forameus

Yeah, I think that's the one big frontier they have left to go after, but like you say, it's not an easy one. They tried it previously with FML, and I think that ended up actually being a good product with just a few key flaws that dragged it down and ultimately killed it. Unfortunately SI seem to have gotten burned bad from that, so I doubt they'll have too much appetite to return to that space. Which is a shame because if they got it right, they'd be printing money.

From everything that's come out, it seems like it'd be extremely harsh to punt anyone that wasn't Punk and Steel. It really doesn't sound like they did much, simply took offence to being publicly called out. I expect the entire Elite will eventually be back. We've probably also not seen the best of Omega in AEW, perhaps ever, but definitely not for a long time. Supposedly he was absolutely broken going into the lead up to losing the title to Hangman, and I doubt he was totally 100% when they brought him back for this run. He could probably do with this enforced rest, get properly ready, then come back for a proper run.

This aged...well, just about as well as expected.

That was an absolute riding. Queens started the better, but then seemed to retreat a fair bit for about 10 minutes. However, all we could manage was booting the ball directly at anyone in black and white, so not too much of a threat. Even when handed a penalty, we still f**k it up. But once Queens got that bit of luck, only ever going to be one winner as we put in an absolutely breathtakingly bad performance. Really quite something. I don't think even a single thing we tried went right, summed up by two things at the end - shinning what was a hopeful cross straight to them for their 4th, and that fresh air shot we had. Was Tiffoney feeling some kind of injury in the first half? There were a few occasions where he seemed to not be interested in doing much at all, shiting out of 60/40 balls he really should have been going for. But then would turn it back on randomly and look like something approaching what he's capable of. Weird to send him out for the 2nd if he was feeling it though, given he lasted what seemed to be about 30 seconds.

Vince era WWE often completely fell apart the longer the gap was between shows, wonder how Trips will manage it.

I think the first AEW content I ever watched was a Battle Royal. In it, Orange Cassidy was in the midst of his gimmick, and just lay on the apron, and I believe Jungle Boy was pretending to be a monkey and pretending to pick bugs off Luchasaurus. I remember thinking "is this what everyone's raving about?", it seemed absolute garbage. Fair to say I was wrong in that, or at least it's gotten significantly better. And those two that seemed like gimmick characters I'd never enjoy had great nights last night. I still think the Jungle Boy stuff hasn't been handled as well as it could have been, and they could have really had one of those properly brilliant emotional storylines if they'd handled it a bit better (although Christian's injury properly fucked it too, can't help that). But Orange Cassidy has definitely grown on me. The shtick is a lot less grating, and it's been toned down enough to let him show that he really is very good at this stuff. Good to see him getting a title, and Pac made him look absolutely brilliant. One other thing, I think they're perhaps leaning a little too much into having camera cuts to MJF every few seconds, but he keeps delivering on each one. Interesting to see where they go with the "I don't even like me" stuff, and the weird relationship with the Firm. They seem to attempt to move him slightly towards the centre every so often, then shite it and have him go back to normal. f**k is he good though.

I like those comments from Steve Clarke. They're fairly obvious of course, but always good to hear them anyway. f**k the playoffs, we want to go through on our own merit. And f**k Georgia, let's put that to bed. Good stuff.

Really looking forward to that trudge home from Hampden at about half 10 on a Sunday night in November after watching Haaland score a 99th minute winner to consign us to the playoffs before teabagging the first few fans he can find. Good to see a decent kick-off time on a Saturday though, even if it does give flashbacks to that Serbia game where we were fucking woeful. Then so far, so UEFA with 2 Tuesday nights. Spain one should be a great atmosphere though, particularly if we've gotten a promising result against Cyprus. Quite a good time to get that Spain game too, they'll have to sit out the Summer dates for their Nations League games, so if they are to drop points early, I don't want to be the team facing them in the Autumn.

That pop man. Already makes him feel like a million bucks. Obviously it's early days, and they could easily f**k it up tonight on RAW, but I like how they've presented him so far. The new mask just made it look like he's Fiend Part 2, but just the act of taking off the mask makes it feel like the character won't suffer from the same problems the Fiend had. If they manage to pitch it halfway between Cult Leader Bray and Fiend, it could be brilliant. As for the show itself, I want to award every Oscar in the world to Michael Cole for his hysterical performance during Balor/Edge. Genuinely thought he was going to burst into tears at a few points.

Also, sickening to see another one of those weirdos who insists on wearing a football top whenever they're going to be on TV with the red and yellow on front row yesterday. Guys next to him put masks on later in the show, so can only assume he was bogging.

This seems to be the story currently going around, that Sammy didn't really do anything and Andrade waited for and attacked him. Maybe a trying to get fired sort of deal. General consensus amongst Wrestling Reddit seems to now be that Sammy didn't do anything wrong, can't do anything wrong, and anyone who says so is a c**t. Until the next story comes out. If that is the case though and Andrade is trying to get fired...well, it's a bit thick isn't it? If you're WWE, do you really want to take him back? I don't think he's that much of a get at the best of times, but off the back of going after a coworker you can't really see the corporate machine being too happy to bring him back. While obviously the olden days pish seems a bit archaic now...wouldn't something like that actually help here? It's much better now that most wrestlers would probably rather head to their hotel room and play Mario Kart on Twitch, but it seems like that just leads those that are headcases to just get to do whatever they want. They could really do with someone on the roster to look up to and respect who can show them that that's not the way to behave. Not knock f**k out of them, times have moved on, but there doesn't seem to be any checks and balances at any level, management or otherwise to handle anyone acting like that.

Oh, so these two guys - at least one of which has history of trouble - have been jawing at each other over Twitter? Aye, just let them wander into each other's path at the office, I'm sure nothing could go wrong there, in AEW of all places... I think Khan did a great job in the aftermath of the Brawl Out at All Out, but clearly he hasn't learned too much. This time they send one guy home and let the other hateful wee c**t get the pin in the main event. Is it really that hard to get all the talent in a room and ask them not to go on Twitter and post like a stay-at-home maw? And if they really can't manage that, maybe organise your workplace so they're not scrapping in every hallway? They need to be careful here - not like it's going to bring the company down or anything, but they are doing so much right pretty much every week now. They can't afford to let that all be brought down by fights, and particularly not by Sammy Fucking Guevara. EDIT: And now here comes "journalism" with the conflicting stories. Big Dave Meltzer reckons Sammy didn't throw a punch and got Kevin Keegan'd, and "4 out of 5 people" agreed. I expect some other guy will be along soon to say something different.

I'll give it a shot, but no doubt I'll miss something so please feel free to fill in. The AEW specific stuff started during a promo between Hangman Page and Punk, where the former referenced worker's rights. Stories went around at the time that Punk felt this was too close to the bone, and a reference to his well publicised feud with Colt Cabana. At the end of the feud, Punk wins the title, and then the next Dynamite decides it'd be a brilliant idea to leap into the crowd. He breaks something (his foot I believe), leading to him having to relinquish the title. He spends the time out seemingly absolute seething. He eventually returns, and things seem a wee bit off with him. In his first promo, he seems to go off script and calls out Hangman Page, presumably knowing that there's no plans for him to come out, so he can shit on him and call him a coward. He turns attention to Moxley, and the promos seem particularly p***kly, although AEW do like to blend those lines. At the time they seemed great, but in hindsight, seems like he's just generally pissed off. He gets squashed on Dynamite in a weird decision, booked to reinjure himself, then cuts a maudlin going away promo the next week. Gets interrupted by Ace Steel (more on him later) and gets a rah rah speech. 1 minute later and he's up in the crowd saying how he's going to win the title with a mad look in his eyes. Cut to the PPV, and we get the match that it seems like we should've always got. He wins the title, and then the fun begins. Turns out during the match he tore a tricep muscle, and you can see around the moment it happens. he's on the outside testing it out, and clearly knows something pretty serious is up. It also seems like he realises that he'll have to vacate the title and go away again for a while, so perhaps believes that this is his one chance to really air his grievances. He turns up at the post-show media scrum and sits next to Tony Khan, bringing out a 6 pack of some kind of drink and a box of muffins. He's spent months away seething on what Hangman said, and the whole stuff with Cabana, so he's chosen tonight to get that all off his chest in a completely constructive and not at all fucking mental way, whilst still visibly bleeding from the match. He starts out calling out one particular journalist who he believes is friends with Colt Cabana. When he says he isn't, Punk decides to go ahead anyway with a diatribe about him, including how he shares a bank account with his mother. Tony Khan's visible discomfort level seems to be around an 8 at this point He then starts off on the EVPs in the company - so the Elite and friends - and starts shitting on them. Tony tries to intervene, but is cut off aggressively by Punk. The visible discomfort level pushes off the top of the scale now. While audibly eating muffins into the mic, Punk has another few goes at anyone who has wronged him while Tony Khan quietly fashions a noose in the background. the scrum is seemingly supposed to finish with Khan handing the belt and posing for a photo. Punk takes it and walks off in one final f**k you to his paymaster. From here it becomes a bit he said/she said seemingly as there's different courses of events. It's still under legal investigations and everyone's still suspended, but the truth seems to be that clearly the Bucks and Kenny Omega took a bit of offence to being publicly shat on, so they went to have it out with Punk verbally, taking the head of legal in AEW with them to his dressing room. Something happened that set things off, and Punk sucker punched one of the Bucks. Ace Steel then bit Kenny Omega and pulled his hair (possibly while Omega was trying to save Punk's dog by some accounts) and a scuffle breaks out. Next Wednesday, Tony actually realises he needs to grow a pair and not look like a complete dildo and strips the Elite of the Trios titles, Punk of the World Title, and organises tournaments. Since then there's been little mention of anyone involved. Punk would've been gone anyway with the injury, but it's hard to see a way back for him with how unprofessional he's been. He also seems to have changed his story on the fight from "the Elite broke down the door and I thought they were going to kill me, so I started blastin'" to "yeah, they didn't break down the door, but I hit 'em anyway". I expect the Elite will rest up and ultimately come back as they don't seem to have done much wrong, but I think Punk is done.

I agree on the normal games, was just pointing to how utterly shambolic the approach was for the Ukraine game. People talked about forfeiting it, and were rightly laughed at, but in the end we may as fucking well have with the fawning pish we managed, and I fully believe it affected the players at the end of a long, long season. We offered a fucking poll at half time on "lion of the match" to choose which of their players (who were easily beating us at the time) was the best. One team turned up ready to actually play and win a game of football, and it wasn't us. We didn't stand a chance.

I've never got this either. I could kind of understand it back in the day where you maybe got to see a handful of matches for players, and calling them up and playing them was probably your best chance to get a feel for how they are. Nowadays though, Steve Clarke and his team can probably pull up a million different curated examples on each player on demand, with pages and pages of VL stats. How much extra are you really going to gain by putting that keeper in for a meaningless friendly? If he makes a mistake, do we just treat that as a sign he's shite? If he plays a blinder do we never choose another one? Pick the best keeper that's available when you're due to pick your team. That's it.

I'd argue it'd be incredibly harsh to do so for that given the entire approach from everyone involved in that game was an absolute travesty.

I didn't say that, I just said specific aims for each cycle. I'd expect for the Euros we should now be qualifying each time, but for the World Cup the playoffs are probably a realistic aim with qualification as a stretch objective. Obviously within that there's nuance and it isn't that simple, but I think with our current position, we're likely not going to be getting to the Euros with a poor qualifying campaign, short of every other nation in the group having a complete shitemare. The point is just to not hand out long 4+ year contracts to managers if they're going to turn around after 2 and be a disaster. I don't think offering a rolling-ish 2 year contract is that much of a shift, and allows us to be a bit more flexible than we've been in the past. Personally I think that's kind of where we've gone wrong in the past. Leaving a manager hanging on so that we end up punting him in some weird halfway area where there's f**k all chance of achieving anything in the current campaign. I know you can argue that it gives them more time to put a plan in place for when it matters, but I'm not sure that ever materialises. Campaigns seem long given the spell of time they take up, but it's really not too many games. To actually turn things around, you'd likely have to act after the first two games, and that's not going to happen. Clarke will - and should - get this entire campaign regardless of what happens. Once a result is guaranteed, then we can either start talking about a new contract if he wants it, or what's next

It was weird with Strachan. They probably should have got rid of him after the campaign you spoke of. We didn't really look like we were going anywhere, and like you say we'd thrown away probably the best chance we'd ever had to qualify (that was the first year of the expanded Euros I believe). Although having Poland and Germany in the group was tough, there was absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have finished 3rd. He shat it in Dublin, and Ireland did enough. After that I seem to remember it was a pretty popular decision for him to GTF, but they kept him on. Then the 2018 campaign was arguably better. Started horrendously with four points from four games, but we finished so, so strongly and came up just short. At that point he was probably in a stronger position than 2 years previously, and maybe could feel slightly hard done by to go. Still, on balance the right decision, although at a slightly unfair time. I'd be very keen for our managers to just be given contracts that end after each tournament summer, so just the two and a bit years. Not to say that if we don't qualify it's a firing, but we should have a list of targets each candidate needs to meet, and if they don't meet those we shouldn't be hanging around to limit the potential of the next guy. For Clarke and the next two years though, if he doesn't reach Euro 2024, it's going to take a very brave and patient board not to let him go. If we don't make it, we'll have fucked a pot 2 spot in a qualifying group AND a playoff. That's unlikely at this stage, but that doesn't mean it's impossible, and we shouldn't just be handing out extensions when it could still go horribly wrong. If we hit the end of next year and we've qualified automatically, by all means talk about an extension. Or if we get there via the playoffs the next March, go for it. We've been too guilty in the past of handing out weird extensions at weird times, and hanging onto failing managers too long. Let's be a bit more ruthless and make our managers earn their next go at it if they want it.

If someone is being poached by another country and wants to choose them rather than potentially wait on us, let them go. At this stage with the settled squad we have I'd rather everyone was truly dedicated to representing us. And to be honest, "trapping" people into representing us early so they can't leave and then perhaps realising they're not good enough and punting them probably won't endear us to more youngsters down the line who might be needing to make the same decision. If they're good enough now, by all means get them in. We're far from "f**k it, may as well" territory with regards to picking players.

Did we really give Robbie Muirhead enough grief while he was here to deserve that celebration for his goal? Great hit, but seemed a bit needless, and ended up ageing poorly. Although having said that, at least we don't get the fucking hands-across-the-divide non-celebration stuff against clubs players have driven past once.

It's such a sad fucking story around her. Brought into the business at a startlingly young age, shot to superstardom by WWE really early, all the injury problems, all the personal issues, Del Rio, this new guy...she seems like she needs time away from everyone and everything.

That was me, and more because it seemed like the sort of shit that'd actually interest the governing bodies and be marketable. If it's the Euros you're fine, but for World Cups it should still be somewhere in Europe ideally, probably at a random draw of one of the top tier sides in the Nations League. Agree that Qatar would be stupid.

Yeah, that Saraya stuff was awful. Still not immediately clear what she's there to do. Seems like they're not quite sure themselves whether she's going to be wrestling, as they're deliberately vague about what her role is. She could still be valuable to them if she's not cleared, but whatever happens, she needs to improve on last night. Like the Sheriff says, Britt rhymes with Shit is the sort of stuff WWE would have put out in the dark days, just with added swearing. I will never stop popping for MJF jovially referring to Schiavone as a fat piece of shit though. Delivery is superb.

The rest seems fair enough, but the bolded is a must for me. I'd hold the finals tournament and the playoffs in the same country in the March prior to the tournament, maybe even in the same country the tournament is going to be at in the summer. Make it into a proper event, with the top sides playing out their lifeless friendlies and the diddies fighting it out for those last places. The home advantage stuff just carries far, far too much weight to be truly fair. I'm not sure getting a better record over 6 games against 3 different nations should really give you home advantage in the semi, but that's at least based on something. The final venue being a coin toss is nonsense.

I see what you mean, but we don't even need to be top 12, we just need to be top 3 in our group. We could be 15th best in Europe going by the Nations League and it's fine as long as the 16th is in our group*. Shitfest our way to 4 points against the next worst team in the group and we're golden. Even going down isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as it's not 6 demoralising houndings. * Mathematically probably isn't true *shrug*