David Kelly

He has no idea, generally and specifically about who he'd like to see us bring in. Despite his protestations, he clearly just thinks that the top teams will have players (a striker in particular it seems) in their u21 squad who are just waiting for someone to loan them in the championship for them suddenly score boat loads. He likes the idea that we will get some unknown (especially to him) player who's parent club know will be a superstar in the future so want to loan him to us to hone his talent. Despite there being no proof that these players exist.

I think in Gayle, Mitro and Perez and Armstrong we have a good strikeforce which is probably enough to get us up. I wouldn't mind another as back up but for our main two strikers, baring in mind we'll likely play a lot witn one up front and someone like Perez behind. But that player need not be better than those two or be a loan signing.

Thank fuck for that. Everyone can thank me in their own time.

No nobody agrees with this. The one player you can think of who fits a similar criteria is Bamford (similar in that he came from Chelsea not City). I've already pointed out that stats suggest we have already signed better and already had better than him. Do you expect the likes of City to loan us Bony or Chelsea loan us Remy? This won't happen. They'll only loan us unproven youngsters. We have more proven players than that so why would we be interested? The answer is we wouldn't. You may not be excited by Gayle, Mitro, Perez etc but they are far more likely to get us out of this league.

For Bamford I refer you back to the players I already mentioned. He's another who did well in the championship but did fuck all in the premier league. In fact he was behind Gayle in the pecking order at Palace. We basically already have better players than the types you are talking about.

Of the players who are here and seem set to be regular first teamers, the options, other than Lascelles, seem to be Shelvey or Janmaat. I'm not convinced Janmaat will be here long which would rule him out but might bring Gamez into the mix. I suppose if Lascelles doesn't cement his position in the team then that brings Hanley into the equation also.

It's not a low blow at all and the ridiculous argument is yours. You're advocating bringing in loan signings who you don't know with the only justification seemingly being if we can only get them on loan they must be better players. I already stated in the Hayden thread that I'd prefer not to bring in loan players as it only benefits the parent club so no I wouldn't be particularly happy if we brought in loan signings. I'd only be happy about it if it brought in a quality player who's ready to walk straight into the team. Clubs don't loan those sort of players out to second tier teams though. They loan young kids they want you to develop or problem players. I don't see how it benefits us to bring in either. For the record, Gayle doesn't massively excite me but I do think he's good enough to get 15 goals + this season. I'm also confident Mitro will score 20+. Neither of those players excite you but are more than capable in the league we are in. You only have to look at the records of players like Cameron Jerome, Abel Hernandez and Danny Murphy. In this league they've banged them in but they all have considerably worse records than our strikers in the premier league.

Can you give us examples of such players?

I see Stoneman is leaving Durham at the end of the season with Borthwick looking a good chance to follow him. Mustard gone now too. Really have to worry about their finances.

I don't think anyone is going to forgive you for playing fantasy selector again. Wood looked like a pretty useful batsman in the Ashes too. Him as a number 10 gives us a very long tail again. Plunkett might be another option to replace Stokes. Been doing well for Yorkshire and in short forms for England recently.

Trainspotting is possibly the best book I've ever read. Loved Porno too but it's not as good. The only other of his books I've read is Crime which I also thought was excellent. A bit removed from the other two but still really good. I'll have to get Glue, Skagboys and The Blade Artist downloaded for my Kindle.

Thought it wasn't as good as his other ones whilst still being very good. A few mates went to see him at the academy the other week and were a bit disapointed. Apparently netflix had released that sooner than he had wanted so he didn't do the show as was. By the sounds of it he ad libed a lot of stuff and it wasn't as good as the proper show. I say he should have just done his planned show, if anyone was stupid enough to watch it on netflix before they went then that's their problem.

CT would you have been happier if we'd signed Hayden on loan? He seems to be exactly the type of player you were initially suggesting, young talent from a top side. Or is the fact that we managed to sign him permanently making you think he's not really good enough so we should have signed someone the likes of Arsenal would only let us have on loan?

Aye Wood might just be coming back from injury at the right time. Took another 3 wickets for the lions yesterday, dunno if he's took any today after Bell Drummond and Ducket smashed their bowlers all over the place. But he's not played a county game this year yet has he? Edit: Doesn't look like he's played today.

Is there anything Root can't do?

Can't see this lasting until tomorrow now. Big shame about stokes. Finn back in for the rest of the series or Ball? Woakes can play the all rounder role in his absence I guess.

I fancy Bournemouth to be reasonably safe.

I think he'll do reasonably well if he's given the resources to bring some players in. At the minute they're two players down from last seasons starting eleven with only Insomnia looking anywhere close to signing for them. They clearly need to improve their squad given they only just avoided relegation last season. With the frustrations fat sham was voicing about the difficulties of signing players, you have the feeling that they don't have a great deal of cash to splash even with the new TV deal. As quiff says, they're still unfashionable, although I think Moyes will make them slightly more appealing, so it's not easy to get a lot of quality to go there. As their squad stands at the moment I'd have them along with Hull and Burnley as the favourites to go down, but I do think they'll give Moyes just about enough to move a place or two above the bottom three.

Declared now.

I assumed it must have been to make sure Anderson and Stokes had extra time to recover with them just coming back from injury. Couldn't believe it when Farbrace did his interview with Ward and said it was to make sure we didn't put ourselves under any pressure and have to play on a pitch that was breaking up. How much pressure could we have ever been under with that lead? Ridiculous. Almost want it to rain to show them how ridiculous it was.

Why the fuck are we not enforcing the follow on?

Any tv of today's game?

Or probably Ballance.

Trott?

Rooooooot