forameus

I can just imagine Pep's Scotland. Food banks on every street corner, kids fighting each other for the last steak bake, a loaf of bread costing five million shortbread. It'll be worth it for qualification ah tell you wit.

Ah, so you're one of the morons that just wails "it cannae git any worse min!!!"!"!" then? Figures. We haven't qualified for 20 years, which is obviously not good. But to throw all the toys out and suggest that that is as bad as it can get is short-sighted at best, and downright moronic at slighty-less-best. It's not even as if we haven't seen it before - in fairly recent years we've been much, much worse. Weren't we the first team to be eliminated from a qualifying campaign not so long ago? As in, earlier than some of the super-diddies? And that's not even as bad as it could get. That's where the huge risk comes in. We could do a Wales and throw 11 young players together and pretend like results don't matter, but that's not really realistic is it? They could end up qualifying for the first time in 2 decades, or, more likely, they end up getting cuffed because they're - quel surprise - not ready. Tanking our seedings and rankings and making sure that qualifying campaigns are even harder next time around. If we were finishing dead last in our group every campaign, then I'd be far, far more inclined to agree to try something more radical. I don't think it's going to take anything like that to get two more points against Lithuania/Georgia. Genius! Just make everyone poor and we'll win the World Cup!

I've always been probably the biggest defender of this game on here (well, apart from Fide ). I can completely see why people don't like it, and although the whiny claims of fraud seemed a bit much, I can see where they're coming from. On a purely technical level, the game is unparalleled. It really is a massive triumph, and could be the base idea for hundreds of (probably better) games to come. But it didn't quite stick the landing from a gameplay perspective. Basically though, it comes down to what you want from a game. It's absolutely not lived up to the hype, and once this update has been released, it's probably just about reached the level of functionality that was expected at launch. But I have always found it a great wee game to play, particularly after the last large update. As something you can put on and switch your brain off to, it's great. It's very heavy on resource collecting, and at times it can get to a place where you seem to just be collecting to move on to collect a bit more to move on etc. I'd recommend picking it up, particularly if multiplayer ends up being quite good.

If the games that are out/coming out interest you, it's an absolutely wonderful piece of kit. Very, very impressive what it manages to achieve in such a small unit.

Comes to XBox when the update releases I believe

But we shouldn't be exclusively playing older players until they're completley done and then bringing in untested any more than we should be just picking a team of teenagers just so they can get caps in the hope they do something. The answer is always a middle ground - play the best combination of players that gives us the best chance of success. If that means playing an 18 year old with genuine potential, fine. If that means we play a starting eleven with an average age able to get free bus travel, fine. You can't just point to young players and hope, we have to be smarter than that. Youth age groups need to be joined up far better with the senior squad to give a clear and obvious pathway so that there is no such thing as a truly untested player. There shouldn't be a fanfare when someone gets promoted to the senior team, because they'll have been playing the same system for years at U19 and U21. They shouldn't be tossed in to the senior team at 19 with all the pressure that brings. EDIT: The only instance I can think of of a team clearly and obviously sacking it and effectively starting over was Wales. They were at a very low ebb (far , far lower than we are now), but also had the benefit of calling on players like Bale, Ramsay and Williams. We definitely don't have anyone with Bale's talents, and I'm doubtful about the other two either. Doing similar to Wales might work, but it's a massive, stupid risk.

The point was that this player has a lot of caps. He has a lot of caps because he's really quite good, and given Belgium usually qualify he reaches tournaments. We don't have anyone head and shoulders above like he is (apart from probably Tierney and Robertson, who haven't been around for that long relatively. They'll end up with a huge number of caps, particularly if we start qualifying. So, aye, it wasn't really irrelevant, was it?

We're all a little racist, brother. For what it's worth, if people actually working with him can forgive him, and he seems to have either made a mistake or been a changed man, let him back in. He'll know that if he does anything remotely similar again he's properly finished, so let him get involved in what has been his life. He was a fucking moron saying the things he did, but it was sad in a pitying kind of way to watch him essentially lose what was his working life over it. A sad, battered old man getting the piss taken out of him on twitter while WWE blackballed him. Don't be racist and that won't happen though I guess.

It's damning that the only real note of excitement coming out of Extreme Rules was Angle hinting they could strip Lesnar of the title. I know they wouldn't do that, but at least it was something. Not damning in itself, but the fact that we're now past RAW and the outcome is...Lashley vs Reigns. Haud me the f**k back. It's said so much, but it's becoming hilarious how little a shit they give about what most people actually want.

So how do you go from being a point away from the playoffs in two campaigns running (admittedly one not the World Cup, and admittedly we could well have been papped out in the playoffs) to saying that we're never going to be "decent" ever again? Fair enough if we were back in the days of finishing 4th/5th in groups and one of the first nations to be eliminated, but we've improved massively from those dark days. Seems pretty defeatist from where we are now. I can see where you're coming from, although I think it's harsh to have World Cup Qualification as the benchmark. Qualifying for a European Championship should be the absolute minimum, but even once the World Cup expands it's likely to be a very tough task to get there as it always is from Europe. Not impossible, of course. Euro 2020 should be achievable, and from there our seedings should be good enough that we should be in a better group for 2022 qualifying than we've had in a while. But at the end of the day it's all cyclical. We're on the up from where we were a few years ago, but there's no telling how much further "up" it can go. Maybe losing in Slovenia was the peak, or maybe we're going to win our Nations League Group and then render it pointless by finishing top 2 in our qualifying group.

Those that are tearfully saying that we'll never amount to anything, or be "decent" again...genuine question, what is your barometer for success? What exactly would be "decent" in these cases in terms of what we can achieve?

That's all well and good to say, but you've just named four players who are absolutely fucking miles ahead of anything we have. Eden Hazard would be a Ballon D'Or winner if he wasn't in an era with two of the best players ever. Raheem Sterling is probably the weakest of the 4, but still a tremendous player. Mbappe will be the best in the World barring any sort of catastrophe, and Perisic is easily one of the best in his country. If there are players of that kind of quality in our ranks, they would be getting played. When this argument comes out people seem to forget that we tried to do it in one notable occasion. Oliver Burke. We brought him in while completely skipping the U21s, and had it worked out he would be an ever-present. Strangely enough, he was nowhere near ready, and now looks like he may well be the type to end up with single figure caps until a later age when he might be more ready.

The kick-off times were shite for me this time around. A few of the early games I managed to catch with some creative holidays and working from home, but the 4pm one was always difficult (picking the wee one up from nursery on days I was at home, and right across the commute when I wasn't). The 7pm one was almost as bad, missing the first half most nights, again because of the wee one. So basically, in hindsight don't have kids the year before a Russian World Cup. I'm dreading having a World Cup in a proper shit timezone. Qatar might not be so bad the way it's shaping up - 3 hours is not so bad, and I expect they'll shift things around to make it more "Western-friendly" anyway. The US one will likely be much worse with at least five hours difference. Presumably they'll try and schedule West Coast games for "early" in the day, but we're bound to get a few really late/early starts, at least in the group stage. Should all be done on GMT. b*****ds. On Qatar itself, for the tournament I'm actually looking forward to seeing what happens. It shouldn't be there, but nothing is going to change now. May as well see what the billions and billions they'll throw at it can achieve. Plus a Winter World Cup means it'll be similarly interesting to see what batshit stuff the football world comes up with to get around it.

We had an 11s game there cancelled because of that. One abandoned at Drumoyne because wee guys decided it'd be fun to shoot fireworks at the people playing.

East Kilbride fully licensed to replace the license for any SPFL clubs that aren't Rangers and Celtic. K park to be pre-order exclusive.

My parents still live in the house I grew up in, essentially right across the road from my old Primary School. In my day it was the proper red ash pitch, an absolute leveler, and I maintain the reason why our school was relatively shite against the other ones in the area, and definitely the reason why I can't slide tackle worth a shit. I've probably still got traces of the ash under my skin from the ridiculous spills I used to have most nights. As you say, we used to play up there whenever it was light. Only really needed 3 of us to go up, have a game of "records" and just boot a ball around. Often managed to get games of up to 20 people playing into the one goal while another group got the other half. It was just what we did when the weather wasn't shite, and the ash had turned into the Somme. Should also say that it was surrounded by the old squared off metal fences behind each goal, and said fences had the regular habit of partially collapsing, leaving sharp, hard-to-spot metal sheets pointing out onto the pitch. I ended up with a checkerboard of scratches after a particularly spirited run to the byline, and a friend's brother ended up with one particularly sharp piece entering his neck. Ah, those were the days. Anyway, I digress. A few years ago they changed the ash pitch to what looks like a tremendous 3G surface. Goals replaced, along with the fences. Thankfully it doesn't seem like they're too precious about access (gate to the school is usually open, and it's barely taller than me if it wasn't), but even still it's rare to see it as busy as it was in our day. My Dad says it gets there at times, but when I'm over, usually at weekends, you'll usually have a couple of kids up there, often with a parent. I'm not saying I wouldn't be the same when the wee man's older, in fact I'm looking forward to taking him up to where I used to score World Cup standard goals as the light began to fail and let him have a kick about, but there definitely doesn't seem to be the same attitude of just getting a ball and going out and playing.

Was talking a while back with a guy up at Powerleague. They used to lock their pitches overnight, which as a private business is fair enough. I'd be pretty annoyed if I'm charging the amounts they do for a pitch, and people are getting it for free when it isn't busy. They stopped locking them when every night they'd just get people smashing the doors up to get access. Now it seems to be that you can use the pitch as long as it's empty and you're not being a dick. It's pretty poor that it comes to that when they should just be able to find a bit of grass and play. However, it has become one of these cliches now. If we had green rolling fields that kids could play in, would it mean in 10-15 years we're far better than we are now (which isn't that bad)? It just seems like one of those easy things to point to, so that people can say something about it and have an opinion, so they can feel like they've contributed. We qualified for tournaments when all kids got was consumption for Christmas, and I doubt they really had the facilities that we could potentially have now. At the risk of sounding like the sort of person I've just talked about, I'd say the fact that kids aren't allowed to be kids now for fear that something will happen to them is more to blame. Not to say you just push them out the door until midnight and get pished, but there's definitely far more fear. No wonder kids are more interested in other pursuits when they're brought up being told that everything outside is dangerous and they should stay away from it. There needs to be some kind of middle ground.

Oh good, another thread where people who just fucking love being miserable can have a jolly big w**k over how "terrible" we are. Love these. When are we going to get the first "it cannae get any worse min" type post?

Or - shamelessly stolen from twitter - he hit him with a DDHeeeeHeee

I feel sorry for him actually. Well, as sorry as you can feel for a guy who went over to Portugal in the prime of his life and seems to be having a brilliant time. He showed some promise in his younger days, but like thousands of players before him he hasn't hit the heights perhaps he expected. Doesn't mean he won't still become a solid player, but it isn't his fault that Scotland supporters are so absolutely desperate to cling onto something that they hype players up to a ridiculous degree.

This. I could see him being an absolute stand-out player, strolling about with a cigar out being an absolute baller. But there's an equal chance that he'll get the shit kicked out of him, and we'll start seeing the same attitude that we saw last season. If he wants away, and someone's willing to take him, then punt him. And that's coming from someone who loves a player like him.

They had that story ready-made, but the way they've booked recently makes me think they'll avoid it. Having the Miz win at MITB, Bryan win the title at Summerslam and then be cashed in on would have set up a brilliant story leading in to him winning it at WM, but they've gone with Braun instead. It'll still have an incredible impact without the briefcase, but seems they've missed a huge opportunity just to put it on Big Burly Braunwin.

It should be quite worrying that on a network where the main selling point should be that you get these big PPV shows for a reasonable price, they're not even close to being the best overall product, or even the best in-ring product. NXT Takeovers are always better, and the 24 specials are probably some of the best content they've put together period. Would love them to make a couple more, don't think they've made a bad one yet.

What can he say, she been daughter. Was that not suggested to be a fake? Or was it Marty doing the suggesting in the quickest reverse in history?

Decent article though. Was surprised they didn't fall back into the usual sneery stuff when talking about it. Tried to give a fair and balanced account of it and give it some credit. Particularly the people involved for all they go through for entertainment.