wasn't even playing T20 cricket before he got to Old Trafford!) in a crunch quarter-final. The IPL trio have flattered to deceive throughout the entire comp - fair play to Salt he's turned up in the County Championship so I'll curb my criticism of him somewhat. It's time for a regime change at Lancashire - we last won the County Championship in 2011 and the Blast in 2015 (you have to go back to the 90s for the one day game, which is now a second tier competition thanks to The Hundred). That's unacceptable for one of the major forces in county cricket.

We have half a dozen that are Test standard with Foakes at the front of the queue. No idea why Bairstow keeps getting picked.

It's nothing to do with form - he's overweight and wasn't the most mobile to start with.

This match is a hard watch. The two Yorkies dropping absolute dollies and a slogger smashing a century in about a session.