stevegrant

On sale to members at 9am on Tuesday. If I remember rightly from last time, it was a maximum of 2 tickets per membership - I'd expect the same sort of thing again. Most of the tickets were sold ages ago, don't know if the ECB have held any back to be sold to fans of either side who aren't members.

Yes. Why should he walk straight into the side for the final when it's been the performances of everyone apart from him who have got the team there in the first place, particularly when his mind is likely to be elsewhere? I strongly suspect that the ECB will prevent him from playing anyway as it's sandwiched right between the second and third Ashes tests.

I'd much rather the ECB say they won't release the players. Prior is a much bigger threat for Sussex in terms of the extra qualities he brings to their team above that of the player he'd replace than Pietersen would be for us. We've been successful this season because we've had a largely settled side, particularly at the top of the order, and messing around with that to bring in someone just for the final who many would say is barely our player anyway would be a bad move on a number of counts, IMO. If Pietersen were to end up in the team at Lord's, presumably it would be Dawson who would be left out - what might that do for his confidence? What would we do without the option of two spinners capable of bowling 10 overs apiece? He's played in both of the finals we've been in recently, and barely contributed with the bat - 5 off 10 balls in 2005 and 12 off 26 in 2007.

Not yet - there was a slight delay as the original master copy I got sent didn't work, so had to wait for a replacement to be sent.

It's looked quite flat for most of the day, hasn't really done much. A bit of extra bounce every now and then, but nothing major. We've bowled much better overall, and the catching has been excellent. The two by Adams to get rid of Du Plessis and Laxman were top drawer.

His medical highlighted problems with his knee that was likely to cause a serious injury at some point, and the official recommendation was that we didn't sign him. Unfortunately, we were so desperate to sign a centre-back that we ignored that advice. We also paid three times more than other clubs felt he was worth. Coventry offered just £300k for him.

That's what happens when a football club goes into administration. We're no different to any other club who's been in this situation.

Yeah, thanks but for as long as there are other serious bidders, no thanks.

I suspect it's a case of "we'd like to sign you, but because we're in the middle of all this crap, we can't actually offer you a contract for a while - this may take days, it may take weeks - so if it's OK by you, we'll put you on 'trial' and pay your expenses"

And that Companies House has no reference to a Gillico Holdings.

Considering he sold two players for £2.5m in the last week, I'd have thought so.

Who's going to be the one to waste £1 to download the director listings then...

Companies House, closest match I can find: Gillico Limited - incorporated 1st April 2009 Registered address: BARCLAYS BANK CHAMBERS 2 NORTHGATE CLECKHEATON WEST YORKSHIRE UNITED KINGDOM BD19 5AA Errrrr....

You'll only shin it again...

Also he'll want to be in some sort of reasonable state fitness-wise for his testimonial on 21st July.

I play on itsagoal - absolute bloody nightmare trying to keep the finances in check; nobody ever wants to buy any of your players!

I'll be amazed if Lita drops down to League One.

It also just made me laugh to think that we're all getting excited because we've brought a 34-year-old Reading reject in on trial - talk about having been starved of any sort of positive news for ages

Would be a very good signing, IMO.

A fair point. I would be very surprised if anyone managed to go through with a leveraged buyout on a club of our size, mind you - they've struggled to get it to add up at Man United and Liverpool and they've got resources we can only dream of. Without any sort of guarantee of promotion (which you'll never get), I don't see how something like that could ever work - unless the idea is a leveraged buy-out and then a quick sale in a year or two when it's recovered some semblance of stability and respectability; essentially "flipping" the football club - I guess that could work, but again it's a fairly high-risk strategy.

Not as far as I'm aware, as long as you don't use it after the end of August you shouldn't be charged, but I'd check the T&Cs before signing up if you're unsure. I got about halfway through reading them and just got bored

How? The only doubts that linger are about whether they've actually got the money to buy the club in the first place. If they do go through with a purchase, that clearly means they were able to (eventually) get the money together to buy the club. Whether they invest any further money into the club from that point onwards is a bit of a red herring, for me. Last season, about a third of our total revenue was spent on servicing the debt - without that debt, which would almost certainly be cleared upon a completed purchase, that frees up somewhere in the region of £4-5m extra per year. In League One, that's a massive amount of money.

Don't forget that anyone who has a (legitimate) Sky Sports subscription can get free access to SkyPlayer during July and August, so you can still watch the Ashes while you're at work I'm sat here watching the England Lions match against the Aussies on one monitor with my work on the other http://www.skyplayer.com/ashes for details etc.