forameus

I think it helps that the games themselves are pretty much not important. This window's just come too soon. I'd expect, and want, him to be in for the next one, as it'll be the last chance to have the group together ahead of the playoffs. If he starts growing the old Premier League "I don't feel too well" routine around games, people will have a point. Until then, let's just get him fit, because he's really quite good.

Ciampa and Balor technically. Safe to say WWE weren't going to let this slide. The big thing for AEW won't be last night. It won't even be the next couple of weeks, it's going to be in the coming months, when they've got to turn out unending weekly programming. If WWE moved to having far less content, and like a 10 episode season or something, I think they'd produce much better. But the constant assault of content, combined with them using largely the same guys, is always going to get tedious. Interesting to see how both companies cope with that going forward. Has there been any hint of AEW having its "Wrestlemania"? If they're going for that model, I wonder when they'll pitch it. WWE are probably strongest from Rumble to WM, but after that it usually falls off a cliff.

Interesting move from Balor, but it's getting Ciampa back that's huge for me. The guy killed it as a heel, and as a psycho face he could be great too. Triple Threat for the next Takeover?

You surely have to do something like that. Have they ever before had a case where they've had a PPV essentially play 4th fiddle to their 3 weekly shows to the point where they've kind of forgotten about it? Could go either way on Sunday - could get a wonderful show where the pressure's a bit off, or it could be an absolute car crash as they try and fill time. The announced matches should be great I suppose, and everyone's probably just waiting to see Big Spooky Bray come out.

Football's a team sport. If you change every other variable in that team, you're probably going to have that player play differently. It you change every other variable to absolute haddies, then you'll probably have that player playing very differently.

This. The potential of fans "having a say" purely depends on what fans you're asking. What qualifies most fans to make decisions that actually matter, other than supporting the club and, presumably, wanting the best for them? That's an incredibly subjective concept, and I'd imagine running a football club and making certain decisions is really quite hard. Like Billy Connolly once said, "The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever becoming one. Don't vote. It just encourages them....".

Do you think they've just generally forgotten? We haven't really had any build for the matches they have announced. The Fiend keeps trying to rustle Rollins' jimmies, but that doesn't seem targeted towards the HIAC match. We've not even had Big Mick Cellboy come in and tell everyone that, actually, guys, it's really quite dangerous in there. Having said that, it might actually be an interesting watch if they're not going to announce any matches on Friday. Wonder what a WWE show would look like if they plan to tell a story throughout the night and add matches as they go. Not as if they need to overly worry about PPV buys, and the matches they have announced look strong enough to make people want to watch.

Our win against you wasn't really representative. Great game, and well fought by both sides, but take it out over the season and you can see there's still a decent gap. On the second part, I'm now all for Shankland coming in and scoring 9 against San Marino. If someone could take him away from Dundee United in January, it will be very interesting for everyone else in the Championship to watch Dundee United fold.

Well, have to say I was wrong about Shankland (unless Glenn "Kane" Jacobs also got called up). I hope I can also say I was utterly wrong about him being out of his depth too in a few weeks. And I really, really hope that we don't just throw him on against Russia and then get mad when he doesn't score a hatful. Maybe he'll bring something different, maybe he'll really step up a level and be someone that teams just don't know how to deal with. Or maybe he'll do nothing against Russia and score 10 against San Marino. Remains to be seen. Good luck to him.

He did delete that tweet (or one of them), hopefully it's just him announcing too early rather than it being pish. Wyatt/Fiend has been going after people who wronged him...they shat out of having him go after Stone Cold for the shock value, but the Rock would make more sense. Let big Dwayne hype up the crowd, then let the Fiend have him.

I'm really enjoying it. I tanked my Rivals placement games (played 5 lost 5) so got put in Division 9, and as a result I've been playing people I'm probably slightly better at, but still getting pretty close games. I've honestly not seen any of the issues that people are reporting (although understand most of them are outwith FUT). It was a lot easier to make coins in 19 compared to 18, and I think that's the same again this year. The early access seemed to be extremely popular too (no idea if it was more so than the year before) and you're getting given more packs than ever before. It's no surprise there's going to be people with very good teams already. Can't say I've met any myself, but like I said I'm pretty low down.

I think Vince has been on Urban Dictionary and found out what a cuckold is, and he thought it was brilliant.

So if he'd been given a few more games he'd be prolific, aye? I'm not saying he's shite, or even that he's necessarily much worse than Fletcher was at that time. But we're often so guilty of looking at whoever is not being picked, and saying that they were an answer. It's a safe bet, not as if anyone can be proved wrong objectively, can they? All we can look at is when they featured. Griffiths looked a bit lost in the early days of his Scotland career, and although he's gotten some very important goals (and was responsible for the greatest few minutes we've had since we last went to a tournament) I don't think he's been that good. Rhodes never even really reached that level. A specialist in a style of play that we didn't play, and probably wouldn't play. and not someone we could have as a luxury player. Fletcher, on the other hand, I presume was involved because his strength lay in bringing others into the game. He can score goals, but he was going to be far better as a loan striker, getting our stronger attacking midfielders involved. Of course, it very rarely turned out that way, but hey ho. We badly need a markedly improved option in a number of positions, striker is most certainly one.

Both Jordan Rhodes and Leigh Griffiths looked hopelessly out of their depth for us. Rhodes especially. You can't just look at the number of goals they score.

I already pledge to the tune of around 300 quid a year, and 300 extra this year after getting my Dad a season ticket. That no enough TFE?

What hotshot striker was Steven Fletcher keeping out of the team? He was the best option when he was playing for us, while not being a very good option. Just because someone isn't playing well doesn't mean we should jump to change it to someone demonstrably worse in the hope that they'll play above it. That and Fletcher was on the long, long list of good players made to look worse in a Scotland shirt. He was great at bringing others into play, but when he's forty yards from anyone in blue, it's quite hard to do that.

I'm always very, very wary of metacritic in general, but when it comes to user reviews it's hard to take any seriously. Fair enough if you get a user review that looks like they're actually making points, but you get people saying stuff like "character shirt was wrong colour" and giving zero out of ten, then someone coming along and saying how that's unfair, so they'll give ten in return to balance it out. A few people do seem to be up in arms about the other modes, but I find it hard to really understand why. Sure, the modes are absolute cack (I played 20 seconds of Volta when it tried to force me to when I first booted up the game, haven't touched it since, but sounds like it's a mess), but to be honest it's hard to criticise EA from a purely business and profit standpoint. FUT stands to make them billions and billions in microtransactions, so they'd be mental not to be putting most of their focus there. But of course not having at least some staff leaving the rest ticking over is a bit poor. Best chance for other modes remains EA putting cosmetic microtransactions in. Once that happens, I expect you'll see them concentrating a bit more on it.

Not as chuffed as Sms clearly was. Boy needs to calm down. Good choice on Callejon - he's consistently brilliant for me.

No matter how many it is its not a "shocking" stat by any means. The national team isn't for building some team of teenagers in the hope they'll all become brilliant,its for calling up the best combined team we have available. If we haven't called up enough young players it's because they aren't good enough. The ones Craig mentioned were. Except Burke.

So a couple of questions from me Does this rival bid basically read like Weir trying to get his pals back on the board, and holding his considerable wealth as a carrot to the stick of Jacqui Low? Am I the only one fucking appalled by the rubbish name? Thistle Forever, surely, you fucks.

And just on the note of there being no harm in getting him involved, there absolutely is. So imagine he starts against San Marino, but we end up spending 45 minutes dry-humping f**k all and go in at 0-0. The 12 people that will be in Hampden for that game will be, quite rightly, booing them at this stage. Maybe at that point Gilmour's relative inexperience sees him make a few mistakes, and we end up struggling to a result that still sees us booed at full time. Where is GIlmour's confidence when it comes to Scotland then? It's a hypothetical scenario of course, but we do not have the sort of atmosphere around the club to be bringing players in who aren't quite ready yet. And I trust the coaching team to know when that point is, but I really, really doubt it's now.

BAH GAW... By gawd I've broken her in half! Aww f**k off Stella, you beat me to it by a fair distance. Anyone listened to the 83 weeks podcasts from big Eric? I've subscribed but haven't listened to any yet, despite some looking very interesting. Is it that good or gets a bit tedious?

Have to agree on mystery ball. For about 2 minutes it seemed like a great addition, something to add a bit of fun to the game. But it got old faaaaaaaast. I think if you're doing couch play or playing with someone you know, it might be a bit different, but playing against a random online was utterly joyless. Just like your standard online FIFA game with sweaty play, but with the addition of essentially being unable to stop anyone with any boost other than passing. They could have made it so much better though. Put more random boosts in. Put in buffs. Square ball. Medicine ball. Bouncy ball. Flyaway ball. Anything really other than just seeing who got pace/shooting boosts more often. If you're going to go random, go baws oot. King of the Hill is a bit better though, that works as a standalone mode, actually needing some strategy rather than random chance. Survival was the most disappointing for me. Played a couple of games, and given both teams were utter shite, think we both ended up with 10 a side. If you're matching up quite well with an opponent, then the gimmick won't really make much difference as you'll either never lose players, or lose them pretty much in line with each other. Even if you get someone better than you, by design it'll just see you able to catch up with the extra players, then probably get pummeled once you do.

A- Could've got "ex-Ger Stuart McCall" to work in another mistake and OF reference.