David Kelly

Sad to see if it's true. I have no faith in him as a coach and I do see him as an Ashley apologist, but as a player he is a legend and I would hate to see him go out this way.

Even in the Ashes crowds will start to dip (they certainly appeared to in the last two tests, barring boxing day, once you'd won) if the home teams just keep winning all the time. You enjoy beating us as we enjoy beating you but the same things happening every time will get boring. It will be interesting to see how we do in the white ball games. We have really improved in this area since the last world cup so it will be the perfect test to see how we do this time where it all went wrong last time. The ECB has put a lot of focus in this area and not enough on the test side imo. Don't let the fact that we don't have a BBL or IPL in this country make you think we cant play short form. Stokes will be a miss again (for the ODI's at the very least) but Hales, Butler, Rashid, Roy, Billings, Wood, Plunkett as well as Root, Bairstow, Moeen and Woakes are all good white ball players. And in Rashid, Wood and Plunkett (as well as Willey) we have bowlers who can provide some of the things that the test team lacked down under.

Was interesting to hear Boycott's view on our preparation for the series. It really couldn't have gone much worse when you think about it. We had three batsmen who had massive question marks over them ahead of the series (with only Malan coming through the test), no first choice spinner, no pace in the attack without Wood, the Stokes situation and warm up games against the equivalent of playing Cramlington seconds. If we want to improve as a test side and be able to win games away from home, the ECB needs to seriously look at changing things so we aren't so one dimensional. I'm not sure there will be any great desire to do this mind as there's not many teams in the world who can really look good away from home. India were imperious at home last year but got stuffed by S.A. in the first test this week. It's going to end up with another problem for test cricket because the crowds are already dwindling and if series aren't competitive it will only get worse.

Three episodes into Godless and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Watched the first episode of Hard Sun which was on BBC 1 on Saturday. Seemed pretty good although I'm concerned it's going to be the type of series that doesn't know where it's going to end up.

With Liverpool's defending that's as mad a prediction as any of Fish's. Does anyone else think Fish and Quiff could both be the same person and we're all being carried along in some kind of schizophrenic battle akin to the one going on in Pruit Taylor Vince's head in Identity?

I'd be delighted to get out of Australia with a 3-0 at this stage. Enjoyed watching Broad and Curran giving it a go this morning and the Aussie catching was a joy. Pretty glad I fell asleep for our bowling though.

The whole culture of the club has been wrong for years and they did nothing to try and sort it out. Poyet intimated as much and you'd have thought that they would have finally got the message in the summer. But Short wasn't interested and instead they relied on the fact that they had a load of players with premier league experience to get them back up. They didn't realise that all of the decent premier league players they had, who had been making the other look better, had already fucked off. All they were left with was the shite that no one else wanted, especially given the wages they were already on with them. They brought in more cheap shit that no one else wanted because Short wont fund them anymore and those players quickly bought into the losing culture of the whole area. If they lose their only goal scorer and don't make significant signings they are completely fucked imo. But I really don't see Short funding anything of note so it's going to have to be loans. It's not impossible that this will be enough for them but with loan players you always run the risk that they don't give a fuck and just quickly settle in with the rest of the drunks there. Of course Burton, Bolton and Birmingham are all shite as well and Hull are in absolute free fall at the moment so it's possible that they do it. But I think it will be as much about luck as anything else. Because I don't see that they have an owner willing to do what's required or a manager massively capable with the resources he has.

100% true. Whoever was in charge of the costumes deserves a Knighthood never mind an Oscar. Film is good too although I think it was a bit longer than it needed to be. If they'd just cut out the scenes without cleavage they could have shaved half an hour from it without any loss to the plot.

So it was your fault you jinx!

I'm sure I read Moyes wants to take Kone to West Ham. Might be good news for us that.

Transfermarkt list Kones fee to Sunderaland as only £5.85m. If that's true then they could net a canny bit cash from him even if they haven't paid all the fee. Can't imagine he'll go for anywhere near the fees that were being talked about for him at the beginning of last season. They'd be doing exceptionally well to get £20m for the pair of them imo. Deduct anything that they haven't already paid off and whatever Short wants and they won't come out with a lot to spend. If they bought well though they might be able to do enough to keep themselves up. Buying well has never been a strength of theirs though.

Aye they'd never get a game ahead of Aguero or Ederson.

Think I'm going to see this tonight so I'm looking forward to it now. I went to see Star Wars again over Christmas and enjoyed it more the second time, possibly because I fell asleep around the time of that Leia scence. I watched Bright yesterday while nursing my hangover. I really liked the idea of a kind of LOTR thousands of years later when Middle Earth has developed as ours has, just with Orc's, Elves and Fairies knocking about. Unfortunately it plays out like a third rate Alien Nation with Will Smith having none of quality that James Caan had in that film. Still it took my mind off feeling sick for a couple of hours.

Watched the first ep of the new season of Black Mirror. Another quality effort.

I watched this yesterday. Picture was good but the sound was a bit jumpy in places. It was a lot better than I was expecting it to be. Like Wonder Woman it's worth watching just to perv at Gadot but it's ok apart from that too.

I see Crane is in the team for tonight. Should have played against the West Indies but glad to see us finally try to get in someone who's job it is to actually spin a ball.

Aye I can't see the need personally but apparently this is the craic.

Their best hope is that Coleman can use his previous position to get someone like Woodburn in and he immediately finds form. That's a pretty big risk and if I were Liverpool they'd be one of the last clubs I'd be wanting to send a promising youngster to. I can't see the likes of O'Shea ever finding any form again, he turns more slowly than an oil tanker these days. A couple more defeats, especially if they're to teams around them and the smoggies, and the fans will be turning on them again. I saw on twitter last night that there's already some who are saying they won't go back as long as Coleman is in charge. Basically while it's certainly not impossible, and they do have a history of being the turd that won't flush, I can't really see anything about them currently which suggests anything more than relegation come May.

Apparently they still want someone in before they'll let Kennedy go so there's fuck all we can do to speed things up. I'd rather we went for that Belgian striker from them who's name I'm not going to even try to spell. They've apparently said he can go out on loan. Not sure why they wouldn't want someone else in before they let him go too like.

It's interesting at least. I'm not going to get overly excited about it but I wouldn't dismiss it as nothing.

He's got an English parent so he might qualify. Not really sure about the rules.

I think he's looking to qualify for England.

League of Gentlemen has been brilliant.

Watching the BBL this morning, it looks like we should be looking to develop Archer. Bowling at 90+ with ease. Apparently he's an all rounder too.

I thought it wasn't great at the start but got better. Ren isn't a great bad guy but in some ways I quite like that. In the other ones they were nails and knew what they were all about. Ren is a complete mess and I think there is a positive in that. I thought there was a few too many scenes that were done just for comedy and I wasn't keen on that. I'm happy having comedy in there as long as it's part of the story. I didn't really like Luke in it until the end.