Laivasse

Quality move by Collins, Hutton and Ireland. Didn't think I'd ever type a sentence like that with those first two names in it.

They're clearly reinvigorated.

It's justified relief, because everyone - including a lot of fans, the media, even the manager - tries to tell us the squad is shit and we deserve to be where we are, whereas this is strong evidence to the contrary.

Our players are smiling when they miss because they know their ideas were good, regardless. Says it all about this half. Need to be a little sharper and more ruthless, just to put this game out of sight.

Look at that tackle from Cuellar. He sweats pure testosterone. And just as I say that Hoilett misses a dangerous one.

Ireland's first bad touch? Commentator is blaming Gabby for not being aware but I think Ireland was a little too generous - tried to feed Gabby when Gabby (and I) expected Ireland to just shoot.

Even Warnock's close control is looking amazing. Am I dreaming?

Unlucky Ireland, great turn though. Now imagine the game if he and Zog hadn't started.

Petrov, that wasn't far off being a screamer. Blackburn are so, so bad. No way we should have to be contemplating a relegation scrap with this lot in the first place. Our lads are seriously 15th best in the league? Not many managers who could be doing better? Joke.

Ireland and Zog really look like they're on the same wavelength. N'Zog, a selfish player, nevertheless looks to pass to Ireland even when it isn't on.

**** me, what a goal. I hope nobody ever slags off Cuellar on these forums again.

Alby is overegging it a bit, couple of signs of trying too hard.

I 'missed' WoW but tried several free-to-play MMOs as well as Eve Online afterwards. Actually, 'tried' doesn't do it justice - I sank hundreds of hours into games like Eve and Emil Chronicle Online (look that one up if you want to laugh at me). But they didn't feel like enjoyable games at all, more like comforting habits. So, having now ditched all MMOs, I look back on WoW and its ilk and feel like I didn't miss anything at all. Guild Wars 2 is looking sort of tempting though...

I feel like I missed out on the Mario series. I was a Sega fanboy as a kid and the Sonic games held a lot of wonder for me, but then I'd peek into enemy territory and see people playing the Mario games and think 'wow, that looks even better'. Particularly when my cousins first got a SNES and fired up Super Mario World, my jaw dropped. For one reason or another though I never got to play more than a few minutes of any Mario game right up until I played through Mario Sunshine on a communal Gamecube - loved it, even though I later learnt it was much derided by Mario fans. How good must the other games be if the worst was that much fun?? Then there was Mario kart, in its 16 bit incarnation - another one a cruel friend waved under my nose for a few minutes before switching the cartridge. Hell, I just missed out on the SNES and Nintendo in general. Many of my favourite gaming moments have been on Gamecube and N64 even though I never owned either one, and nowadays I continue to miss out on stuff like Mario Galaxy. Trying to make amends with the aid of a certain Dolphin I also completely skipped over the noughties craze for browny-grey, gritty FPSes with either cover-based shooting or ironsights, be it of the WW2, 'modern warfare' or spacemarine varieties. I felt like nothing from those categories ever appealed to me, yet the popularity and persistence of a few of the franchises has led to the growing feeling that I'm 'missing out' despite that. I felt like I was missing out on footie management games too until I took the plunge a year or two ago and haven't looked back Similar experience with racing games. As a console kid, PCRPGs like Fallout and Daggerfall were something I felt like I was missing out on until around the turn of the millenium until I got a computer and turned myself into a diehard. EDIT: um, whoever decided that a word filter swapping G.C for AMcL was a good idea, certainly made it potentially very confusing to talk about the Gamecube I feel like I'm missing out with the GC, but in a very different way

I think this is the best team we can put out. I look at it and feel the confidence welling up, then I think about what we've done up to this point and I feel it welling back down. Wish AMc would well right off.

I think I remember another pundit saying the Wigan game was one of the worst they'd had to watch. And who was it who took the piss out of the Everton game off-mic, audibly suggesting they put together a highlights reel of the worst passes? We seem to be getting a fair bit of that this season, I wonder what's causing it.

I don't like to put FF7 on a pedestal and I haven't played XIII, but I find the 'A to B' thing about VII to be unfair, certainly in comparison to what I've read about XIII. Aside for the arguments you mention in favour of VII's map, there are points where the game world opens up and gives you multiple choices of location - including optional sidequests/characters, locations which only become quest-critical later on and easter eggs for visiting old locations. Even in the moments when the world map is just a corridor from A to B in disguise, part of the fun is plugging around, let's say in the Tiny bronco, and discovering exactly where 'B' is for the first time. Certainly FF7&onward weren't exactly the first port of call for players seeking non-linearity, but while not exactly Fallout or Baldur's Gate, they weren't like HL2 either.

I think the happy medium is the state that Gamestop exists in but it doesn't stop them getting moaned at in the States. The industry blows a lot of hot air regarding the practices of physical retailers but that's only because publishers are always trying to find a scapegoat for their failure to achieve that mythical maximum profit margin. Should they get their wish and eliminate the used games market (as some insiders have said they'd like to do), they might soon see their whole chocolate palace melt around their ears. The used market creates cashflow for people who buy new; it gives gamers a cheaper first taste of franchises they later will pay premium for; it creates customers for DLC (on the used titles); it creates a price point for people who can't afford every triple-A title; second hand availability tempts people to buy the consoles themselves, expanding the customer base; and it makes money for retailers who open more stores and sell, guess what, millions of new full price titles. No need to even go into the whole consumer rights aspect... People have been trading second hand since before Mario got bum-fluff on his lip - nowadays the games industry is worth billions and we're expected to believe retailers are screwing over publishers somehow? I don't buy it. As for why GAME has done so much worse than their US counterpart, that beats me. Some bad decision making somewhere along the line, I assume.

Maybe both sets of fans can chant for the opposing manager to be sacked, in sympathy.

I wouldn't sell Gamestop short. They are absolutely massive in the US despite all publishers hating their guts for making huge money off of used game sales. According to this they traded $3bn in the two months over Xmas and it also confirms they are interested in acquiring GAME. I'm not sure that supermarkets would be able to step into the used games market in the same way.

Watch our defence pass then watch Hutton. He certainly not brilliant but he is the most comfortable with the ball and is able to pass on the ground confidently. His crosses in the air however, are shit. His passing is nothing special and tends toward the safe side, which would be fine if he was a CB but he's supposed to be providing some attacking threat. I wouldn't say he's a noticeably better passer than Clark. Cuellar is at least as good. Warnock, when he isn't playing like he has a gun aimed at him, is also a better passer; I can't really envisage Hutton pulling off any of the intricate overlap work that Warnock used to do with A. Young, when we had our purple patches under MON.

I don't know anything of the background behind this but I suppose it's publisher squabbles. Surely it can't be a coincidence that some of the stock problems are with two of the biggest arsehole publishers around, Ubi and EA, who each have rather... bold attitudes (always-on DRM, microtransactions on a huge scale, making features unavailable in second-hand copies, Origin exclusivity). The decisions not to stock could have come from either side, though, I suppose. Could be EA whining about the in-store sale of used games, could be GAME not wanting to sell stuff which they see as promoting a competitor (ie. EA's digital delivery platform). Retailer/publisher squabbles over the latter have happened in the past. I wouldn't worry about bricks-and-mortar retailers vanishing just yet. Even if GAME goes under some burgeoning company like Gamestop will fill the gap.

I think I'll go with not.

^Budum tss To emphasise your point, which is a solid one, I'll add that Gabby assisted both Bent's goals against Norwich and scored one of his own, in a game we won by one goal. Under McLeish's tactics, Bent is, in theory, not irreplaceable. However, I disagree with your bottom line that we won't miss him. I think Gabby's either too injured or too demoralised to recapture his form, Heskey will start despite not being good enough, and Ireland/Zog are in the doghouse despite being our main recent creative force besides Keane.

While I hate the guy as a player, this is not good. We are getting absolutely threadbare in defence. Dunne and Clark are out until early April, at least, and Warnock's playing like he has brain damage. We're already wrecked in an attacking sense due to injuries, poor form and McLeish's tactics, and now at the back we'll have an unsettled back four. Another injury or two could see half of that back four being made up of reserves. A Hutton injury has me worried. This is through-the-looking-glass territory. I feel like a giant caterpillar is about to show up and blow coloured smoke in my face.