The Kraig

So, I've been playing through the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLCs and man...they just don't care very much do they? I also hate that every legendary has to be in every game. Kind of defeats the purpose, no? We already have remakes and virtual console stuff if people want to get those particular legendaries. This catching list with Peony has felt 100% like a chore instead of fun and it includes a new legendary! Wait, it can merge like Kyurem?! Nice! But we can only pick one of the two regis...so...I guess I have to trade now? Same with the steed pokémon? Seems purposely obtuse. No one actually buys both games, do they? I love the new designs for the legendary birds, but why not just make new legendaries? Why do they have to be new spins on the old ones? Alola formes were great and made sense due to the Hawaiian influence (isolated ecosystem), but they haven't really tried to explain why these new pokémon are named after an existing trio of legends. It's a bit like calling both sasquatches and yetis "Bigfoot" since they have a passing resemblance. Like, no...Bigfoot is not a yeti, stop calling the yeti that, game. Anyway. I've had my weird rant. The best thing in the Sword/Shield games has been the soundtrack. Sometimes I just want to listen to the music. Especially when those bagpipes kick in the the wilds. Ooof! OH. And ffffffffffffffffuck everything to do with collecting hundreds of imperceivable footprints or Diglett tufts. That is the laziest crap and I cannot stand it.

Netherlands beat Norway to finally secure their place at the finals. Ukraine have also squeezed out Finland from the playoffs. Scotland and Wales will join Portugal, Italy, Sweden and Russia in the seeded teams for the playoffs, to be paired off with the unseeded teams of Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, Austria, Czech Republic and Macedonia. 3 mini-tournaments will determine the final 3 UEFA entries. Single leg ties with the seeded teams hosting the first games, and a randomly drawn team hosting the deciding final matches. The initial playoff draw is 26/11, with Russia and Ukraine barred from being drawn in the same bracket. This might look good, but that's a lot of good teams vying for only 3 spots. I did a little pretend draw and got this: I'd honestly take that, especially if Scotland get to play the final at home. Oof.

Never to be seen again after tonight. I can't believe how good Scotland have been. A single loss in qualifying in a group with Denmark, Austria and Israel? I'll take that every time. Shame Denmark didn't slip up elsewhere or we'd maybe be in the finals already. Good momentum which we usually lack. Gonna be interesting who we get in the play-offs if Italy and Portugal are joining us. The play-offs look shit hard to be honest. Russia. Poland. Possibly even The Netherlands, Turkey or Wales? I'd like Macedonia please. Or Finland. But even then, we usually play shit against underdogs and well against the favourites so who knows. Sure to be ultra stressful either way. Oh yeah, so Spain, Croatia, England, Switzerland and Serbia are now formally qualified. Well done England.

Wales whipping Belarus is very impressive. After tonight, France and Belgium have formally qualified.

Tahiti all the way! Or the Solomon Islands! Let's go! For clarity's sake, they haven't even said which nations are travelling out to Qatar so it may be quite a small thing. In other news, Brazil have qualified to join Germany and Denmark.

All I can say is that while Scotland were impressive, Craig Gordon played such an important role in not letting doubt and fear take over the team. World Cup play-offs here we go! In other news, OFC plan to have a separate qualification tournament in March in Qatar due to delays in getting their qualifiers selected thanks to COVID. Bizarre.

The Rangers fans are taking it well. Rangers finances are fucked, so they'll probably want the £3m pronto and sell Gerrard the players he wants. I feel sorry for Dean Smith. I wonder what he thinks of Gerrard coming in.

Genuinely excited for Newcastle for the first time since being promoted back to the Prem. Will be interesting to see what Howe does even before the transfer window.

Conte is a great appointment, but seriously, that vignette is a little embarrassing. I thought they were revealing the next Doctor Who for a second there. Emery for Newcastle would be a great choice! Didn't have a great start at Arsenal but his win percentage was still better than Arteta's. I still think his sacking was a bit premature. Arsenal fans have such inflated expectations, Newcastle probably won't have the same pressure. As people have said, maybe he can find someone to translate properly as well.

Sorry for the double post, I'm actually amazed Ally McCoist is able to compose himself and speak so well about his 'second father'. I must confess Ally was the first person I thought of when I saw Walter had died. https://talksport.com/football/969451/ally-mccoist-tribute-walter-smith-rangers-second-father/

Ibrox is quite sombre tonight. For some perspective, Smith is the last man to lead Rangers to a European final (UEFA Cup) and were unbeaten in the Champions League in 93 under him. I'd argue that Souness' titles won as Rangers manager should probably be attributed to Smith as well, since Souness was still playing or being a prat and getting suspended, so Smith was always in the dugout, essentially being manager. He was also there for 9 league titles in a row (matching Celtic's record), and almost completed 10 in a row (went to the final day of the 97/98 season, Celtic winning the league by 2 points). I'd argue Smith's run in the 90s was Rangers best run in history. It's hard to explain how loved he is here, and it has nothing to do with sectarian nonsense. Both his runs as manager were highly successful, and he always stopped to speak to people. Almost every single person I know who supports Rangers has a photo with Walter in various places. He loved the club and everyone that was part of it. His influence on Rangers and Scottish football will be missed.

The current French-English War of the Worlds (or La Guerre des Mondes) TV series is a bit dross. It's got some decent actors, but they cannot save this exhausting bore of a show. How do you make War of the Worlds, boring? Tom Cruise did better than this. It's also plagued with unlikeable and samey characters.

Wait, he's not punditting it up anymore? I enjoy seeing his miserable, Begbie-esque face, especially when someone rips his opinion to shreds.

Suddenly Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are looking to get Wrexham put back into the Welsh league!

Anyone checked out Visions yet? I loved some episodes, was very meh for some others. If you like anime and Star Wars, it's a weirdly perfect match. A lot of repeated themes though. I guess it's how the Japanese equate the Star Wars stories with their own history.

All very good points. I didn't know anything of the training ground drama since I generally don't care about spats and can't trust the media reporting it. Sounds like a lot of negligence.

I find the whole situation very sad. I love Steve Bruce, he's a gent and now feels like football isn't for him. That's not because of a few shit results, it's how he was vilified. Newcastle are a few defenders away from a potentially top half team. I'm sure he knows that, but with the previous board, he's fucked. He gets what he is given and works with it. The guy's given his entire life to football and taken on jobs no one else really wanted. Yes, it's paid his bills, but let's not pretend he was in football just for the money. I'd have liked to see him given a chance with the new owners. It's also left his replacement a very unrealistic expectation of turning things around when there is no transfer window for months. Going out after 1,000 games in charge is a pretty cool statistic though. I hope he gets the itch to come back to football, but maybe he just wants to watch the chaos from afar from now on.

I hate how football (and business in general) has ruined football. I am weirdly from the town that had the first ever shirt sponsor, so, our apologies. I'd maybe support a differently formatted 'World Cup' inbetween the main World Cup. Like a straight knock-out tournament, no seeds. Would be highly entertaining, in my opinion.

I'll hold you until you finish the series. If anyone hasn't heard of it (like I hadn't), there's a thing called Star Wars Visions and it's a collection of short anime films. They are hit and miss, but the ones that hit are tremendous. Episodes 1, 4, 5, 7 were so good I want entire series now.

Really surprised and impressed, only seen the highlights but he looked strong. Wonder where he will build a good run next. I also didn't realise he had such a complex upbringing - born South African to Scottish/Welsh parents, grew up in New Zealand, sporting school career in the US...he's an international man of tennis.

Did anyone actually play these? At the time, meh. Now? I'd love the nostalgiagasm.

LMA Manager on the PlayStation was my gateway drug into Championship Manager. Kim Kallstrom all the way. Little did I know I'd be updating and massively expanding the .lnc file many moons later.

I think Fury/Wilder III might be my favourite modern boxing match. Fury's conditioning is baffling. Could do without all the Jesus stuff with every single interview, especially from a guy who loves Sin City.

Mike Ashley going has me interested in English football again. Anyone could have bought the club and I'd be delighted. So far it sounds like the Saudis are just bankrolling it to make a cheap and easy profit, with PCP running things, so no actual changes to the football culture at the club. I can accept that for now. I don't know any Parisians who care the PSG money comes directly from Qatari royalty. I can't see any reason why the Geordies would care about the Saudis wanting to make a profit off the club since they are already rich. Time will tell if it's a weird ploy to present Saudi Arabia as in some way tolerant or open to change. The overarching problem is the amount of money in football in general. The Saudi government are not going to change (at least not overnight) and business is dominated by whoever is the richest. Eventually all big clubs will be bankrolled by dodgy investors, or at least partially bankrolled. Almost all our favourite products, shops, brands are owned or partially owned by scumbags. Case in point: Mike Ashley.

Kind of amazed this seems to be the latest Gridiron Manager type game. I am 100% more interested in watching someone play THIS manager game than FM, since it's all new to me. Maybe you should watch someone play FM and see if you fall in love with the beautiful game? Wait a second...what the flugel is this?! https://store.steampowered.com/app/547900/Front_Office_Football_Eight/