David Kelly

I thought Civil War was terrible. Totally bloated and almost completely lacking in fun (Spiderman aside). Despite the action sequences I was bored to death by it. I found it very similar to Age of Ultron. Cap 1 is just like Wonder Woman without the benefit of Gadot. Obviously I realise it's a bit more original but I really don't go for the superhero films set in the past (except the recent X-Men ones which I thought did it well). It's a shame because I really enjoyed The Winter Soldier. I don't want it to sound like I rate the Transformers films though. The first one was ok but the rest are pretty much dross. It was just that I went in to the theatre (I've got a limitless card for the Odeon or there's no way I would have gone to see it) with really low expectations for this one. Even my mate who I usually go with, who will watch any shite, said he was expecting us to walk out of it part way through given the reviews it got. There was loads of things wrong with it but despite that I found it reasonable fun. The thing is, I see the Marvel (and even now the DC) films getting decent to good reviews (Ultron, Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad got 4 stars in Empire, Civil War got 5) but they're giving Transformers a mauling. I'm certainly not going to defend Bay, who I don't rate at all, but those superhero films, while better made, aren't that much more enjoyable. Even when I do like comic books.

You can say that Ballance deserves another chance given his superb county form and he did have a pretty good test record before he was brought back at a stupid time when he was out of nick. But it's daft bringing him back in the top order. I thought Stoneman might have got a chance. It was interesting to hear Nasser say on Saturday that he'd spoken to Bayliss about him and he'd said that he'd just not had the chance to see him play.

The ones I said in the post you quoted. The second avengers and Civil War. And you can add the first Captain America, the second Thor and the third Iron Man too. All of those are turgid.

Ding Dong, Len, Karzi and Cone are probably their only saleable assets. They think they can get £20m + for the last three. I think they're being ambitious given Borini has gone on a £5m loan with a view to buy. Mind you after they got £30 for Prickford who knows.

First one was canny enough I thought. I've never had the urge to re watch it mind.

I see they're claiming they have £20m + any future sales revenue. From the rumblings that have been coming out of there that seems optimistic. But even if it isn't, they have no strikers, barely a defence and midfield full of crocks. It'll take some doing to create a squad capable of mounting a promotion challenge with that money given some of the other teams they are up against next season.

Probably. Like I said, you have to turn your mind off.

Fingers crossed.

The Rock for me, Cage was on a roll at that time with that and Con Air being two very watchable action films. Even Bay's better ones have gaping holes in them mind. But if you can just turn your mind off to them there's a bit of enjoyment to be had.

You can't possibly say I was wrong when I said I enjoyed it more than anything else. My enjoyment is a totally personal thing. As it goes, I enjoyed it much less than Guardians, Logan, X Men and Deadpool, a bit less than Dr Strange and Ant Man but more than the second Avengers, Civil War, the last Batman, Wonder Woman (apart from the sheer pleasure of looking at Gadot) and Suicide Squad (apart from Robie's arse). It may well be that my expectations were so low for the latest transformers that it allowed me to enjoy it more than the superhero films that I actually have some investment in the characters but whatever the reason I did enjoy it more. It is without doubt a poor film though and Bay is a poor director. The only films of his that I would ever consider rewatching are The Rock, Bad Boys and maybe The Island and The First Transformers. Edit: The new Spiderman looks horrific btw.

I don't think they're really thinking about promotion. Staying in the division will be their goal next season. There's nothing in his history to suggest he can do much better than that. Hes took teams (ones that should have went up) into the championship but I think 7th is the highest he managed with Leeds. They desperately needed a manager that could ignite the town like Rafa did to our city and he isn't the man to do that.

But what of what I said was wrong?

Lost interest in Legion a bit after about 4 episodes. I'll probably go back to it after I do Saul.

In what way? Saw Baby Driver last night, stylistically it's different to Drive but there are a lot of similarities, not least that it is also in some ways style over substance. Thoroughly enjoyable though.

I'd like to think that given the fact that Rafa is there and the level of work needed, they know what they have to do and how quickly they have to do it. But as HF has regularly pointed out, it's daft not to be concerned given Ashley's history.

Does it need any more work than it did last summer? The quality certainly needs to improve more but I'd argue we needed just as big a turnaround last summer as we do this. I do think that given the amount of work needed, we need key players in as soon as possible though. If we only needed one or two we could maybe afford to wait until August but the team is going to need to look quite different to last season so we need to get a move on to be ready for the kick off.

By my reckoning we signed Sels when I was in France for the Euros and I arrived there two days after the Wales game. So it was probably about a year and a week since we signed Sels. At the time I'm pretty sure everyone was raving about us making early signings too. Edit; actually looking at his thread on here, he signed on the 29th so we're not even at a year yet. Was he our first signing last year?

I think it's 11 of the other premier league teams that have a higher transfer record than us and off the top of my head at least two of them only went above us last season (one being the newly crowned champions at that time). I would guess that up until a few years ago it was probably only five or six teams that had a higher record than us as the fee paid for Owen was massive at the time. Clearly Ashley's tightened the reigns but I think the reason we've went longer than usual to break our record is more to do with the fact that we had a high record up until a couple of seasons ago. We certainly had a massive record fee relative to the success we've had recently.

It sounds about right. Owen and particularly Shearer were records that were much higher than most premier league teams and probably still above a few teams (Watford, Bournemouth, Brighton, Huddersfield, Burnley) but when you see Palace spending about £30m on a player you can see we're falling behind now.

We definitely need to break our transfer record this window. If we don't it will be clear sign of a lack of ambition from the board. It's a bit concerning that most of the alleged targets so far seem to be in the bargain basement bracket again. I understand that we need to try and get some value for money as there is clearly going to be limits on how much money their is available. But when you see the money being spent by Everton (the highest team that I think we can realistically have a hope of catching in the next couple of years) and being suggested about the likes of Bournemouth (£20m for Ake) it shows we aren't going to get anywhere if we're looking sub £10m. Of course last year our targets weren't widely known at all before we signed them so I see know reason why the papers should have any more accurate knowledge now.

Went to see Transformers last night (wasn't paying obviously). My expectations were really low given the reviews but aside from being at least half an hour too long and Hopkins being awful in it, it was a reasonably enjoyable blockbuster affair. Enjoyed it as much as most of the recent Marvel/DC films.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned American Gods but I enjoyed that. No idea of how it compares to the book but it's worth a watch.

I don't listen to much TMS as I usually have them on the telly but whenever I'm in the car listening to it, it's Blowers I want to be on. Aggers is good but Blowers just sounds like cricket.

It'll be good to see if Rashid Kahn can have any sort of impact act test level. He looks amazing in T20's.

That does sound like it might rival The Room in the brilliantly awful stakes.