General Smiley

Exactly. The EPL has been declining for a while. It seemed a hell of a lot better quality ten years ago, with Arsenal's unbeaten team and then Mourinho's Chelsea. Ferguson has simply managed to weather the storm, outlast Wenger and Mourinho's teams and then picked up the baton afterwards. Mancini wasn't experienced enough in the EPL to do what he needed to do to win a second league (and in the end he only won the first one because of Joey Barton!). But now with a stronger Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City, Man Utd will inevitably be pushed to the back of the bunch.

the most "Scottish" county?

Really like the look of Stokes, but definitely more of a fourth seamer than third. Would have liked to see him in the final test rather than Woakes.

Jos Buttler hail hail

Clint McKay Trott dismissal was unbelievably bad. Trott should surely have been rested along with Cook and the others - he was the second best batsman in 10/11 IMO and clearly needs to work on his technique, this ODI series can't be doing him much good. KP also should have done better. Can't really complain about Root. Huge pressure, pretty much digging out a yorker.

Boyd Rankin must be Protestant, no? Extra reason for some Rangers fans to take note...

That's not the point. The point is that even at the WACA he has a better than 50% chance of being negatable.

Well hold on. Let's look at the last 5 WACA Tests. South Africa 2008: 61/8 and 98/3. South Africa won by 6 wickets West Indies 2009: 92/2 (at over 5/over) and 67/3(at over 4). Aus won by 35 runs The third Ashes Test in 2010/11: 38/6 and 44/3. Aus won by 267 runs India 2012: Mitch didn't play South Africa 2012: 54/2 and 110/4 (at 4.4/over). South Africa won by 309 runs So, yes - 61/8 (although Aus lost the match), and the Ashes Test were outstanding. But he gets it wrong as often if not more often as right. We can hope he has an off-five-days.

Argh

This is Jock Stein/Bobby Moore "There should be a law against him" stuff

Cheers bud Assuming Robredo is going to be massacred too?

Who would have given Nadal the better fight - Ferrer or Gasquiet?

Advantage of unemployment.

Or maybe you were making a high-brow technical point