Monty the Shark

[Soton Seagull]

Word from inside the club, done deal, signature still wet. Should be announced within next few days.

Personally I think this is great news. He needs to perform to get back in the England reckoning, and we need an experinced spinner. Also worth it just to watch the celebration.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Interesting.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Lets hope his pay is on a wicket taking bonus like Mushy

 

[Withdean Wanderer]

Pointless signing - an insult to Beer and Rayner, and a total waste of wages, just for a shitty celebration.

 

[Mendoza]

WAT Beer was coming along just nicely, and spin was not an area we needed to cencentrate on.

I guess signing a "big" name shows we can still attract some players. Need to concentrate on a fast bowler and experienced top order batsmen.

not the worst signing to make, but we could have used our resources better

 

[S'hampton Seagull]

WAT Beer was coming along just nicely, and spin was not an area we needed to cencentrate on.

I guess signing a "big" name shows we can still attract some players. Need to concentrate on a fast bowler and experienced top order batsmen.

not the worst signing to make, but we could have used our resources better

I agree to an extent, but we went big after Hoggy and ge didn't want the move. I get the impression he could have been signed in addition to Monty, but we couldn't make it happen.

I think there is money there for a signing of that calibre, but are there the players out there?

 

[CHAPPERS]

Get him back to his best and he'd be class. He's a long way off though.

 

[Withdean Wanderer]

Our "fast" bowling line-up currently reads:

Martin-Jenkins
Kirtley
Keegan
Collymore

WHY do we need another spinner?!?

 

[Mendoza]

Our "fast" bowling line-up currently reads:

Martin-Jenkins
Kirtley
Keegan
Collymore

WHY do we need another spinner?!?

and Arafat (and Wright for a little bit)

 

[S'hampton Seagull]

Surely this means Rayner is on his way?

 

[8ace]

Think this will be a good signing, 126 test wickets including 8 michelles can't be bad.
Still need a fast bowler badly, the batting looks fine to me.

 

[Marc]

I've heard f*** all about this!!

 

[Brovion]

No disrespect to Monty but I hope this isn't true. If you'd asked me (and I guess a lot of others ) what type of player we need most I think very few of us would have answered "another spinner". Especially one who is currently shot to pieces and is going to need a lot of coaching/nuturing to get back to his best (if he ever can).

EDIT: Mind you Mushy was considered a has-been when he turned up here ...

 

[Kazim]

Batting looks fine!!! You should have been in Delhi mate.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

well if the fast bowling is that bad then just prepare a load of turners and play 3 spinners. Sorted

 

[albionalex]

I would hope he will be used mainly in the championship and Beer would be used in the one day games an 20/20's.

 

[Mackenzie]

Don't need him, can't believe we've wasted our limited resources on a player whose position we have covered. Unbelieveably BAD decision, we need a quality fast bowler not (yet) another spinner.

 

[Soton Seagull]

We'll we got him then. Hopefully a slow Hove pitch will be to his liking and we'll see the trademark enthusiastic celebration before too long.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Take a step back. Our glory days in the Championship were achieved largely thru Mushy's efforts on a turning Hove pitch. I don't rate Rayner, while Beer is just a kid and will not be capable of delivering 80 wickets. Chawla proved what a quality spinner can do at Hove, therefore it makes a deal of sense to go out and get the next best spinner available.

Besides, there's a dearth of decent fast bowlers around with Hoggard and Simon Jones already being snapped up.

I welcome this news.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

We took Mushy from washed up to the top of the Championship, lets have faith our set up gets Monty back to his best. Although Hoppo may have his first big coaching challenge getting him to field