Hodgey

Looking like 2 batting points here. Great rebuild by Dawson and Gubbins. Seems like our more senior players have worked out the kookaburra better - be interesting to see how it affects our bowlers who seem to enjoy the duke. Handy that Middlesex don’t have any Aussie bowlers too

What a game, unlike the misery of saints I really enjoy watching Hampshire - they have weaknesses but they give it their all. When Essex we’re 127 for 1 after 10 I really thought we’d be looking at a 240 total, we’d also been surprisingly sloppy in the field, so credit to the bowlers, especially Turner (what a player) for reducing them to 209. Also couldn’t work out why Essex had a specialist batsman coming in at 9 ! (Das). As posted here the only way I could see us chasing that down was if one of the openers hit a huge score, as it turned out Vince almost did but when he holed out I couldn’t see us winning. In many ways as an opposition you almost want Weatherly and Albert to stay in (strike rates of 120), and then you have the totally out of sorts Whitely (strike rate of 100). Again we were reliant on the all rounders after those lot had all failed, Fuller finally found some form with his explosive hitting and Howell who was unlucky Vs Sussex looks like a very handy finisher. We did get a bit of luck with dropped catches but at that stage they had to take risks and go for 6s. With Kent winning comfortably (helping their nrr) its very tight. If we had lost that things would not have looked good. I can see both Kent and Essex winning their last two games (they face Surrey and Somerset last who will be secure by then) so I think we still need to win against Glamorgan and Gloustershire - both at home, both can’t qualify, so you would hope we would, but this season they’ve been beaten by a few poor teams so you never know. But what a joy to support a team who give something back to the fans !!

That’s my concern - if you bowl well then you can still get results. This is pretty much down to whether McD or Vince can go big - can’t see any of our other batters scoring fast or big enough to win.

This is going to be a massive total. Pitch looks a batters paradise but are Hampshire explosive enough to chase a big total down ?

The group is wide open now, Surrey and Somerset pretty safe but not much between Essex, Kent, Glamorgan and ourselves for the other two spots. Game against Essex tomorrow looks like a must win Unbelievable response by Middlesex chasing that down btw, especially having nothing to play for.

Would be great if we could persuade him to stay. When Lavia goes we don’t have a midfield and a possession style will suit him . Still think someone will bid £35-£40m at the business end and he’ll leave sadly - with Poch at Chelsea and a suggested flow of Saudi money don’t rule them out going for him.

That’s it now - cant afford another loss. That whole performance was sub standard. Good to see Whitely finally fire, but outside him and the openers we don’t have any fireworks in the team - plenty of batters who can job along at a 120 strike rate but you need more. DL does favour the chasing team, but we were a good 15 runs short in the first place.

We’ve finally beaten Surrey !!. Very well played, credit where it’s due, that is an extremely strong batting side to roll over for sub 125. Still not sure about a few of our batters, but Howells adds something to this team in both bat and ball. Think we’re still on for that 4th place, although it’s now pretty tight up there. Vince is ridiculously good - if he had England call ups we’d be in a lot of bother

It would be a shame to lose our promising youngsters, but I don’t really see them being ready for a promotion push at that level next year, they need to fill out a bit. If they want regular football they need to accept that or leave on loan / transfer. PL reserve division 2 isn’t the highest of bars. On cbs - again I’m not convinced on any of them and they all have clear issues. We’ve got far too many average players so losing a few to create space for players Martin will want is a necessity.

Yep this is an old trick we’ve fallen for many a time, it’s normally Italian sides who entice you with a good fee at the end of a loan deal, a fee they never intend to keep to… it would be better to agree a deal for £3m outright.

Amazing fielding from Sussex won that game but again horrible stuff from the Hampshire specialist batsmen….

The declaration has really split opinion, but I like it, after Oz putting players on the boundary it doubles down on us being aggressive and sets a marker for what to expect. 400 is plenty and with changing conditions could give us the extra pressure we need. Even if it all goes wrong for me this is right attitude

We have a batting issue in all formats. Just look at the table bonus points and it’s the same story - bowlers getting us out of trouble. It’s no good amassing a decent score in the 2nd innings if your first is woeful (plus no bonus points for 2nd innings). So far only Middleton and Vince with maybe Gubbins have been convincing. Also what has happened to Prest and Organ - I had hopes for both. The return of Weatherly reminds me of Long for saints, you know he’s not good enough but never find a competent replacement. We’re going to be in trouble next year if we are not careful, our ‘evergreen’ ageing bowlers are on the decline.

I think we should go all out to keep him unless he becomes disruptive. He’ll suit a passing style and I think will score plenty. He can hit the ball well, gets into positions well, and is good at holding the ball up and linking play. Now the caveats - he can only hit the ball well with his right foot, he can’t / won’t use his left, I’ve lost count of the amount of chances gone in the Prem when he tries to run around the ball rather than use his left. He does hit the ball well with his right, but can’t really place it with any accuracy, it’s on target but if a defender or gk are in the way that’s that. He’s also not great in the air. Thing is, in the championship he’ll get more time to run round the ball, and the gks and def are less good at positioning themselves. So hitting it hard with one foot will yield many more goals. in the greater scheme of things, losing c £15m but getting a goalscorer for a season who will fit the system and knows the club / team mates is something we should be happy with. Plus our last efforts signing players upfront were Armstrong, Mara and Tall Paul….so odds of a better replacement are not in our favour.

Looks like they were right about the extra spinner, but very strange that Dawson and Crane didn’t get much joy. And now batsmen looking relatively comfortable, what an odd side we are. odds still heavily in Lancs favour, we’ll need our other batsmen to build good totals and not play any silly shots.

Yep amazing to see our top 7 batsmen combined to score 1 more than bowlers Crane and Barker. On which note - they must think this is a spinners wicket given they have picked 3, that’s being undone somewhat as ideally you would have them bowling last, and with something to defend. All out under 150 - and no real hope for some North West rain to save us.

Just read the Athletics alternative awards. Aside from us getting a surprising bronze for variety of goals scored they rehashed the best and worst goal stopper. Baz conceded 52 and was expected to concede 16 less, just pipping Messier (12) both miles ahead of the rest who were generally between 1 and 5 either better or worse. I’m not sure I believe that if he was average he would only have conceded 36 goals, but it’s interesting that whatever metric they used has Meslier and Bazuna as worst by a country mile. Mc Carthy stats not there for some reason but can’t imagine they were much better. On the plus side he was 8th in sweeping (defending outside the box) highlighting his ballplaying ability / confidence to leave his box. JWP only other player to figure, 9th best in outperforming expected goals (Kane top)

Could be a Raziak type poacher, but the concerns over his fitness are even higher in the Championship. You don’t really want to have to sub someone after 60m unless they are something special. Depends on what we end up being, if we are a team who creates loads of chances it might work as he can clearly finish looking at his record,

Was odd playing Fuller - we already had 5 bowlers so guess confidence wasn’t high on one of them being pummelled. Suppose the thinking was that Fuller can also bat, but he was totally out of sorts and we should have played an extra batsman (but we’re not confident enough with the them I don’t think). Whitely is having an awful season, which when you only play t20 isn’t great it’s going to be close now - that result counteracts the Somerset one and we are where I would expect us to be. Presume a loss Vs Surrey for 4 defeats and I think we could probably get away with losing one more and still qualify. on that paywall fiasco - that really annoyed me - was looking fwd to watching on YT and couldn’t find it anywhere. I wouldn’t have paid £6 for it anyway, but I want to watch on the big TV and there’s no obvious app so unless people could be bothered to cast it or watch on a device with easy browser it’s just not worth the effort. I do wonder if they made anything at all given higher production cost / payment system etc required than sticking it on YT.

What an amazing game ! You called it windows. Turner looks a real find, Currie was punished today but just about held it together, good learning curve. Good to see Weatherly score a few. After the break we should have Howells. Fuller and Prest back so looking good.

Think you missed my point Windows. We could win yes (although not looking great at the moment) but it’s much harder playing twice against a team who have hammered everyone so far (including us by a landslide). We won’t beat Surrey - massive bogey side for us even discounting the ridiculous talent they have. Put it this way - if you had the choice of one team to swerve at home and one away - I reckon Surrey and Somerset would be those teams. Like you say - can still qualify with those defeats.

The problem we have is that this year we play Somerset and Surrey twice. We’ll obviously lose to Surrey as long as the day ends in a y, so if we lose to Somerset again tomorrow we have very little wiggle room. It really is a bit mad that the teams don’t all play each other twice but there you go. We also appear to be one injury away from Gubbins making the team, I’d have thought Middleton a better bet.. Haven’t mentioned Turners impressive debut either - like Currie (who came back after being slapped around a bit today) I like the cut of his jib. Now if we can just find some batsmen outside the top two who can slap it around a bit…it comes to something when Wood is seen as a more explosive option.

So this is what I was talking about - if the openers don’t fire it looks weak. And this looks really weak….

I agree with the problem you’ve rightly pointed out that, but not the players. That’s not the job of KWP (well slightly) nor JWP (ignoring the fact he has the most assists for this argument). If you want to point the finger I’ll give you 8 better players to do that with, whose job it actually is - Elynoussi, Walcott, Edozie, Sulimana, Djenepo, Osric, Armstrong, Armstrong. How many goals and assists did these attacking midfielders get between them?. In theory the two def mid should be giving them the ball and they should be carrying it / making assists and being ‘mobile’. Apart from they didn’t, because they are not good enough.

So we’re now blaming our genuinely proven Prem players for our terrible season. JWP is ‘immobile’ (please look that word up in the dictionary) and KWP has no end product. Dear oh dear. I’ll give you neither have reached previous highs but they were still the better players this year (and in my opinion managed badly)