wadesmith

In practice I don’t disagree with you. In reality I was taught at 10 if your at the non striking end watch the bowlers hand & don’t leave your crease until the balls in flight. If your facing, don’t leave you’re crease until the balls back in the bowlers hand. We can argue about the spirit of cricket until the cows come home, but if Bairstow had followed these very simple fundamentals , then we aren’t having this conversation. I’m pretty angry with him & I wouldn’t mind betting England’s management is too. I fully understand why people are upset, but I think Bairstow been sloppy. He’d been leaving his crease all game. I’ll tell you now he won’t do it again.

Well we’re second! So yes we have qualified for a semi home draw. That’s how it works.

We’ll..I can dispute your logic. The flipside is Ive seen this team play ‘traditional cricket in the last two series against the Aussies. One series close, one we got battered. I’m not opposed to us trying something different, I think we’d lose whatever we tried. I’m probably speaking as a veteran (possibly like yourself) who’s watched about 20 Ashes series..& we haven’t won many 😊 I think the last 14 months have seen some of the most incredible cricket I’ve seen for years (the nineties seems a slow motion car crash) Im sensing you don’t like Bazball...I’m willing to persevere for the time being. Ultimately I don’t see us beating Australia whatever we do this year. It’s hard to beat the world champions with a dodgy wicketkeeper, no spinner & a crocked captain. You trying to ascend Everest wearing Crocs!

Yes. I wouldn’t disagree with that. The only time I had a problem with Bazball was Friday evening. One of the shots, (can’t remeber who) was ridiculous, it wasn’t even a cricket shot. Before the Ashes I think we’d won 12 games from 14? I don’t think I saw us win 12 games in the whole of the nineties.

Ultimately Australia are a superior team to us. Their pace bowling is tremendous.You wouldn’t swap any of their bowlers with ours as things stand today. Their top 4 batters are fantastic. We’ve got Ben Stokes performing at 50% due to injury, a wicketkeeper prone to mistakes, a creaking bowling line- up & no spinner..People moan about Bazball, but that just covers up the fact if you did a combined team how many English players would you select based on current form?

They were actually given 9 overs to score 84 so that’s 9.33 an over. .Which I think is pretty fair tbh.I remember watching when they used to just divide by the first teams rate, so in the old days they would have been set 72 in 9. Ive got no problem with DL

Massive If True.

For once Twitter gets it right. This bloke stopped Man City doing the quadruple . That’s the legacy right there.

I think would have been a nice gesture to let Selles leave before the Liverpool match & do a draw from the database & whichever fan wins takes charge of the team for the day. It would have been some great PR, would lighten the mood on what will be a dismal day, & would be hilarious if we somehow snatched a point!

To be fair this is the forum that rated our Pre season Transfer Window 8.6 out of Ten with comments such as ‘Incredible’. 😊 I’ll take the speculation of the doom mongers on here with a pinch of salt.

But you read that thread. People were talking about amazing signings. How we had put one over other clubs....found some magic formula..let’s be honest .. none of us have a clue!! 😆

Seems like only yesterday we we rated our pre-season transfer window 8.6 out of ten. How did we get it so wrong?

I don’t mind the current set up.It’s pretty unique. The real problems are the team.This debate rarely came up during the Strachan/Poch/Koeman era. It’s a bit like ‘I’m sick of modern football’ debate. This also always seem to bubble up when we’re crap on the pitch.

I know it’s not all about money.But everyone keeps going on about some sort of imagined reset next season . Do people think the owners are going to suddenly say ‘Ok we’ve gone down a division..let’s start taking this seriously’ What are people basing this exciting reset on? I’m not trying to trick you, but why are are owners suddenly going to become less incompetent? 😊

Start again with what? The same owners..with probably even less money? Are they suddenly going to understand how to run a football club?

Send the goalie up ffs!

I’m not sure what people expected? He was a fitness coach for a Greek side. Suddenly he’s the manager of a crisis club, in a league that chews up & spits out the likes of Lampard & Gerrard. He’s probably over achieved to be honest. He’s useless, but what on his record suggested to people he wouldn’t be useless?

Got Wilson in my fantasy squad. Doesn’t take the sting out of it though. 😞

Get in!!!!! We are staying up!!!...We are staying up!!!!!

Light Shows.

Let’s Do This! ...It’s Gripped!!

The trouble with the idea of a ‘Re-Set’ is it will be the same blokes who oversaw this disaster overseeing the re-set. It’s not like they are suddenly going to say, ‘Ok let’s start making good decisions now we’re relegated’ It’s a terrifying prospect with these guys in charge.

Forest 3-1. We’ve got Bournemouth tomorrow.They think it’s a derby.It isn’t.

Heard Shearer say plenty of good things about Southampton.

If we could have hung on against Arsenal. I think beating Bournemouth,Fulham & Forest would have kept us up. Unlikely to happen,,but about as unlikely as being 3-1 up to the league leaders away after 88 minutes.