Laivasse

In my experience with digital downloads, prices tend to swing between either extreme rather than decrease gradually as the game ages. I doubt you'll beat that €19.99 price even now, barring a Steam sale (which is where you might find FM2012 for like 80-90% off) or a physical purchase.

Judging by that YT vid someone posted, OGS looked pretty settled and excited about his future at Molde. Potentially a long way to fall and a lot of damage to be done to his rep if he were to come here. Would not only be a risky appointment for Lerner but also for OGS. Of course, this is all assuming he's not motivated solely by filthy lucre.

His entire defensive game seems based on last ditch tackles and throwing his body into shotstopping (as opposed to good positioning, physical size and strength, closing down early). There is a fine line between his style of defending looking acceptable and looking utter shit. His timing has become a bit worse than it was under MON, he doesn't have Milner tracking back through midfield (although Ireland does his best) and the defensive pairing covering his back have become much much worse - so despite the fact that his game hasn't changed much he looks WAY shitter. Then you get a cycle of damaged confidence and increased errors. With our threadbare squad I think he can still do a job for another year or so as long as we get in a good CB and a midfield enforcer to take the pressure off him. Lest we forget also, he used to overlap really well with Ash.

Disgrace.

QPR 2-1

10% of our attacks coming down the left (thanks to no N'Zog), no variety. We are so easy to defend against it sends teams to sleep.

Cuellar's brain's off enjoying the Spanish sun already.

Yeah, he sold them their second goal with a bad header and later got away with a bit of a ball-to-hand handball. Nobody looks arsed to play though, he isn't even standing out IMO.

'Sack McLeish' and the boos for whenever AMc emerges from the dugout all very audible. I thoroughly approve.

I thought Daniel Johnson was also involved in pretty much every good thing we did. Some of his crossing was the kind we've been crying out to see in the first team.

Decided by some bad pens and some good keeping from that Johnstone kid in the end. I thought Danny Johnson and Carruthers were our best performers. Disappointed in what Bannan and Gardner showed.

Even the commentator on MUTV is parroting the crap about McLeish not getting enough credit this season, something to do with having to work with several reserves in his first team

2008/09 - 37 appearances 2009/10 - 48 appearances 2010/11 - 16 appearances 2011/12 - 18 appearances It looks like he COULD get in the side in his first two seasons, during our years of utter failure when we twice limped into 6th place. For the past two seasons, he has struggled to find favour with our last two superb managers. They have improved the team's performances so much, I guess he just didn't have the quality to make the grade. :? Game, set, match. Hope a fair few people get behind this. Even if one makes a (wobbly) argument against his quality, he deserves a good send off for his professionalism, charisma and the fact that he's being let go instead of other poorer performers. There's no reason this needs to detract from anti-McLeish/anti-Lerner sentiment, since they are the ones making the decision not to renew Cuellar's contract. Wearing a Carlos mask won't stop anybody singing 'Sack McLeish, my lord'.

I started playing Alan Wake on PC. It's appeared on GOG.com for the equivalent of $15 and Steam also has a half-off sale. Really surprised by how great it looks, especially for a 2 year old console port. The combat is a little unwieldy and the lack of mid-episode save points is irritating, but it's got quite good atmosphere and the way it's broken up into episodes is a slick bit of presentation. Also I'm a big fan of a lot of the stuff they are clearly paying homage to, like David Lynch and Twin Peaks, Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, James Herbert's The Dark and so forth. I've heard some people say they failed to finish it because they put it down one day and then just neglected to ever return to it, so I'll have to wait and see if it commands my attention.

Going off that historical kits site it seems we've been in claret and blue since the inception of the Football League in 1887...? On top of that our very first kit, 13 years prior to that, was also C&B (including a snazzy blue yarmulke).

One of the poorer players from the shittest team in the league this season, a season that hasn't lacked shit teams. An uninspiring thug who's ineffective even in his thuggery. In other words, just McLeish's type of player.

Sad day. Bye bye Carlos, you'll be fondly remembered. All the best, good luck. The club is having a laugh if they think this will pan out as a cost cutting measure. I predict we'll spunk some wage money on a useless CB picked up on a Bosman, then realise he doesn't cut the mustard and so have to shore up the defence with a proper signing, spending more than we would have spent keeping Cuellar here.

It's not new, but I completed Bastion today. Great little indie game with lovely presentation and a very clever and well performed narrative voiceover, which responds dynamically to your in-game actions and progress. Gameplay is what I'd describe as arcade-action-RPG, from an isometric perspective. It's a fun little ride, completable in a day or two but also replayable. The story/world is fairly compelling, mostly thanks to the great narration and music, especially the catchy, emotional vocal pieces. If you haven't tried it have a look on XBLA and Steam, although you just missed a 60% off sale on the latter - well worth the €6 I got it for.

Shockingly bad performance and season. In the end it may turn out that flukey deflection off Gallas' head was all that kept this club in the Prem. Just end this season already, can't stand it. Cuellar MotM for solid defensive performance.

Shit, the way Weimann's lower leg shuddered in the slow mo didn't look good.

Dunne was having a good game until then, that's pure ring rust. Let's now hope they don't all have a Nervy B like has happened when we've conceded pens in the past.

Heskey miscontrols the ball and suddenly lots of calls for Zog to go off. Sure you guys just aren't watching a terrible stream?

Sometimes the game seems to punish you for over-reliance on the same tactic, which is why you need to keep the team familiarised with a couple of alternatives. Sometimes after you switch tactics and win a game, you get a press blurb along the lines of 'Manager Wiggyrichard really surprised everyone with his choice of a 4-2-3-1 instead of 4-4-2 formation, it was tactically too much for the opposition to deal with' or similar. Usually this only happens after using the same tactics for a looong time, however. Alternatively one or two of your key players might need an earbashing, or your squad might have grown complacent as a whole. If you're still winning but only scraping it, I suspect complacency.

That's the one. None of the gifs I've seen do it full justice, though, because they remove the first few seconds. For me it's all the more impressive because the ball doesn't touch the ground from the goal kick; Crouch heads it on to pennant, who heads it back, then you've got the lovely touch and the wondervolley. I would have my doubts over that strike were it not for the fact that Cisse has managed a couple of other sick, fluke-looking finishes this season (one against us). Time to start giving him the benefit of the doubt. Still, I reckon Crouch's was better, as I say.

When an apology is that half-baked I think it's better to issue no apology at all. It seems clear from the wording that none of them really believe they did anything wrong. There's the suggestion of some incident occurring inside the club. The apologies should either be unreserved and not reference this at all, or there should be no apology issued (from Delph and Collins at least) in an attempt to silently communicate the fact that the players were provoked. This kind of mealy-mouthed half-apology from all of them just makes them look stroppy on all fronts. Waste of words.