Dark Munster

You're right, he's not (yet) a brilliant player. But on his day he is brilliant, which I think is the point. Unfortunately "on his day" is extremely rare.

Donald thinks this is a 50 over match. 21 fours and 5 sixes already! Making a statement about being dropped in place of Soames?

Holland 122 n.o. Donald 157 n.o. off 126 balls

That was then. After the Clown and Sparky fiascos (and near disastrous relegations) it appears the owner and board now realise how priceless a quality manager is. They seem to be doing everything to make Ralph happy, and I wouldn't be surprised if that includes big bonuses. Money well spent (unlike the litany of disastrous Reed purchases and player contracts).

No, he belongs to the "Inexplicable Saint legends who were actually rubbish" thread.

They should use head to head as the first tie breaker. That would avoid a lot of the NRR shenanigans.

In fairness Soames did twice as well in the second innings as the first. In the first innings he only lasted 3 balls, but in the second he managed to last for 6 balls.

Club hair stylist?

The plane to Macau?

This. That's what happened at the World Cup in Russia. And we had one of the best tournaments in decades.

Fair enough. But if Cedric goes we do need a replacement.

The donkey, definitely. But Osvaldo clearly had talent and seemed an exciting signing at the time. No one predicted he'd be a complete nutter.

Not a chance with the opening pair of tail enders. Without wanting to sound like Dalek, the main thing is to avoid finishing bottom. Fortunately Warks, Notts and Kent should make that a straightforward task.

Shame they weren't bowled out for 40 something. Would've made an even stronger claim for an unsatisfactory pitch. Maybe Essex let the tail enders add a few runs to make it less obvious.

What's Hants' record low score?

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?60717-Saints-1-Cardiff-City-2-post-match-dissection#.XQVw6_lKjOQ

This. Give the VAR ref 30 seconds maximum to rule an offside, etc. If they can't decide by then, then it's not a clear and obvious error and the ref's or assistant ref's original decision holds. Simples.

How about for a poor player? That would be an upgrade.

Not straight after the home Cardiff defeat! After the window closed we had a dodgy spell, and Ralph was wondering if they'd done the right thing. Fortunately Valery only missed one match, and Ralph produced miracles from a squad with glaring holes. Anyway, my point was very simple. You're confusing posters not wanting Cedric and Gabby shipped out (without replacements) with posters wanting to bring in new players for the sake of it ("panic buys"). There were a bunch of us in the former camp, but I don't remember any from the latter.

Nothing wrong with VAR, just with some of the morons who currently use it. It's like blaming the Porsche manufacturers for a drunken teenager who crashes one at 180 mph.

"They" being the people in the club making these decisions, and Ralph wants a smaller squad in the long term. We were not dealing with a VVD situation with players downing tools. Having Cedric and Gabby as backups wasn't going to weaken the squad over 3 months.

That's not the point, the club gambled by shipping those players out without replacements. And Ralph later admitted that he was worried when the already sparse attack got lighter when Obafemi got injured. The criticism remains valid even if they got away with it.

A lot of straw men there that you've given a jolly good rogering to. Regarding selling/loaning Gabbi and Cedric, bringing in replacements would not have been "panic buys". They didn't have to go in the middle of the season. Ralph admitted getting worried after Obafemi got injured almost immediately after getting rid of Gabby, and the club was lucky Valery only missed one match after Cedric was loaned out. They gambled and got away with it.