stevegrant

Absolutely this.

It seems as if things are getting much better in the small-sided games, but then anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that it all goes to pot when they get onto the full size pitch at U11/U12 level. In every league there's always that one team who take it all far too seriously, with that one parent running the team who thinks he's the next Pep Guardiola, and a handful of parents on the sidelines who are living their own failed footballing dream vicariously through their child.

Regardless of Cowley being asked questions about it by a local reporter, I'd still be very surprised if there was a single player who has played first team football in the last few weeks in their side. Might throw a few fringe players in, but look at what good that did for Leicester's U21 side last night with Vestergaard getting a run out...

I find all the talk about radical new ideas pretty frustrating - the Laws of the Game already cover all of this, but they are never enforced by referees in the professional game. That has a drip-down effect where players in semi-pro and amateur football see pro players hurling all sorts of abuse at officials unchallenged and they think it gives them carte blanche to do the same. If officials in the professional game started enforcing the laws when it comes to abuse and dissent, the grassroots game would soon improve. The FA keeps trying things like their Respect campaign, but the framework already exists to fix the problem. They just have to have the will to use the powers they already possess. Unfortunately the PL and PGMOL issues guidance to referees every year that there's to be a "light touch" approach as they want the star players to be on the pitch as much as possible for the "brand"

Looked like it was a much-changed lineup with an intention of giving fringe players some more game time. Coventry are a team who we probably should have been beating, really, given the respective resources. Fair to say it'll be a hell of a lot tougher against WSL sides Reading and Spurs in the other group games!

A more comfortable win than the scoreline suggests, in truth. Lacking a bit of clinical finishing where we could have been 4 up inside 20-25 minutes and missed chances in the second half having regained the lead too. Palace were neat and tidy in possession but were guilty of constantly overplaying when they were in wide areas near our penalty area.

Brentford at the end of last season, at a brand new ground in an easy-to-reach location at the start of summer, went down to about 5 aways, Bournemouth will probably be similar. Midweek games are always harder for people to justify for various reasons.

Part of the issue is that the clubs we're travelling to tend to want us to tell them pretty early on which allocation we want - they actually seem to be a bit more flexible these days when in previous years we've definitely had loads of scenarios where we had to pick an allocation at the start and that was that, whereas now there's at least the option to get the full allocation if the initial sales are good, but the club fails to appreciate (or doesn't want to risk) that people with lots of aways often want to go to specific away games with friends who are much lower down the priority list. Brentford was obviously a high-demand game at the end of last season - new ground, small allocation, easy to get to. That was originally on sale to ST holders with 12+ aways, but I think went all the way down to 2 or 3 in the end for the last few tickets, probably because people were keen to wait and buy in a group. The club claim they use past sales data to determine initial allocations, but also probably take circumstances (what day the game is, whether we're playing well at the time, etc) into account. We've always tended to sell well at Villa, so I'm surprised we've not taken the full allocation there, but I assume the Friday night kickoff has driven that decision. As @JRM says, I'm surprised City has sold that quickly - we didn't even sell out there for our first game back in the PL after promotion.

Excellent bowling today, Northants bowled out for 175. Bit odd that James Fuller only bowled three overs, but picked up two wickets. Having enforced the follow-on, I'd expect him to have more to do in the second innings.

Didn't bowl well last night, rectified that this morning.

Some fairly mediocre bowling at the tail end there, but somehow we've managed to smash our way to 400 and maximum batting points Obviously hoping to only bat once given the conditions. Got to fancy Abbas, Barker and Abbott to like their chances...

Make that 350! But rain is incoming again, we'll presumably declare imminently.

And 300 up

Back out now, Donald and Fuller at the crease so should score quickly enough if they stay in. 7 runs from the 300 now...

Good start this morning, 44 runs in the 29 minutes of play before some light drizzle. Forecast isn't great, but as I said last night, hopefully go quickly to 300, get bowling and see where we can get the game to before we have to negotiate the heavier rain later.

If it also rains next week, though, we're back where we started, and Surrey have harder fixtures to finish. We toughed it out today in what were mostly bowler-friendly conditions, got some good runs on the board and hopefully we can squeeze enough time in to get to 300 and have a bowl at some point tomorrow.

Yeah, Donald will keep wicket here. Brown broke his finger after a Jack Campbell (I think) delivery wobbled late on him in the semi-final last week.

Northants had been in decent form before the 16.4 took over, shouldn't be as easy a game as we'd have imagined back in June.

Think that's pretty standard, tbh. The Erling Haaland one at Dortmund was for 18 months, as he was signed in the January window, but it generally ensures the buying club gets at least two seasons from the player.

Extras were the problem there - Kent only bowled three additional deliveries in our innings, we had to bowl fourteen. More than two extra overs bowled, and not only did we give away 20 runs for those freebies, the extra deliveries at the end of those overs also cost 17.

Yeah, we were decent for the most part. Fairly clear the plan was to get in front early to give us that cushion, probably could have had the game won by half-time with either better finishing or not slightly overplaying at times, but some of the interchanges in tight spaces in midfield were very nice and we did the basics when we didn't have the ball too. Quite surprising for an XI that won't have played together to have that level of understanding, albeit admittedly against lower-league opposition.

Good effort in the end, although still feel like we left a fair few runs out there in the last 10 overs or so. Overs 30-40 went for 105/1, I think, but gave away wickets later on trying to hit everything over the ropes. Need to bowl tight lines here, any width will go to the boundary in both directions.

Slow scoring early on in all the games with a few wickets falling too. Probably a decent toss for Yorkshire to have won.

Literally once since the PL reduced in numbers from 22 to 20 teams. That reduction happened in 1995, and the solitary relegation was West Ham in 2003 (a team containing the likes of Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard and Jermain Defoe). While I like the look of the business we've done this summer, it also has to be accepted that the strategy comes with a degree of risk. Players with little top level experience could as easily sink as they could swim. However, when the experienced players are so ingrained in a treading water mentality, perhaps bringing in talented youngsters looking to showcase themselves and improve might turn out to be a better strategy. Difficult to draw any real conclusions from the first three games, in truth. Personally I think all three promoted sides will be there or thereabouts - Fulham look better than they did last time they came up, but that's a very low bar to get over really. They look like they'll score more than before, but defensively they still look pretty ropey to me. Forest needed to buy half a team to replace the loan players they had last season, and arguably another half a team to replace the rest who may not be good enough at this level, so the number of signings they've made shouldn't be too much of a surprise, although the amount of money involved is perhaps a bit more eyebrow-raising. Bournemouth seem to have basically done nothing over the summer and having rather stumbled over the line a little bit last season, they don't look in particularly great shape. Beyond that, Everton still look poor (and have lost their game-changing centre forward from last season) but will probably be fine when they realise that Lampard is a terrible manager. Villa have once again spent loads of money to look no better than they did last season but they will probably also be fine when they realise that Gerrard isn't as astute as that Rangers team made him look. Leicester might get to spend some money at the last minute if they let two of their best players leave - no guarantee they replace them with anyone up to the level required, and Rodgers is doing a fine job of deflecting blame in the media at the moment.