Arsenal are very close to signing Alexandre Lacazette for a new club-record fee if J-M Aulas's latest denial is to be believed.

WOB's are now slagging off Lacazette left right and centre before the vast majority of them have even seen him kick a ball.

I would respectfully suggest that the Arsenal fanbase has more than it's fair share of malcontents.

Is this guy the real deal?

cricket back on terrestial

BBC get the T20 final, 10 matches and other stuff for 2020-24

skysports beat off BT to retain tests and ODIs

Nice to see hopefully it will have desired effect of getting people into the game they already have me on the hook

Nice....is the World cup included in this?

Ted Knutson's stuff is some of the best football relate writing on the internet in my opinion. Always fascinating. A must follow.

Top Read.

I think the Afghans can be fairly competitive, especially in spin-friendly conditions. Few more batsman to go with Rashid and Nabi with the ball could be interesting I think Ireland will struggle massively, this has come 5 years too late for them.

But KP said test cricket will be extinct in 5 years...lol.  

Would love to see Morgan become the Irish skipper in all formats. I imagine there must be a few decent county players with Irish links who may choose to play for them now, especially as England's side and consistency in selection policy has become a tough one to crack. 15 years ago you wouldn't have blamed them for waiting for their opportunity on the selection merry go round.

Doubt Morgan will give up the english ODI captaincy, especially considering the quality of the team he is leading and the potential it has to win a major tournament while he is in charge.

Good luck to them-the game needs to spread as far as countries will have it, as it's on the decline here. The ECB's short-sighted, money-grabbing decision to take it off Free to air TV a while ago has harmed uptake amongst youngsters massively.

Just have a look at most England test crowds and all you will see are white faces, most over the age of 25. How much does that represent the U.K. Now?

This...

Hopefully a test championship will contextualize international cricket now.

Ireland and Afghanistan.... welcome to the club.

What does this do for the future of the game? Is a test championship a viable route now?

It's hard to work with a guy like Kohli who has the "my way or the highway" attitude. In one game in the CT (i can't remember which) Jadhav made a misfield which went for 4. Kohli went mental and a couple of balls later he sent him to the pavilion and asked for a sub fielder. Now he can do that to a guy like Jadhav who isn't a "superstar" but do it to someone like Rohit Sharma or Dhawan and he will have a full-blown revolt on your hands. You cannot be a leader of men by abusing them, especially when you are a scared little kitten whenever the going gets tough and handover the reigns to Papa Dhoni.

Still Kumble could have handled this better. Why not resign quietly and pretend he wanted to spend time with family? He might have given Kohli a little parting blow but made himself look very unprofessional in the process.

Might be trying to surface the deeper problems within the team and therefore made it public.

Kumble's resigned....

*Pushed out by Kolhi. Sehwag next in line, could be a recipe for disaster. 2 big ego's could clash at some stage. I remember from the IPL Sehwag digging out all the KXIP international batsman for losing a game, when he's responsible for compiling the most lop-sided squad around! Sometimes the best players make the worst coaches ...

There was only going to be one winner there. Can't imagine Kohli being easy to work with

Kind of makes you wonder what the role of the modern international cricket coach is.

Kumble's resigned....

On the whole.... a super tournament. Unpredictable and most matches were meaningful in the context of the competition.

Other than the rain.... it was a great advert for 50 over cricket.

No one would have guessed these 4 teams would be in the semis.

The guy who has had the roughest end of the stick imo is Crouch.  Delivers every time he is called upon then dropped for no reason at all time and time again.  He clearly isn't past it because his skill set ages so well as he has never had pace.

Can't help but agree with this. Crouch has been a class act for us, always seen as a back up rather than the main striker.

This..... underrated player. Though he is 36...has a good couple of seasons at the highest level left in him.

I'm a newbie right now... how many posts do I need to get to the next stage...just curious.

Hi Bud,

I don't actually know what the thresholds are, but in reality they have no significant use or meaning.

I can only think of two matters which are subject to Post Count, assuming we ignore "Senior", "Hero" & that sort of thing.

1) New Members need 10 posts before they can send PM's.

2) Members need a minimum of 300 posts before they are allowed to use - whether as a buyer or seller - the Staking Boards. Note; - if they try to circumvent this with nonsense posts, we just upwardly adjust their required post count. 


Hope that helps, if not, ask away & we'll try to help.

Super.....thanks so much Tikay.

Unbelievable

I've only just noticed I'm a snr member... So I'm guessing that's 500 and I guess 1000 must be hero.

Non-newbie I would assume will be 100

Thanks Cavey007...much appreciated.