Berkshire Saint

He didn't have a great season but Ervine has still been a top player for us over recent years so well worth keeping. Brathwaite is already signed for next year but has been pretty unconvincing so far so I doubt will be a regular. Coles needs to be signed up on the strength of the last couple of performances. Another class seamer is a must (maybe an experience Aussie like Glamorgan have in Hogan and Sussex have in Macgoffin) but otherwise I think our squad isn't that disastrous. Batting looks fine with Carberry, Adams, Vince and Dawson around but Tomlinson needs some support on the bowling front. Counties' budgets are being squeezed and the Kolpak option is more restricted than it was previously so it's getting harder and harder to improve squads with imports from elsewhere. We are pretty decent at producing youngsters and sometimes it's easy to forget that the likes of Dawson, Vince, Bates, Wood and Briggs are still very young. To have that many home-produced players in their age bracket playing regularly isn't that common across the circuit.

Yep, TV games not been picked yet but Spurs v Liverpool and Norwich v Swansea have been moved to the Sunday due to Europa League. The former will almost certainly be picked by Sky. Man City v Arsenal is also that weekend and will be selected but otherwise not too many obvious ones that round. If ours is moved, a Sunday lunch time kick off would probably be the most tolerable like last season.

Reading isn't all that bad...better than Slough and Bracknell anyway...

The strangest thing about Bloom is that he's only 63 but uses phrases that a Boer War veteran might have found old-fashioned.

Was up there today (week off work so thought why not!) and Dawson and Vince were very impressive albeit against some fairly moderate bowling. Another season like this next year and Vince will be well in contention for an England place. It was doing a bit early on though so Terry did well to battle through that. Grace Road is a dump...some of the smaller county grounds have character but struggled to find any redeeming features here!

Indeed. Blokes behind me on Sunday were saying we wouldn't have signed the players we'd brought in this summer under Adkins; I didn't bother pointing out that Ramirez joined last year whilst NA was in charge. Very unconvinced by Pochettino and I have been from the word go to be honest, our record against middle/lower opposition (particularly at home) is miserable.

Letting Ervine go would be pretty brainless,. He's had an average Championship season this year but so have many others and we'll need some experience with Mascarenhas and McKenzie going. He signed a contract until 2016 at the start of the season as well. On paper we actually have the basis of a prettty decent 4 day side, albeit lacking in the seam bowling department. We'll surely have to go for an overseas quick or seamer for next year if we can find one available for the majority of the season. Briggs also hasn't really come on like we'd have hoped by now.

Not really blessed with many other options though really. Who are the alternatives? Dawson, Carberry or Ervine from the current squad possibly, but otherwise a recruit from elsewhere may be needed.

That's awful. Cup semi finals used to get cracking crowds but the rise of T20 means this one isn't taken as seriously as it once was. I was hoping our game would have been on the Monday as I could have made that but will be playing today. As for next season, in theory the batting looks fine and the bowling doesn't. I've never been that convinced by Coles at Kent and he's yet to do much for us but we're unlikely to pick up a better seamer from another county so he's probably worth making an offer to. Getting a quick overseas is all well and good but with the IPL, international schedules and the restrictive visas placed on overseas players these days (most have to have played some recent international cricket) it's very difficult to get anyone that is good enough and available.

Lancashire apparently.

Adams had a ridiculously good start to the season but has barely made double figures in the Championship since June! Tomlinson probably our best seamer at the moment so don't understand why he was left out for this one. Griffiths has always flattered to deceive for me and he isn't that young anymore either so reckon it's time to move on from him.

When I saw the thread title I wondered how a tame League Cup defeat circa 2007 could be considered 'Football Gold'! Was at the 4-4 and had forgotten about it until now...ridiculous game and that Peterborough equaliser felt so inevitable!

Poor. He was dropped by Sussex earlier this season I believe.

That sounds about right. The more annoying ones are those that get moved to Sundays because of Europa League (both Newcastle games and Spurs at home off the top of my head). Without looking it up I imagine we were on TV more than that in our Championship promotion season which would debunk the myth about weekend games in lower leagues always being at 3pm on a Saturday!

We could finish anywhere between about 8th and 20th. Despite the ridiculous optimism on here we're still likely to be a couple of injuries away from being one of the poorer sides in the division. With most of our new players coming from abroad as well, there's going to be a settling in period for some of them. Realistically we'll be lower mid-table..between about 12th and 15th.

What has he actually said that's so outrageous? I imagine a majority of our fans agree with what he said regarding Le Tiss et al. He doesn't mention anything about establishing 'links' with Pompey, just merely expresses admiration for their fans trust taking over.

Not been to Arsenal, Cardiff, Hull or Man City so they're the stand out ones for me. Will miss the first few games in August/early September but otherwise plan to do most games again.

West Brom was £15 I think.

Fairly decent effort all round. See how it goes next season as mentioned above once the novelty wears off. I missed only Man City, Arsenal and Reading this season and hope to do a similar amount again next year! Think I saw on the Stoke OS earlier this week that their following to us this weekend will be their biggest of the season...pretty shocked at that given they have pretty good access to plenty of clubs around there.

Pretty sure Puncheon's against Chelsea and Lambert's free kick also against Chelsea were nominated. Puncheon's at QPR might have been as well. Take your general point though, we tend to concede more long rangers than we score and that's been the case since about 2010 probably.

Hard to see beyond a Wigan win really but if they fail to do so we should be ok.

As long as Stoke win 4-3, yes.

Sunderland were actually were one of the better teams to come to St Mary's this season. Properly did a job on us (like a fair chunk of the lower half teams have done) and never really looked like conceding. Graham's lack of a goal since joining them worries me with us up next!

Yep. Crosses are often scuffed and with not much pace on them. Only assist that springs to mind was for Lambert's goal at Chelsea. If he had Richardson's crossing ability on top of the rest of his game...well he wouldn't be playing for us!

He's been fine in most of the games he's started in this season, including yesterday. Not the attacking threat he was in the lower leagues but does a job. Gets very tedious when fans expect him to do the work of about 3 players when he does play though! Still heard him getting abuse whenever a Spurs player had the audacity to have the ball within about twenty yards of him!