bearded_red

Probably my favourite City player. Just a wonderfully talented footballer. Also responsible for some of the best moments watching City.

An absolutely incredible player. Tonight is the fourth position I’ve seen him play while being at the best player on the pitch.. at 18. His talent is obvious to everyone, but his understanding of the game and tactical awareness, for a teenager in his first season at adult football, is genuinely ridiculous. I’ve seen creative players of his type be asked to play deeper in midfield after hundreds of professional games and be a complete waste of time. Yet you get the feeling he could be asked to play anywhere and he would instantly recognise how he was meant to play. He is going to the absolute top. And it will be a pleasure to say you watched his first steps.

Yeah there is absolutely no chance that City strike the correct tone tomorrow if ‘Downsy’ is in any way involved.

Up the Nige. Makes a novel change after the last few years to have someone working down there that I trust.

That’s the angriest Nige has been in any interview while City manager.

-The home form over the last couple of months. -I actually enjoy watching us most of the time. -I actually quite like our players and manager. -The cull of overpaid, dislikable players has started, although two notable players left that we desperately need to rid ourselves of. -We have a manager who I actually believe has a plan and knows what he wants to achieve rather than pissing about in the wind from one game to the next and one transfer window to the next. I can also listen to him speak without wanting to cut my ears off. -The amount of academy players that have featured. -Six points off Cardiff. -Semenyo and Scott.

Clearly a failed signing, but unfortunately not even the worst signing in the current squad.

Fair play to them for knowing they don’t have any top order batsmen so deciding to just not pick anyone.

Hahahaha these absolute ******* idiots. Burn English cricket to the ground.

Tom Harrison still there, sacking people while under the table his hands are covered in the blood of English test cricket.

Unsurprisingly he gets worked out slightly quicker when the club doesn’t have an owner emotionally invested in his career.

One day it may dawn on him that he isn’t actually god’s gift to football. But, to be honest, I won’t hold my breath.

Quite good this Banton lad when England actually let him open rather than making him serve drinks or batting him down the order.

Max, much better with the ball at its feet. Don’t think it’s a coincidence that the football has been better since he’s been in goal.

Your two opening batsmen getting out playing shots like that. Just give up.

16th drop of the series from England. Shambles in every way.

The absolute state of it for crying out loud.

That’s absolutely an acceptable explanation for the players missing county cricket due to being away at the IPL. But the Hundred? Its the ECB that decided to throw loads of cash (cash they have from the broadcast deal that is largely for test matches!) at average county players to spend the peak of the summer playing in their white elephant of a tournament. Clearly first class cricket has its financial concerns, but for the ECB Test Cricket is their cash cow. Over two thirds of the 1.1 billion broadcast deal is for the test matches. One single test match brings in more ticket revenue than a whole season of the hundred. Test matches, in this country at least, pay the bills. It’s remarkable the attitude the ECB has to them. This isn’t a young team that’s been thrown under the bus. Look at the ages of our better players, this is a team that’s only going to get worse. As incredible as that sounds.

The argument that The ECB have chosen the money of white ball cricket instead of the purity of first class cricket doesn’t stack up though does it. The ECB make the vast, vast majority of their money through the 6/7 test matches they host every year. The Hundred doesn’t make money. It loses money. And lots of it. We can all write lists of people that need to go, and we’d all be naming roughly the same people. But if none of these lists can leave off Tom Harrison. His removal should be announced well before we all start debating who should be the next captain and coach and who are the next batch of unqualified top order batsmen to be thrown in with next to no chance of succeeding.

Double post.

A few players should have played their last test, a couple more should have played their last test outside England. The captain and coach should both go..and yet.. you still won’t have got close to the underlying problems with first class cricket in this country. The ECB is an absolute disgrace and are bringing the sport into disrepute. In my life England have lost 5-0 in Australia twice, 4-0 another time, lost the ashes in 10 days in 2002 and apart from 10/11 they’ve failed to win a test while the ashes were still on the line. Yet this is the biggest shower they’ve been and it’s not even close. This Australia team is good, it’s not great. We’ve only had to play their first choice bowling attack once. An utter embarrassment.

I genuinely think that first innings at the Gabba is the least pathetic of the England collapses in this series. What a team.

Bowled well so far today to be fair.