David Kelly

From what I've read, they're talking up Willock as a box to box midfielder. The nearest we have to that is Hendrick so on that basis he should be the one to leave out. But ASM must now be about ready to start. At that point surely we must be looking to play him and Fraser either side of Wilson. So the question becomes two from Hayden (no chance), Shelvey, Hendrick and Almiron to leave out for ASM and Willock. I know which two I'd pick, certainly at home to a very depleted Southampton, but I supect cabbage head will go with Hendrick and Almiron.

Don’t think it’s on sky

As much as I think Hendrick is shite, I think Bruce would have been better leaving him on and taking off Shelvey or Hayden last night. All that substitution did was to make it more congested in our attacking areas and have the remaning two midfielders sitting on top of the centre backs. Hendrick was at least breaking forward and I think that movement helped create more space. The further substitutions made space even less available. It was blatently obvious to everyone, apparently apart from and Shelvey, that what was happening was just slowing everything down and allowing Palace to get back a deny us space. Still I didn't want to poke my eyes out while watching so things definitely have improved.

Apparently they're taking the world feed of comentary which will certainly mean more Indian bias and the dregs of sky's comentary (Nick Knight, Mark Butcher) which is a bit of a shame. For all the shite in football comentary, Nasser, Atherton, Bumble etc do provide excellent comentary on England cricket.

I might stick with Saturday's approach of not watching this.

You could see in the second half last night that if we can keep Wilson, Fraser and ASM fit and on the pitch we could well have enough to stay up even with Hendrick in midfield behind them. Clearly though this is despite Bruce not because of any tactical masterstroke of his. In the first half the only hope we had of doing anything in an attacking sense was if Schar brought the ball out of the back and bypassed the midfield. I don't for a second think that this was something they had worked on, but it might actually be a good thing to look at since he has more ability on the ball that any of our midfielders. I can't see that there's any chance of Bruce being sacked any time soon with us bringing this new coach in. He'll probably get the chance to double this non winning run before there's any hope of him getting the bullet.

We certainly don't want to see an end to any of our current players like what happened to Trott in Australia.

Bairtstow seems to have been brought back into the team because he's a decent player of spin as much as anything else. If that's the case then it seems odd to rest him when we're going to have our biggest spin test rather than in the home series later on or the short form matches. Although I suppose he's being kept for the World Cup as much as anything.

Yeah, I mean I get this is exceptional circumtances but the South Africa trip was cut short so surely they haven't had too hard a time of it recently. And surely Sri Lanka was a better time to rest players. Although I suppose with Pope being injured, Burns being on paternity and Stokes and Archer rested there's only so many changes the could have made.

I can certainly get resting Wood given his fitness issues and Curran as been bubbled up for long period with England and the IPL and I'm not convinced he'd be that important a player in India for us. But I don't get Bairstow or Buttler at all.

Michael Vaughan was going on about it on TMS and I'm sure he said Buttler was only there for the first test. The other three you mention are missing the firts two that's right.

He's looking a better and better test player all the time. Shame he's only playing one against India.

Hopefully the pathetic stance with the press will finally see us getting some backup instead of the usual he's a nice bloke guff.

Fiar play to Sibley. Looked all over the place for 3 (very short) innings but he dug in brilliantly today. Having Butler with him no doubt massively helped. Good news heading to India.

It also means he's oblivious to the whole point of the job he's doing on a call in. Or are the call ins supposed to just be for ex pro's to call?

Aye it's fucking pathetic. It's like an accountant asking someone pointing out a an error in arithmatic if they've ever added up professionally.

I did actually go an see that with an ex. It was without doubt the worst film I've ever seen. And not in a so bad it's good way like The Room.

Yeah I'd go with that and add Airheads and that recent one where he's the jeweller.

It's the other part of the pundits bullshit that they basically believe that unless you were a professional footballer your opinion is worth absolutely nothing. You don't need to be an ex pro to be able to see that what Bruce's team is serving up is absolutely awful anymore than you need to be a Hollywood actor to be able to tell that 90% of films involving Adam Sandler are fucking terrible.

I don't remember anything his playing career other than he always seemed to be injured. More famous for marrying a singer tbh.

Aye Warner seems to be on the decline and then the rest of their batsman have been very average. That might change to an extent if Puckovski and Green can deliver on their potential. Both are averaging over 50 in first class cricket and have made decent starts to their Test careers too. Green is taking wickets at 25 too. He's not took an international wicket yet but if he can transfer that then they'll have the all rounder they've been crying out for year for. Both teams look like they have some potentially very good young batsmen coming through.

Redknap basically said before the Sheffield game that teams outside the top 6, or is it 7 now that Arsenal have dropped, shouldn't expect to play any good football and we should just be happy to be in the league. Surely as a sport, every team should be looking to do the best they can in whatever league they are in. For a newly promoted team, particularly one with little or no recent experience of being in their division, that may well be just hanging in there for a season or two and looking to improve. But there's absolutely no reason at all to think that any club no matter what history or amount of supporters they have should just accept playing shit football just so they can hang on to the financial benefits of being in that division. There will come a point when if any club just continues to do that, when the supporters just stop caring.

The simple fact is most footballers are thick as shit and so it follows that most football pundits are too. In every other sport that I've ever watched the pundits/comentators make insightful comments about what is happening in the match/event but with football all you get is the same tired old cliches time and time again. I find it harder and harder to watch a match with the commentary on and can hardly ever bare to watch the pre and post match bollocks. It was like this before Bruce but when these morons are telling us that what we are actually seeing with our own eyes week after week is wrong and that he's a good bloke working in difficult circumstances, it just becomes so patronising that it's impossible to take seriously.

Paines had a lot of credit since becoming test captain but as a player I can't see much in him at all. And his captaincy has had a few knocks this series so they may well look to move him on. Not sure who else would replace him as keeper, Wade does well in state and franchise cricket but always looks a weak link when he's played for Australia. We should certainly take confidence for the Ashes in seeing an severly under strength India beat them. Our upcoming games against India are another matter.

I've honestly thought that passing the ball to the opposition has been a key tactic of Bruce's since he's been here so this could actually be a game changer if they manage to do it. If he could continue this to the natural progression of pass it forward to your team mates rather than backwards, we could be in business.