forameus

Certainly an interesting strategy to spend the bulk of an announcement in what probably should be the initial lead up to marketing FM24 by telling everyone how much better FM25 is going to be.

I'd agree. I've got Fite+ and watch Dynamite religiously, but I don't think I've ever watched any part of an episode of Rampage. There's never been something they've hyped up that I've felt was worth seeking out the time over a weekend to watch. IT's very much booked like a B show, and now it's arguably a C show, or at least a B with two As taking attention away.

Yeah, that's true, and now I feel like a dick for getting worked by the dirtsheets. Still, the fact that it's even a potential issue just shows how mental the whole situation is. There's presumably now no legal stuff in place, get the guys in a room and tell them to act like grown-ups or face consequences. Don't just kowtow to Punk and set up quarantine zones across your programming to avoid actually managing the situation.

And also sounds like Kenny Omega will not appear (at least live) on either Dynamite or Collision this week ahead of Forbidden Door, despite the latter being in Canada. Dynamite's in Chicago, so he'd likely get an interesting reception, but if you're shiting it from putting out one of the big components of one of your biggest matches first because of the reception he'll get in Chicago (because of Punk) or avoiding a massive pop on Collision (because of Punk) then surely that's a pretty big issue? I know, I know, it's probably not that and he's just not able to appear, but still.

I echo the comments on the ground-staff. Viaplay were repeatedly giving them praise, which I guess is OK as they got the game on, but the whole process seemed totally amateurish. Gathering together what seemed like one actual groundsman and seven volunteers when the pitch looked like the North Sea wasn't a great start, but there didn't seem to be much of a plan as to what they were going to do to clear it all. I'm no groundsman (and looking at the grass I'm responsible for, good fucking riddance) but surely if you're clearing water, you start in the middle and work your way out? Instead it seemed like they concentrated on the goalmouths several times, presumably as they had just gathered more water from other efforts. And as others have said, a few people just sort of standing around useless as one guy did most of the work. Then getting ballboys on, giving them brushes bigger than they were, and having them do largely nothing. Then only just getting forks out with minutes to go. For all that our on-pitch stuff has been fantastic for a while now, the SFA keeps trying to remind us that they're absolutely fucking hopeless at pretty much everything else.

Looking at it purely objectively, I can kind of see where Georgia are coming from. If that's a club game, it's probably unlikely to start, and definitely not going to resume after 90 minutes of a break. Pitch was downright dangerous, and could well have led to injuries, no way the ref should have considered that playable at the start. Had they gone in at 0-0 I imagine there would be reservations about coming back out, but to lose that goal as the last action, I can see why they'd have little desire. Had the ref gone out at the first inspection and all was good, they probably come out fine too, but to keep getting strung along with the pitch clearly not being ready, I can slightly sympathise with how they're feeling up to the point where the pitch was (finally) playable. At that point, you're pretty stuck, regardless of feelings. You either play the game or you forfeit, not really much of an option otherwise. But on the other hand, it's pretty funny, and they should get fucked.

Looking back at the game away from lol Georgia stuff (but aye, fucking lol Georgia) it's hard to think of a more dominant performance in one of our traditional "tricky" games. That opening goal ended up being so important, as I think at 0-0 all the shenanigans around the rain and Georgia not wanting to play don't play out the same. When they did eventually come out, it was clear they just weren't at it, and we just flew back at them. However, that does bring me to one very slight negative - and probably the only one - in that we had pretty much all of the play, got into a lot of good positions, but didn't always translate that into good chances. Definitely had some, but there were a lot of good crosses that no-one ended up getting near. All fine in a game like last night when Georgia's only plan seemed to be "give it to the wee hairy guy that's quite good" but if we get into good positions against the likes of Spain, or we're up against it in Cyprus, we maybe need to get a bit more clinical. But end of the day, if we go to Cyprus and have 400 chances and win 1-0, I couldn't give a shit.

I'm happy enough with Bannigan staying, particularly with Docherty going. I think there's a fair bit of recency bias in looking at Bannigan, because after his injury in the playoffs, he came back and looked pretty hopeless at the worst possible time. I think he's been solid all year, and will continue to be a solid option for a Championship side. And this "back pass" stuff has always been utter pish. Not just a Bannigan thing, seems to be a Jackie Husband stand thing that any player playing anything resembling a legal rugby pass is just the worst. Granted, in some cases the safer backwards pass isn't the right call, but a huge amount of times, even as the howls of derision start up, it was absolutely the right call to make, and I expect the same people crying would be similarly apoplectic if we'd just launched it forward to Graham and watched him tangle with the defender and fall over.

More sensible and measured reaction tomorrow, but...fucking lol. We're 8 points clear in a qualifying group for a major competition.

Have to feel for Georgia here. It must be really hard to lift yourself and play in such conditions as tonight when you're all complete shitebags.

This is going to be terrific stuff if we win. 3 games, 3 greeting-faced reactions from the opposition about what b*****ds we are. Delicious.

Scotrail already planning on bringing the trains in early just cos.

To be fair. No-one's probably told him. Would you want to talk to Michael Stewart?

I like to think it was a sort of emergency contact deal, and the SFA put St Mirren down because they couldn't think of anything else.

You really see what broadcasters are really about when stuff like this happens. Viaplay are showing they're amateur with lots of confused pauses as they run out of ways to say "aye...it's wet".

Has there ever been a major international game called off for weather? Seems like it'd be a bit of a ballache to get reorganised in the limited window, can't remember it ever happening. EDIT: Not to suggest this will, just curious.

There's very few nations now we should expect to be "pummeling". It's that attitude that leads to such wild swings in judgement when a well-organised and technically better side gets a deserved result against us. We should be beating Georgia but they're hardly some diddy no-mark like San Marino. We should be putting out the best team we have available and getting the win no matter how it comes. f**k "experimenting".

I think the Hendry one on the half-way line was never more than a booking. Haaland probably did us a favour making absolutely no attempt to go for the ball, and as soon as he'd turned Hendry he was reversing himself to make sure Hendry had little choice about what to do. Clear booking, but no more than that. The second one was right as well, I think, although again Haaland probably did us a slight favour by not going down (unlike later) and giving the referee a chance to doubt himself. The fact that even as his teammates were complaining he didn't seem bothered suggested there wasn't much in it.

I thought Collision was a bit shit to be honest. Just seemed like there was something off about the whole thing, from the moment big Elton starts banging out the intro. The commentary was pretty awful all night, with all the chemistry and bantz of Taz/Excalibur being replaced by Kevin Kelly seemingly coming into the thing completely cold, and McGuinness just doing his own brand of screechy but monotone beside him. Then bringing in JR late on sounding like he was about to have an episode just topped it off. Oh aye, and their ring announcer shouting out a WWE trademark in Buddy Murphy was an unexpected touch. Outside of all that, the show was fine I guess, but it continued AEW's insistence on just putting out good wrestling without adding much in the way of stakes. Nothing they did really mattered for what was supposed to be this big debut. I can see this really tanking once the novelty wears off and they have to try filling arenas on a Saturday night. And then Charlie M Punk...I'm not really sure what they're trying to do with him. I think he came across awfully in the promo, but then was that the intention? Are they still trying to dance the line between heel and face or at least not decide yet? He came across like a spoilt, grumpy dick - which admittedly is basically his default setting - and utterly unrepentant for something that was pretty much all of his own doing. And when it came to the match, he looked well off it at times, particularly that part where he was just cowered in the corner of the ring after the tag as FTR tried to work around him. Granted after being out so long, that was bound to happen, but if he starts struggling in-ring, all the other baggage he brings is going to grow. Going to be fascinating to watch.

I was thinking that first goal was a bit of a sclaff, but even though the buildup was, that is actually a cracking wee finish from Dykes. Second one was absolutely brilliant. Hang that in whatever fucking whale carcass passes for a museum in Oslo.

Dundee United to struggle a wee bit initially, then pull away as the season goes on, winning the league a few rounds early. Playoff places end up being pretty tight between the usual suspects. I think Thistle will have a better season than some are expecting and make them, but come nowhere near the levels of this season. Premiership side wins the playoff. Again.

I quite liked the Cole/MJF finish, although not sure it was necessary. I don't really like the idea of the eliminator matches in general really, sort of dilutes the impact of beating the champion for the belt if you've already beaten him before. Almost feels like you have to resort to screwy stuff just to avoid that. Main event sure was something. Another largely heatless Elite/BCC match, then they decided to throw all their booking chips at the wall to see what stuck. I can't work out whether it was great or awful. Interesting little promo video for CM Punk. Started out awful along the usual lines of battling back from an injury and conveniently ignoring everything else about him being away. But the ending brought it back. Makes it seem like they haven't fully decided how he's coming back. If it's as a pure face, they've properly fucked it.

Are the two black stripes different or is it just the light in the above picture? The sponsor is not too distracting for a change, but still not a fan. Looks like they were on a tight deadline, and with 5 minutes to go all they had on a piece of paper was red, black and yellow.

It's really heartening to see that pretty much no-one learned their lesson with regards to CDPR and Cyberpunk. DLC gets announced and the hype machine goes into overdrive, just a few years after they royally shat the bed in similar circumstances. They do have a really good history with DLC for games (the two main ones for Witcher 3 were near faultless) but given how different things were once they were creating their own property, rather than adapting the book, I wouldn't have any faith in them not having at least a few issues come release. Having said that, we'll see. I played through the game and thought it was alright, albeit a massive missed opportunity. If this ends up not being a complete dumpster fire, I'll probably give it another shot.

Unfortunately, that's probably exactly the reason why International football will only get weaker. There's a growing number of people that see it as an unwelcome disruption for club football, and I expect that'll only get worse as club football continues to head down this path. Those staunch Premier League fans in Ohio, Accra, Mumbai etc probably aren't going to be interested in anything other than their collection of highly-paid show-ponies muddling about in The Best League In The World. I agree with you, by the way. There's still something quite special about international games, even when we were shite. I hope it always stays that way.