saint1977

Spot on Mike but you won't get much in the way of sensible debate on the topic of Rupert Lowe. I would sum it up by saying that I still support the team and go to games, the only thing that would stop me is if we had blatant asset-strippers and crooks in charge of the club - ie Bill Archer and David Bellotti at Brighton during the 90s who were only interested in flogging the Goldstone - or Richardson at Doncaster who tried to burn down the main stand for the insurance. I don't like Lowe, Wilde OR Crouch but you cannot accuse ANY of them of that and I think they are interested in saving SFC. With regard to pre-season, I was delighted with the WHU performance and pleasantly surprised with Celtic. Let's not put too much pressure on these lads though and as 70's Mike said, you need a good blend to be successful, look at Windass last season and Barmby for Hull as well, class makes a mark at all levels of the game.

Hayling Island - so my local pub is God-awful and full of Skates. Nearest local pub I would consider drinking (although the Olive Tree is OK) would the Ship at Langstone. Most of my time is spent in Sussex so my favourites there are the 4 Chesnuts in Chichester and the Selden Arms in Worthing. When I lived in Southampton (left there 2004 and lived in London area before that) my local pub used to be the South Western Arms which will the starting point for another exile's stag weekend coming up!

I went to Copenhagen a few years ago and even the Carlsberg served out there bears no resemblence to the under-licence garbage we mug Brits buy. Old Carl is a great beer and the stout is good too, if a touch sweet. The amber beer - Carlsberg 57? - is the best of the lot. Tuborg is from the same stable - it's OK.

KP is choice as Cook is still finding his game although for one so young his record is terrific and Strauss hasn't been on top form for at least 2 years. Plus KP is the only one of the three to be a shoe-in for the ODI squad. What the ECB have to do though to help KP is fire Peter Moores and Geoff "Dusty" Miller and Ashley Giles. Moores is counties-boy out of his depth and on the BBC Sport website Boycott is talking about Moores not knowing Vaughan was going and comments "he's been late on the ball for a while now". He's actually talking about Vaughan but could be talking about Moores too. Miller and Giles just pick their buddies and if we stick with these 3 clowns, we'll end up with a medium pace attack next summer that the Aussies slaughter and we'll lose 5-0 again. If you are going to pick a fast bowler, make them fast. KP needs the sort of help that Hussain and Vaughan had from a world-class coach in Fletcher. Whereas Moores and co think that a pure swing bowler will take wickets at this level. Look at Hoggard before his legs went - Troy Cooley helped him add a few mph in speed, a sharper bouncer that kept batsmen back and stock balls and cutters for when it wasn't swinging conditions.

Was always likely, Dimi is also playing in a struggling side and is not finding captaincy easy. Still, he's the next cab off the rank should there be an injury and I would not play Freddie in all the ODIs but Moores will because he is a plank. Luke Wright always looks like a bowler with potential yet only gets 3-4 overs but could take some of the weight off of Freddie.

NOTW also reported that WGS wanted to buy Dyer - hardly likely as he's just signed a 3 year deal and if WGS was that keen he'd have done a deal when Dyer was on a week-to-week contract. I'm quite happy for the media to predict the drop as they won't have heard of most of the players and it keeps us under the radar. That said, if and when some of them are successful they will soon be linked with PL clubs - not least Morgan S I suspect!

Benitez has also railed against the work permit system this morning as one of his South American signings has been refused. We signed Mido as an 18 year old from Ghent and hit the same barrier and possibly Adebayor as well. Would be great to see Andrei back at the club but unless we can move one of the older pros on, I'm not sure it could happen.

I really enjoyed it and the boys looked a lot physically stronger than the Celtic game. I had real concerns about most CCC teams overpowering us but I think these lads might just be able to handle themselves. Holmes impressed me as he did V Celtic, Morgan S is looking like a terrific bit of business and the biggest surprise was McGoldrick - you've set yourself a benchmark for the season now lad, go and grab the bull by the horns. Bart was still a bit wobbly and I'd like to see Mills tried at LB V Stoke as I don't think it's Drew's best long-term position although he did well in the circumstances. I think it gave the fans something to build on so close to the start of the season which is vital.