David Kelly

In terms of early deals your most likely right. In terms of money being spent, not all years have been the same so who knows.

Stick this thread straight into the gold section.

You under estimate the level of Penfold's incompetence. We signed Atsu early last year and unfortunately it didn't herald the start of a load of quick signings. Hopefully this year it will be different.

How could it possibly be ironic to them? They think irony is a bit like goldy and bronzey but made of iron.

Aye it's a joke really. I've no idea how they plan to fit the new 100 ball format in too (my understanding is that this isn't a replacement for the bash). Surely they need to look at the 50 over competition. Either reduce the number of games so that County Championship games can be played alongside it, or spread it out over a longer period. The national team aren't going to play much cricket in the conditions that we play so much of our four day game in.

There doesn't seem to be too many English batsmen around these days that are averaging 40+ in red ball cricket at the moment. I think there's only about 10 who have an average higher than 40 this season (including Cook, Jennings, Bairstow and Vince) in division 1. Given that most have played less than 5 games, one decent score can obviously skew what their average is. We've spent the winter talking about the lack of bowling options and years having problems with finding a partner for Cook at the top of the order, but there appears at the moment to be a larger problem with lack of English players coming through accross the board. I think we have some very talented players to build the team around, but in red ball cricket at least, it's looking like there's not much depth where we can fill out the team/squad. When you look at India and Australia, there are players coming through who might never make it at test level, but at least have very good records in the their national championships. I'm not sure we have that at the moment.

I enjoyed Solo. It's not a story that really needed telling (Rogue one had much more going for it on that score) and it feels the most slight of any of the Star Wars films, but it was great fun from start to finish. The guy playing the lead was good (as were Warrelson and Newton) but Chewie and Lando were the real stars for me. Very little sign of the force but really it delivered most of what I want from a Star Wars film.

Shame it went so quickly to shit on Sunday. I had a great day out for the Durham Worcester game at Gosforth on Friday. The rain actually helped Durham get the win and it coincided with the point where we managed to blag our way into the corporate bit for for some free food and drink. Which was nice.

Oh I have a heart of stone.

Still the greatest photo of all time

Is there a better sight than a mackem crying on the telly?

Very well. Jennings back in for India?

Me these days.

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately for you) they aren't her doing anything too explicit. Just the usual type with her kit off. Someone sent them in a whatsapp group I'm in and I didn't delete them quickly enough so I now see them every time I close my eyes

Jesus fucking wept. They have no self awareness at all. They confidently predict they will get promotion at the first time of asking despite not having a clue who there manager will be, what players they'll have left and what money they will have to spend and nothing that has come out about the deal suggesting that they will have anything great pumped into the club financially. This after their previous owner thinking it was a better bet writing off circa £100m of debt than keeping them and trying to claw it back. Tbf the one thing they've got going for them now is that people are at last interested in them to an extent. They're like those pictures going round of Sonia from Eastenders. You know they're fucking awful but you can't look away.

What the fuck is this all about? Can't be true can it?

Well I did say just about. Really 7th and not getting in Europe is about as big an achievement as 10th and not in Europe anyway. Which was probably your point

Their 'mags are rattled' bit really is a strange one. We've just finished 10th in the premier league, something that is just about their greatest achievement in the the premier league era (well apart from six in a row ftm) whilst they have been relegated to the third tier of English football for the second time in my lifetime (somewhere we've never been). They are losing millions each month, have players on premier league wages who none of them even know where they are, don't have a manager and have just been bought by a bloke who has less money than those players on premier league wages and his Thatcher loving mate. What reason could any of us have for being rattled by their recent history? They only exist to be ridiculed or, if you're feeling unusually nice towards them, pitied.

Aye I finished it last night, proper loon.

Aye it keeps getting more and more strange.

Deadpool as actually pretty decent but not as good as the first one. If you liked the first one I can't see why you wouldn't like this, but it's not going to win you over if you didn't. Watched Chinatown again the other day too. Polanski might be a horrible nonce, but he made one hell of a film here.

I didn't bother with the second lot after the first six were so disappointing. I might check them out now though. I watched the first two episodes of Evil Genius last night. It's a Netflix documentary about the Pizza Bomber Heist (which completely bypassed me when it happened but apparently was big news). Really good so far.

Well surely anyone who wants to be involved with that lot fails fit and proper by any definition.

Surely if that's being done, it will have been done by the time the sale was agreed. Isn't all this time down to him getting shot of the non league club he owns and the league checking out him and his backers? Can the league say he can't have it on the basis that they don't have enough money to run a club of that size? Or can they only knock someone back because they'r a cunt?

West Ham announcing that they're going to make the appointment by Wednesday doesn't really fit with it being Rafa. I can't see how they could be so confident of sorting stuff out with him (if he was being truthful when he said he was only talking to us) let alone fatty by then.