stevegrant

Mike Newell when he was at Everton. Even better placement on his header than Vergini's volley on Saturday, similar distance from goal as well. Speaking of Everton, both of the own goals they scored in the game at SMS last season were pretty special. This one is still my favourite, though:

I don't think he's got anything against us, per se, he's just a ****ing idiot.

:hunt: :hunt:

Again, there's no context to that specific statistic. In the first half of 2011, we were playing in the third tier. An increase from £23 to £32 between League One and the Premier League doesn't seem like a particularly big deal to me.

Those who are lucky enough to get a season ticket on the Yellow Wall, which is 100% terracing, will benefit from ludicrously cheap prices, but as you rightly say, they claw that money back with the prices elsewhere in the ground, as well as the culture over there being significantly different in terms of merchandise purchasing - pretty much everyone has a replica shirt, scarf, hat, etc, whereas that's clearly not the case over here. Every Bundesliga club earns far more in commercial revenue than they do through the turnstiles.

Absolutely nailed on.

I don't think there's much doubt that he was a source of fun in the dressing room at times (hence the KP Genius parody Twitter account), but surely that applies to every player in every dressing room in the country. It seems hugely hypocritical for him to complain about bullying when you consider some of the **** he's supposed to have done in the direction of the likes of James Taylor.

You've just made that up, haven't you?

Because it's good to see long-serving players rewarded, perhaps? Players have left us in the past because they weren't getting enough international recognition, players have left us in the past because they got recognition but felt they could play at a higher level. Both of those things will continue to happen for as long as the earth rotates. You seem to be determined to find a cloud in every silver lining.

There are conflicts of interests at all levels of the game, to be fair. It's only really the last few years where such blatant ones have been seen, such as Cardiff signing a billion players from Norway who share Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's agent, Sam Allardyce and Kevin Nolan putting pressure on Ravel Morrison to switch to their agent (for which they would have received a commission), etc. The murky world is getting murkier.

It's also possible that Fonte's choice of agent may have influenced his lack of recognition under the previous coach. The vast majority of their World Cup squad had the same agent - Jorge Mendes. As did the coach.

Portuguese journalists are reporting that Jose Fonte is included in a 40-man preliminary list of potential call-ups for the new Portugal national team coach Fernando Santos. About bloody time he got some recognition, it seems the previous coach Paulo Bento hadn't even heard of him when questioned last year

No great surprise with any of those departures, I assume Alsop will be the backup keeper next year. Very surprised that Surrey have given Balcombe a deal, though, they're not exactly short of bowlers already.

Countless reasons why that's a nonsense link, many already stated. Another one: his current £90k a week salary.

Completely blew it this morning, what should have been a 3-1 lead ended up as a 2.5-1.5 deficit Great idea to pair the two weakest players together as well

Losing out to a team who only finished where they did because of a bowler using an illegal action for 11 games.

Presumably he doesn't remember #AskHarry from around 18 months ago, then?

I'm not sure having to follow on against Kent last week was perfection, to be fair

Champions!

3 to go

Essex have beaten Worcestershire by an innings and 91 runs. 4 wickets from the title

Essex will get 22 points in total for their win (16 for the win, 3 bowling points, 3 batting points - they'd only got past the 300-run mark after 110 overs), which puts them on 229. We'll also be on 229 if we somehow don't manage to bowl Glamorgan out in 5 and a bit sessions, but Essex would finish above us with more wins. Assuming we DO bowl Glamorgan out, we will move onto 240, ahead of Worcestershire who will end on 237.

And declared 9 down!

Sounds like they've been teeing off for most of the morning, 83 runs in 65 minutes. Should get a few overs at their openers before lunch at this rate.

Tottenham Hotspur v Brighton & Hove Albion Stoke City v SAINTS Bournemouth v West Bromwich Albion Shrewsbury Town v Chelsea Liverpool v Swansea City Milton Keynes Dons v Sheffield United Manchester City v Crystal Palace or Newcastle United Fulham v Derby County