lanky316

It depended when you got in. At one stage they were at around 16s yesterday which I think was the start of the money going on which is when I quickly got an each way punt on. Good call with the Danes though I'd missed them, think I was blinded by the 30 Seconds To Mars similarities too much to think it'd go anywhere. Unlucky with Estonia, can't figure quite why it scored so lowly but turns out it only scraped through the semi, mind you it DID beat the Moldova ska-punk awesomesauce then.

Been a great game as expected. Fairly local derby with a Peterborough team who don't know what defense is. 3-2 now after an unfortunate penalty and sending off for MK Dons. Great game and looking forward to the second leg. Might jump on the train for it, depending on the later play off game anyway...

Okay so a couple of them bombed, Estonia shocked me more than the French favourite in the end as my one reservations was that opera may not get the public vote. It scored a lot of 1s and 2s so I'll suspect the judges liked it but the vote just wasn't there while I couldn't think of why Estonia wouldn't have some sort of spark there. Italy were a strange spanner in the works as no one thought it'd actually get there. I can retrospectively see why it did well but still surprised at the top 3 finish. More shockingly the semi-results... Greece actually beat the Azerbaijan entry to qualify.

We were wondering about the half time entertainment and giggling about the prospect of "Pussy" playing while they counted the votes. Sadly it'll be the same as Apocalyptica where clueless Irishman talks over them if it happened so glad they're not playing....

So who's Kay Burley fucking to have got front row in the FA box? Her and Dave Cameron one of those super injunctions? Pretty poor game in the end best team probably won it though there were runs when you felt all Stoke needed to do was get someone on the set pieces and they'd score but nothing out of it. Still for the F bombs and Shits it makes it the best FA Cup final since Wembley reopened,

Oh they'll finish well in a field this big the bettings a tell tale sign of patterns. If out of 25 you've got three so far ahead of the field there's a good chance those three will be up there. International betting patterns are suggesting a similar gap to the German only absence is Lena elsewhere.

Over here it's France, Ireland, Azerbaijan, nochance. Still can't quite work out how Jedward have got such a run as they've flown out of pretty much nowhere. I'd not seen much of an internet campaign and would've thought the fucking awful performance would've hindered the catchy tune but seems to have had a lot more movement than anyone expected.

Been a LOT of movement on Ireland the last couple of days as well which is surprising. Thing is, despite how awful the actual performance is the musics actually quite catchy. We all KNEW the performance would suck donkey testes but perhaps it's going to do better than I expected. On a community radio show my "ones to watch" as a possible top 10 were - Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel Norway Sweden, UK, So far then I've done alright with my qualifiers so we'll see how it goes later.

I feel awful for agreeing with TRB All season those "hilarious" sketches have irritated me. Just show a picture of the bleeding product and get on with what people want to watch without getting some WKD dick wannabes to be laddish. Still, looking forward to the game later, just hate the waiting for it.

Haven't we almost signed everyone to play football ever? It's not a transfer rumour if Spurs aren't sniffing around. Todays I spotted, 'arry turned down Suarez in January because he didn't think he was any good. Though after how quickly he wasted away Dos Santos and Tarabet that might well be true

Yeah every single one of us 'attacked' them. No wait that was 100 idiots. Every club has their portion of idiots, it's just ours did something particularily idiotic. The rest of the club doesn't deserve to be punished because of these people. I am by no means defending what happened, but sick of people tarring all of us with the same brush. I know we are the villains in this dream story of AFC, and god I wish it was both of us going up, but I will hopefully be the one celebrating on Saturday. No not everyone but it's hardly isolated with Luton in recent years is it? Just like the fact you've STILL not paid Stevenage back for the ripped up seats at Broadhall Way (imagine if you'd lost...) or the city centre damage of Peterborough on visits every time you've played there. I know it captures the town perfectly but get rid of the skinhead element and a lot of people might give more goodwill, though with Brabin in charge I suspect that'll be there for a while! You were treated poorly by the league but the attitudes of the clubs staff and supporters soon lost the sympathy from supporters of Conference clubs during your visit down there. Still waiting for you to "piss this tin pot league" come to think of it...

After Lutons fans proud moment of attacking the York players for doing them last year . Hope the buggers stay down.

But he didn't inherit a team who came second, he inherited a team that barely scraped a UEFA spot. You mentioned Alonso who I think was a huge blow (there was a bit about him in the original post) they didn't really recover from but ultimately it was still a team significantly on the slide. I'm not saying Liverpool didn't have a shocking start but I think the blame on Hodgson is wrong. There were clearly a lot more issues at the club when he took over that meant that [almost] any manager coming in was sure to have a difficult time getting anywhere with them. The man had led a sliding Inter Milan to UEFA Cup finals and started a rebuilding effort which got them back competing for trophies, it shows that there was some background here to him taking high pressure jobs and doing well so to say he was out of his depth just isn't right. Did he make some mistakes, of course, every manager on this planet has but there's not been drastic changes there. It's the Tottenham situation again that a decent side are in a stupid position they shouldn't be and with a few tweaks they've got themselves out. In that situation things have to change but blaming Hodgson with everything else that was wrong is just silly.

Had posted out a longer more detailed response, then clicked X on the wrong tab so I'll just outline a couple of points. No doubt losing some of the detail which you'll try and pick up on but there ye go... 1) Funny negative shape for a 4-3-3 for Babel. Keane always seemed out wide, granted didn't watch as closely as you lot. Kuyt always seemed to get way too much dung thrown at him, again you probably got more through Liverpool forums than I'd pick up though. 2) The slide in that season between takeovers says a lot more than finishing 2nd place after a semi-reasonable season, Hodgson inherited a team sliding down the table with players who weren't performing and a key component who didn't want to be there. Also need to take into account management styles. Some teams respond to different ways of management and there could be a conflict there which means he can't get the best out of them. See also Woodwards flop as British Lions coach, his God Save The Queen method didn't work on the Jocks or Irish. 3) Hodgson has also guided a much worse starting squad to safety (almost...) after leading Fulham to a European final which shows how good the kind of job he could do. Out of depth is nothing to do with it, players personalities probably a lot more. Long post synopsis - I think there was a lot more wrong at Liverpool than Roy Hodgson coming in, for the most part what he was trying was the right thing. Cole could've been a great signing (we were all 50/50 on that in August), Liverpool needed a left back, Konchesky probably not right choice but right idea with plausible targets scarce, Meireles at times been stellar, attempt to sign VDV who's had to carry an underperforming Spurs at times.

He made some errors of judgement but name one manager who hasn't. He wasn't out of his depth, he's taken on much harder jobs and done well at them but some clubs think they're too big for certain personnel. All the rumoured candidates and you get "Roy Hodgson" he was on to a losing battle from day one. Silly to mention out of position players perhaps but undisputable fact. So much so for a long time Scousers were saying Kuyt was shit and must be let go, eventually he adapted to the new position but for ages you lot wanted him out. Gerrard, like Rooney has the talent to get away with it. Even still he has massive anonymous days but we're more likely to remember the great ones those days we forget he's playing aren't worth discussing are they? Ryan Babel looked a talented young striker who perhaps moved over from Ajax before he'd really been given time to develop, nut was hurt morseso when Liberpool opted to play him wide instead. Robbie Keane, reliable striker for clubs all over the shop, played as a winger and not been the same since. Handful of players off the top of my head, I'm not going to look at every player to wear a red shirt for examples but that he got lucky some players adapted well is irrelevant. They weren't being played in their ideal positions. You got INCREDIBLY lucky with the Champions League once but for the most part the team didn't advance and weren't going anywhere, it's not a coincidence that once teams behind you started to step up you started to slide down the table. I'd already said relegation wasn't realistic - just like with Spurs - problems for that could easily be attributed to the fact half the players didn't turn up, stupid mistakes were made by supposedly reliable players (Reina was Gomesesque for the first couple of months) and players bought in by order of one manager were working under someone completely different. Just a couple of ones that stood out. Still, it's Roys fault as he was out of his depth, Liverpool on the slide is completely different to a shitty midtable Inter where Paul Ince is head and shoulder the best player in the squad...

Call yourself a fan? You should be married on the pitch at half time, she'd understand... Liverpools turnaround is ultimately down to a couple of minor factors, the prima donnas felt they were too good for Hodgson and didn't want to work for him, I'm glad things worked out for him after being let go as he wasn't that bad. Still starting the rebuild of Inter Milan and guiding Switzerland to number 3 in the world show he was the wrong man for the club . Comments like playing players out of position are just ridiculous, look at how Rafa had played people out of position for years, good enough for the Champions League wasn't it? New personnel came in, a tired and bored striker who wanted out was let go for two incredibly talented and hungry players who I'm gutted Spurs didn't go for, those two might've kept the Champions League challenge alive. The Leeds comparisons were wrong, a better one would've been Spurs when Harry took over. There was SOMETHING wrong at the club and the players in general shouldn't have been down there, things were changed around at board and management level a bit and the buzz lifted them where to roughly where they should be. Unlike Spurs' revival though the top clubs haven't been as convincing and they're able to go a step farther and a shout at Europe.

The original Tomb Raider had nude cheats (hundreds of different variations). Mario is a communist symbol whose appearance was based on Stalin. The SNES Mortal Kombat had a special code that unlocked not only blood but super fatalities not seen elsewhere as well as the ability to play as the bosses. Arcade Perfect Street Fighter 2 for the Game Boy, the cart had an overlay that included six buttons. There was a Spectrum game program which allowed you to load in any two games and copy sprites across, touch them up and mix the two. Atari were using it for ET2 which was based on Jet Set Willy and they hoped to recoup the loss of the first game. Later generation for Amiga which suggested Nintendo using Amigas to create "High Speed Mario". A little closer as a lot of consoles used Miggys for sprites. Ermac could be played as in MK1. There was a glitch when fighting scorpion it'd pick up and and change him red. "Error Macro" would be abbreviated into the character box to give the name. The injoke led to them creating a real Ermac. Playing Resident Evil 2 using only the Handgun would unlock Akuma from the Street Fighter series as a playable character. Apparently someone did mod the PC version to allow you to do so eventually. Doom was coming out for the Atari 2600. Incidentally I've played a version of Halo, surprisingly good but obviously not a FPS. Saddam Hussein's nuclear arsenal was powered by PS2s. The true story was Bin Laden always plays as Arsenal on his PS2 but people bought it.

Following from the QPR discussion. Found it interesting that earlier this month the Football Governance Committee were mire concerned about the Leeds situation than QPR. Not sure exactly what the problem was as I'd missed the start but really laid into how they weren't actually adhering to Premier League rules regarding ownership/management. I assumed now the crook Risdales not involved they were fine.

Spurs fans can be a funny bunch, we seem to vary by opponent, fans can't get excited about some opponents and it's fairly flat but other times it's electrifying. I remember us heading out the UEFA against Seville a few years back and it was so loud and full of energy it was unbelievable. Compared with the other lot where there's never an atmosphere though... Can't believe yesterday's game. Caught the winner in the bookies on the way home from Newmarket and he always looked offside so can't work out how the Lino got that wrong. 30 yard through ball fine but standing in an offside position for the whole passage of play and rolled from three yards no excuse. Lampard "goal" was hilarious, no way they could be 100% sure it was in. This could well be the game that swings us out of Europe next year. Too many stupid losses this year and as weve not been playing well we could use some luck while Liverpool are running well. Still Marriner keeps the Premiership race alive and that's the thing that matters right?

Picked this up and discovered that Mrs Lanky is a Mortal Kombat machine. Not sure she knows what she's doing but as Sonya she flys all over the place and prods buttock. Yet to perform a fatality, she panics and just hits button thinking she's going to be killed if she doesn't act quick. Enjoying it so far in story mode too though not far in at the moment.

In this day and age of big squads you shouldn't need to postpone matches or get in emergency loans due to injury/illness. What's the point of hiring players and coaches if you're not going to use them? [/FA to Spurs after mass illness hits squad]

I believe once they're here they need to play in something like 95% of first team matches they're available for (actual figure probably lower) for either you or their national side (both). I've not had many non-eu players on a FM game for a while and those that have were regular first team and international players so not been an issue for me :$ Also could it've been one of those where he was granted a work permit under the proviso he goes on loan abroad as sometimes happens?

Nah, only ever seen "turns his back on fans" news stories after a heel turn. I guess without full gimmicks and realistic fan programming being in there it's harder for it to calculate a face turn. Surely it's happened to someone...

I was going to say I want Millwall up but then I remembered West Ham might well be going down so never mind. I'm looking forward to watching the BNP wipe itself out due to a football rivalry.

That video makes a bit more sense rather than the "Spurs could face fines over racist chanting" headlines I'd seen. It's essentially down to the chants and gas chambers from West Ham and their ilk they're trying to make changes and I suppose you can't allow the pro-semetic chants as the morons defence is given to them "well they can do it...". I'm sure fans can pick up something else to chant, got to be better than the mild polite applause you hear at a lot of other grounds of bigger clubs. Still not as racist as New Zealand who call themselves "All Blacks"