-A-

Top '3 Stooges' defence there.

That makes sense. If you're a QB who's not expecting to be hit or a WR who hasn't had a chance to cradle the ball and get ready to run, the danger's much greater (I guess.)

Think that only certain players get that protection and runners aren't included.

That Saints player looked unconscious before he hit the ground.

205 is the maximum a LHW can weigh the day before the fight. There's a big difference. Belfort may actually weight 195-200 lbs depending on how much he cut yesterday. I'd be interested to see what the weight difference is today, since that's the important comparison.

Hard to get a combination of a manager that's able to keep them up this year and one who can build the club longer-term. Unless they have serious money to spend, I doubt they can get anyone much better than Hughes.

This is also gonna be the year where we see if Del Potro can get back to his best. He's been back on the tour for well over a year now and although wrist injuries are complicated, if he can't get his groundstrokes back to the same power he had before his time out then the chances of him fulfilling his potential are vastly diminished. Hope to see Raonic or Tomic push for top 10 places this year. I've lost a bit of faith in Dolgopolov as far as really challenging for GS events in the future. He needs some serious work on his game if he's going to consistently win matches against top 10ers.

Yeah, it's really hard to judge what needs to be improved with graphics. It seems like textures and shiny things have improved at an incredible rate and lighting and animation haven't. Even comparing modern games with something like Toy Story (which I know is rendered or whatever) the film looks a lot more natural. Even on top PCs games always end up looking too shiny and jagged. LA Noire shows at least that it's possible that animations will soon improve to the point where people look realistic. Even in Skyrim I'm just totally put off by how robotic and hollow all of the characters seem with their jerky motion and soul-less eyes. As far as the game goes, I can pretty much see both sides. I like it that I get so many hours out of it, but there does seem to be a lot of padding and extremely repetitive gameplay. I'm an RPG fan, I've enjoyed everything from Baldur's Gate to Dungeon Siege to Skyrim, but my patience for 'go to this dungeon, work your way picking up treasure, fight some dude with a name and take his slightly-better equipment.' If I hadn't played so many I'd probably not think of this as quite as much of an issue, but how many times have I seen storylines where an indecisive monarch avoids picking sides and has one snivelly advisor who favours the evil dudes and one headstrong advisor who favours the good guys? I sometimes have sessions of Skyrim where I feel like I've tuned out completely and I'm not even paying attention. There's something hypnotic about running through these long empty dungeons with evenly interspersed enemies. I have my treasure-searching routine down pat. I know where to look and how valuable something has to be to pick up. I usually fight in exactly the same way. When I leave a dungeon I have exactly the same routine of home - shops - smithing - shops - home. There's the odd quest that makes me sit up and pay attention, but otherwise the game's so generic I'm just grinding to see what perks and equipment I get. I think after playing so many of these games I really value a title like Bioshock. Yeah, it's only 15 hours or so, but every second I feel like I'm challenged and paying attention. The scenery is unique and there are constant little touches of innovation that mean there's less drudgery. Does Skyrim have more original content, or is it just spread out and padded with additional generic stuff?

About the possible extra game for frivolous appeals - I think the FA said at one point that it was mainly for if clubs used the appeal to delay the start of a suspension so the player was available for a big game. Aliadiere did himself no favours by not shutting his mouth until his hearing was completed.

How many of those clubs sold their only suitable striker for £35m? Demba Ba on a free transfer is an opportunity that doesn't come up every day - paying slightly increased wages to secure a player who still has resale value and has also looked suitable to PL football is the most sensible decision. The other striker Newcastle were linked with over the summer was Maiga, who'd have cost something like £7m and would have been on wages of maybe £30k-£40k. He wasn't a better prospect than Ba and he also hasn't enjoyed a move to England and English football. If I'm a businessman who doesn't want to risk millions of pounds on expensive gambles, which one do I sign? An extra £20k p/w equates to £1m a year, so it would take 7 years for the extra wages to equal the transfer fee.

So he'd rather spend £10m on a striker of similar quality rather than get the guy in on a free. I think 'lol, Mike Ashley is tight' doesn't mean he's a stupid businessman. He paid an extra 30k a week to save paying an enormous fee. The top 6 clubs weren't interested, so they got their guy.

Really? I read that he had extremely high demands as far as his agent's fees and Newcastle came in with a wage offer that dwarfed every other (65k/week IIRC.) Everton were in for him but couldn't afford the price Newcastle were willing to pay.

Is there really a definition of 'no-name?'

Jones had a clause in his contract that was (I think...) agreed before Venky's arrived. They tried to make some ridiculous legal argument that the clause only required them to let clubs who bid £16m speak to Jones, not compel them to actually sell him for that figure.

Just in time for Wrestlemania!

Bioshock, Bioshock, Bioshock.

No, it's an awesome precedent. If Evra felt threatened because of his race then Suarez did something wrong. It's his responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen and referring to someone's skin colour in any way as part of an argument is pretty obviously wrong, even if the word you use has no racist connotations whatsoever. There's a misunderstanding over whether this is declaring Suarez as racist or not. There is no law that governs what someone thinks or what crazy stuff goes through their head. There are probably passionate racists who believe some horrible things but never act on them or abuse anyone. That's not something that should be legistlated against, especially because what runs through your head affects no-one else. On the other hand, if someone believes that they aren't racist but says something which is clearly likely to cause offence based on skin colour, then they are guilty of putting another person in a horrible position. If a tribunal later sees evidence of Suarez not being racist and having lots of black friends then that doesn't change how Evra felt at that moment in time.

No, I was talking about the bit where they implied that Evra has a history of making claims of racism that have been disproved. This was the incident at Stamford Bridge when Mike Phelan said he heard a Chelsea groundskeeper racially abuse Evra. Evra's claim was that the groundsman had been rude to him and drove his lawnmower towards him aggressively (or some shit.) He didn't say anything about racism, that came from Phelan. This story has been morphed into 'Evra cries wolf all the time!' Agreed. It's hard to imagine that there's some sort of time-sensitive reason why they can't release the details. It's basic testimony from a few footballers, not national security.

But there's been no substantiation of this claim that Evra said that? As far as I can see it's only a claim that's been made on Liverpool fan sites? I know we live in a world where Suarez can be lauded for the fact that he didn't lie about saying something racist, but it's his responsibility to report anything like that. TRB, you just cannot say 'it's all hearsay, but imagine this is how the conversation went...' We don't know, so trying to make any kind of judgement of wordings or misunderstandings from a made up exchange is pointless. EDIT: And LFC have already made misleading and potentially libellous claims about Evra in their initial statement, so I trust nothing that comes from their PR department.

The context is as part of an argument between two competitors on a football pitch. Is it offensive? If it's acceptable to Suarez but not to Evra, is it offensive? The entire purpose of anti-racism measures is to protect people from the feeling of being singled out for vitriol because of your race. Suarez's intentions are irrelevant because Evra doesn't know how many black friends Suarez has or how upstanding he is. Again, 'black' is not offensive, but if you call someone a 'black twat' on a football pitch you will be punished infinitely worse than someone who simply says 'you twat.'

Sorry, I didn't even read it Here it is. Take a look at the advertising board in the background... http://youtu.be/kvyHIDct-vs

What? The keeper gets the guy on the ground and continues to kick him as hard as he fucking can. The first kick you can excuse as self-defence, but he was just laying into the guy because he could.

If we're purely talking about the phrasing of it all then the John Terry example is a relevant one. Is saying "black" acceptable? Of course. Is saying "black cunt" acceptable? No. Similarly with Suarez, it doesn't even matter whether 'negrito' is inherently racist, all that matters is that it's used in conjunction with an insult to make that insult racially-insensitive.

Martin Tyler said something like 'Suarez has done well to be playing tonight with all the drama surrounding him.' Bit surprised at that.