Hobsons Choice

Noone wants to be there it seems. I kind of feel bad for Kane as it's his 100th cap.

God these Finnish tactics. 11 men in the penalty box then.

It really is. Stadium is half empty. Hopefully a goal will liven things up.

Not a physically imposing DM is he. He's done OK so far but I've never seen him play before. Onana could use him as a toothpick.

The only time I've seen Lewis play was for England and he was cack. Can someone who's actually seen him play for his club say if he's any good? Seems like he's being groomed for the Seniors.

Konsa playing OK at present. Not had much to do though. 11 men behind the ball by Finland.

Jack and Gordon running the show again.

Not sure if being facetious but England do, yeah.

Anyone watching? Not many watching at Wembley. Started pretty well I reckon.

I admit I'm no accountant, but given that our turnover last year was in the region of £240M, I'm not sure it's entirely wise to send a message to loyal fans that he's happy to price gouge them to increase our turnover by, what, 0.017% over the 4 games (based on figures for additional income posted on this thread)? There's being prudent, and there is being a ruthless disloyal penny pincher. And I'm not sure this is prudent.

Push through it, partner. It's like they wanted to weed out the weak when putting that rubbish stuff at the start. Great story throughout but yeah, snow indeed sucks.

Did you ever go in Marisco's or the Red Barn in Woolacombe. Like second homes they were.

Yeah we stopped going back a little while ago. We'd all held fantasies of moving to Croyde, but now every house in the village goes for eye watering sums of money. It's quite up itself now.

Ooh Ilfracombe. Nice! I spent a good portion of my formative years surfing and getting drunk around the headland in Croyde and Woolacombe. Awesome part of the world.

Whoa, whoa, so an appropriate response to a perceived insult is to assault them? That's mental. In his words: "I'd waited long enough. I f***ing hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you c***". "There are things I regret in my life and He's [Haaland] not one of them". "Did I go to hurt players? Of course I did. I'd never apologise for that". Nah, nah, I'm not having Keane as a scally, he's a villain.

I mean none of them were good role models. I'm not letting Keane off from trying to end a player's career though. Point was that understanding what you've done and trying to atone for it has got to be worth something.

Everyone knows Bellamy's past, but it seems from what I've read that he's had to confront some of his demons, and he's been vocal in how he has done this and matured. IMO if you can do that it speaks volumes about character, and is deserving of a second chance. Contrast that with, say, Keane, who does not appear to have ever confronted or contemplated his negative character traits, or some of the crappy things he's done. Similarly Barton, who is a dyed in the wool douchecanoe. No, I have time for Bellamy.

Oh hell yeah.

In fairness we've just kicked off a PL season, and even if any of the player's had not been told by their club bosses to take it easy in the Nations League after the result was no longer in doubt, they would be constantly thinking 'don't get injured, don't get injured, don't get injured'.

You can what now? This needs investigating.

I don't really have as much of a problem with the issues that FM 25 has been having, compared to, say, EA Sports. The development time frame is tough, no doubt, and protecting the budget likely also so. But I really get the sense that, and I think it comes across in the last update, that these are decent folks trying to make the best game possible. Switching engine was never going to be easy, but it's ambitious. Notably absent from FM has been microtransactions. I think if you look at the implementation of microtransactions you can really see who the greedy developers are. When you look at how little has changed in EA Sports/Fifa over the last 10 years, and how they have deliberately paid only lip service to offline players so they can gouge away with Ultimate Team, SI seem infinitely more respectful of their customer base, and for that I'm gonna support them. This superficial microtransaction BS is a fad. It will fall apart because that's what always happens when you mug off your customers. If SI play it right, when that happens they'll still be standing when others crumble. Edit. Also worth pointing out that SI has a staff of 245 or so, and EA has 13,500 employees. So yeah, more leeway given.

Bought Pavlov on PSVR 2 and I'm having lots of fun with it. There's supposedly a game in there somewhere, but I just spent 2 hours dicking about in the shooting range and practice run. It's immensely satisfying.

Was it ever in doubt? The level design of the original was up there with Mario in my opinion. It's on my wishlist for sure.

We've kind of dropped into 2nd gear at the minute. I know no-one really gives a toss about the nations league but we could do with knocking it up a notch here.

The side looks better balanced as well. It's a fairly standard set up, but with the players we have we don't necessarily have to reinvent football. Why did we need to play Trent as DM? It was fiddling for fiddling sake just to become as defensive as possible. Plus, I'm just delighted there is something of the old Jack still in there.