Laivasse

The rules are really ridiculously complicated. The head to head has to be worked out in a 3-way fashion as 3 teams are on 5pts as it stands. All of them drew, therefore it comes down to head to head GD which is also even for the same reason. However, Italy got a 1-1 draw against both Croatia and Spain so they have scored the most in the 3 games between these teams (as it stands) and they go through top. Since Spain and Croatia are inseparable so far, it goes down to the next criterion which is overall GD. Spain go through in 2nd. ...As far as I understand it. It goes on the head-to-head mini group. Italy have 2 goals in 2 draws. Spain and Croatia only have 1 goal in the 2 draws as things stand. So if Spain and Croatia drew 1-1 and Italy won 1-0 Italy would be out?? Yes, I think so.

Hang on a minute, everybody is saying that Greece and Russia go through as things stand but that doesn't make sense to me. Since it'll be a three way tie between Czech Rep, Russia and Greece atm, the first decider that is used is 'Higher number of points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question'. EDIT : got my results muddled. Ugh. So I guess it goes down to GD and Czech have been ruined by that 1-4 result against Russia.

Constantly cutting inside and shooting from 20+ yards as Robben has done this tournament is not the harshest test of a fullback. It wasn't just Nani running at him that caused him problems either, I thought his ball retention was poor and he just overall had a shaky game, in contrast to most of the other Danish players who had really solid ones. Probably could have done more to block the Portuguese winning goal too.

What's up with Prom Queen Robben? Somebody spill coca cola on his dress?

The Germans got complacent. They should have had this match dead and buried considering how out of sorts the Dutch have been for 75 minutes.

Sneijder's lucky not to be booked for dissent, he's screaming in the ref's face for every decision he doesn't get.

Wow, entire Dutch team carved apart by Hummels there. None of them even looked interested in closing him down.

Stood out only as Denmark's worst player tonight. Flattered to deceive for 10 minutes then went on to have a total 'mare against Nani and anyone who attacked that flank.

Denmark were very poor after the equaliser. Couldn't string two passes together and went to hide in their own area. Hard to feel sorry for them.

Decent game, though it never ceases to surprise me what dirty players the Portuguese are. And what's with this ref stopping play all the time for clearly non-serious 'injuries'? There's no bigger incentive for simulation.

Ibra looks well up for this.

I think Ox has shown flashes of talent, Young for me is the big underperformer in this game. Once again proving what he's like in the number 10 role.

Still playing the hell out of Max Payne 3 despite completing it once already. I find the gunplay addictive as hell, although the cutscenes really slow up any attempt to replay it. When I'm not in the mood I tootle around in LA Noire, which came free with the MP3 preorder. Very flawed game, particularly in interviews, but I enjoy it and like what they were aiming to create. Playing it in B&W for the atmos, since I recently also went on a film noir binge of about a dozen films from the 40's-50's. Many of those films are advertised outside cinemas in the game, incidentally, which was a nice little easter egg.

I came here specifically to make a post about this so it was good to already see one. Any one of Limbo, Amnesia, Psychonauts or Superbrothers would be ridiculous to pass up in a pay-what-you-want deal, but all of them together, plus Bastion if you match the (current) $7.60 average, really is like the best little bundle you're likely to see. I mentioned before how I liked Bastion , but Psychonauts is one of my favourite games ever and Amnesia is that game everyone always mentions when they talk about survival horror games. Limbo is just a couple of hours long but is a fun little puzzle-platformer, with a really memorable black humorous atmosphere that stays with you. I didn't have Superbrothers so I paid $1 to have it on Steam (you need to pay $1 to get a Steam code, otherwise it's just a direct download option). Also FYI the average is only increasing as time goes on, so if you want Bastion it's better not to wait until the last minute chewing it over.

How does Cheikh M'Bengue look for you?

Even as someone who doesn't have much respect for US football, it felt obvious to me that Bradley really could do a job for us. He fell prey to the early Ireland-syndrome where, since he wasn't pulling up trees and turning around our dire performances single handed, he was consigned to the scrapheap way too early.

Agreed with the people who say we've been played. Considering how strongly embedded OGS looked in that Molde job, his 'come and get me' type mutterings make most sense as a manoeuvre to pry a better deal out of his bosses there. I would be surprised if coming over to us was ever really part of his plans.

Says the conference has been postponed until 1700 (4pm GMT I think)?

Spot on. Money talks, certainly, but precisely because of how OGS looked at Molde I had big doubts all along that we would ever succeed in poaching this guy.

The original AvP on PC, from 1999, was superb IMO. If there was a weakness it was in the predator campaign, which was ridiculously tough since your weapons were so slow and your invisibility was useless against aliens. The marine and alien campaigns were great though, as was the multiplayer. Still very few FPS experiences compare to my memories of being in a pitch dark tunnel, defending myself against endless aliens using the motion tracker and the auto-aim on the smartgun, as acid splashed all over the walls and ceiling. It even had volumetric explosions, something I discovered by accident when I fired off a rocket launcher in a confined space and the fireball ballooned down the corridor to meet me. My expectations for this new game couldn't be much lower, so at least I can't be disappointed.

In my experience if you're repeatedly going into games with players at about 94% conditioning or under, they're going to play like they're jaded. If you don't have the squad depth, you can give the players a couple of days rest from training to get a last minute boost of their condition. Only other thing for it is to throw the cup games, using your kiddies and no-hopers. On earlier FMs I eventually took charge of my Reserve and Youth games personally - this slows down your career massively but it gives you a much better idea of who in your lower ranks have hidden potential, and how they might fit in as backup. I had a 16 year old goal poacher whose stats and coach ratings gave no hint of him being much good. Seeing him close up showed me he was a handy dribbler with damaging pace, so I used him in cup runs and he scored 6 in 8, usually in dramatic last minute fashion.

Hm, strange one. Shouldn't be possible to have different attributes since you're starting from the same db. I would say if you're reading his position from the 'Position' column in his general info or from his general heading/summary, that's sometimes unreliable anyway. It barely distinguishes between 'Natural' and 'Accomplished' positions and doesn't list every one. For instance, I have a player who is a natural AMC and MC, but under the positions column it reads 'AMC, DM' despite the fact that he is only 'Accomplished' at DM. So it could be that Lichaj is a Natural DR and Accomplished DL, but the 'DL' only shows up in the Positions column under certain mysterious conditions. FM2012 presents this info better than in past versions but still the only really reliable in-game positional info is in the Positions tab. Only way to be sure is check the editor for his precise hidden positional attributes. It could be that if you're not starting a game as Villa, scouting might be required to discover that Lichaj is Accomplished at DL.

What's premier league experience got to do with it? Randy mad Faulkner were lambasted for wanting that as a criteria. They were mostly lambasted for taking two relegations as an acceptable level of top flight experience.

Simply put, players can either adapt or get rusty, based on time played in certain positions (as well as positional training). It's a frequent occurrence for me that a player with 2 or more bright green 'natural' positions (on the positions tab) will lose one and have it turn dull green because I don't play him there often enough. On the flipside I've had players go up a grade, say from 'awkward' to 'competent' without my having to retrain them, just because a manager stuck them in that position on international duty - you should get a little inbox message when that happens, something like 'X says he now feels comfortable playing [wherever] having put in enough hours there'. Adapting players to different positions is one part of the game I'm terrible at though. I can almost never get them back to 'natural' in a position once they lose that bright green circle, and positional retraining just seems to take too long to be of any use to me. I don't know, maybe I just have a set of players with really low adaptability.

This is a hard one to call for me. I like OGS' personality and everything I've seen of him as a manager suggests he's got quality. Still, these little behind the scenes segments you see of managers are always carefully crafted for PR. For example, before the championship playoff yesterday, they had a little feature on Fat Sam's techniques that made him look like a Ferguson-tier tactical mastermind of attacking football. In spite of everything I knew, it almost had me fooled right up until kickoff, after which West Ham were under the cosh most of the game. This club is still quite precariously poised atm, despite all the feelgood factor of ditching McLeish and being linked to some half-decent managers. Solksjaer would have been a risk I could fully get behind maybe after MON or Houllier, but Lambert might be the safer pair of hands if next season starts out rough. Then again, Solksjaer might have the potential to take us higher than Lambert if he can keep morale high, I feel. 50/50 for me. I won't be disappointed in either one at this stage though.