Bobbyboy

With Froome not exactly in the form of his life, could this be the most interesting race in years? Not a lot of summit finishes or time trials. With Quintana having done the Giro and not in amazing form there either, could this be the year for Richie Porte? One last hurrah from Contador? Or even Valverde ignoring team orders and jumping away after having a good Classics campaign? Bardet has to be in with a shout if it's an open race also, and Aru is always a good outside bet. And who knows if we'll see Simon Yates hanging in there... that probably depends on how Chaves is feeling though and who is going to be #1 for Orica. Barring crashes (or even if there are crashes) Sagan wins green, they may as well not have that competition and just send him a bundle of green jerseys in bulk, it would be cheaper. With Cav being out for so long with glandular fever and not really being tested since returning, will he win a stage or two? There's no Bryan Coquard as his management don't like him, and Caleb Ewan isn't there for Orica, but presumably Kittel is going to be on top of his game and Greipel always wins at least one sprint. And Sagan always mixes things up there too. Maybe Dan McLay to come up with something? All in all it's hard to see Cav catching Merckx's stage win record this year, but you never know... there are a lot of potential sprint stages this year. Any other surprises out there? Steve Cummings seems to be in the form of his life so he'll probably try and sneak away for a win here and there, and you just know Voeckler is going to try something on his last tour. I'm thinking Dan Martin has to win as stage sooner or later but can he ever beat Valverde on one of those short, steep climbs that they both seem to like? Whatever happens it'll be something to follow instead of stressing out about if VVD and Bertrand have gone yet or if the Chinese have found enough coins down the back of the sofa to complete the takeover.

Is that the opening of the book on when he'll be headed to Anfield? June 2019?

Can we rotate managers?

This. Completely.

About to say I agree with this, then I remembered Fonte. More accurate to say Les THINKS the replacement is all lined up.

What's the story with the shirt sponsorship thing tonight? No more Virgin Media?

Tadic missing all 3 of them?

Best thing so far was that tackle by Jack Stephens.

Or that Ramirez bloke at Boro. Might be that a change of club could help him settle down and regularly display the quality he shows in flashes.

What's the sell-on fee (if any) for Plymouth? I have a vague recollection of 10% but may be wrong.

I refuse to believe this.

So now in my head I can see a highlights/bloopers package from that season played at 2x speed with that music in the background and McGoldrick and co falling over and mis-kicking. I wish someone would do that.

One day closer to the day he gets injured again. It's depressing how many of our good players are out. Is this normal?

I always thought VVD was supposed to be awesome with the free kicks but we seem to prefer him to be in the box rather than taking them.

Harsh on Plymouth who are definitely on the south coast and currently above pompey in the league

I recall a pre-season friendly at Eastleigh prior to the 2004/05 season I think? Two notable subs came on that night, one a quick nippy right-wing for Saints who looked like he was about 11 years old (yes I know he was actually older than that), named Theo Walcott. And one slightly larger looking goalkeeper for Eastleigh, named Wayne Shaw. I wouldn't have thought that all these years later it would be Shaw I'd be reading about on front page of BBC Sport website. What would be odds on that be? Although what I remember most from that game was how astoundingly bad Neil McCann really was.

He's changed since he became famous.

Not wishing to steal the other Bobby's thunder, I would suggest the current answer is 2187. There can be only one.

Been wearing them since the semi final second leg. it's going to be a long two weeks until the final.

Can I just say on behalf of people who don't post much and like to come on here for occasional inside snippets and light banter - THANK YOU for what you're doing.

OK did a search and found another, Arthur Wharton who was a goalkeeper and the first black pro footballer.

Walter Tull at Northampton (and Tottenham I believe) and Jack Leslie at Plymouth would be two prior to the Pompey claim that I know of off top of head who played professionally in England prior to WW2 (WW1 in Tull's case). Probably there are at least one or two others? Leslie is a crazy story, he was picked for England while at Plymouth and then dropped when they found out he wasn't white.

Would Liebherr be supplying the cranes?

Ref: "Hmm, good opportunity to kick J-Rod in the najjers without anyone noticing"

I've never seen the word 'but' appear so frequently in the first sentence of so many posts