-A-

And it's actually Ajax that have failed to get to the CL group stages for 2 years in a row, really hurting the co-efficient. AZ did pretty well in the UEFA a few years ago but haven't really had that much success since. NEC and Twente went out tonight as well, so it's not looking great for getting the ranking up soon. On the positive side, it's really hard to see Netherlands losing even a single place in the near future. Scotland have had a terrible year and a good one coming off the rankings and Turkey have made no indication they're going to do that much better.

I want to agree but ... Andy Gray

I'm not sure if this applies to your specific example, but there's actually a pretty horrific 'bug' (really just an error of design) that seriously favours multi-positional players. It's most obvious in a player with two positions whose associated stats are totally different (so, the DC/ST over the MC/ST in your team.) It's basically because of the way the game calculates stats related to the Current Ability figure. If you're a striker, then stats like Finishing, Off The Ball and Strength are weighted so that they take up a much bigger chunk of the CA stat. That's so that players with 150CA in different positions can be roughly the same effectiveness. It also means that if you train a player in non-essential stats this takes up less of their ability so they can become better all-round players at the expense of their main stats. The extreme problem with this set-up is when you train a player into something like a DL/DR/ST because the stats for full backs and strikers are totally different. If you train a player (or have a player naturally) with these positions and then put him on a pure striker's training scheme, they will become a better player than a plain old ST with exactly the same CA but no other positions. That's because the game has adjusted the CA cost of the striker stats so that they're quite a bit less, so if the player has low figures for the DL/R stats, a lot less CA will be taken up by the same striker stats. I've probably explained that really badly, but that's basically why players like Srna have stats far better than their CA should allow. If you want to see this in practice, train a youth striker to DR/L (but keep them on the same training regime) and see what happens.

"I was hoping City would play with a bit of a faster tempo, really try to get at them." NINETY SECONDS they've been playing for fuck's sake.

It was definitely in a negative context, which was what surprised me. Are the goalkeepers really noticeably worse than other positions? Andy Goram, Stefan Klos, Craig Gordon, Artur Boruc, even Allan MacGregor. All pretty decent keepers. If you look at the bottom half of the SPL obviously there are shite players, but they're all shite, not just the keepers.

ITV commentating on Kristiansen, the Copenhagen goalkeeper 'Well, he has played in Scotland and we all know about Scotland and goalkeepers...' What?

They actually were shown as separate episodes over here, but I didn't watch them on TV so I'm not sure whether it was effective.

I just can't find any cynicism for Futurama. The last season was just as good as the early ones and the only gripe I really have with the movies are that they're (by necessity) kind of epic in feel. I liked the fact that Futurama always had varied, interesting concepts for almost every episode and stuck pretty firmly to them. They weren't grasping for some theme to keep it fresh ... unlike 'The Simpsons are going to Delaware!'

Murrayfield is shit and very cold, that's all I remember about it. Oh, and you see shit rugby there.

He doesn't kick the football, he massages it

Real have Higuain and that alone makes me love them.

I will always and forever love Yossi. Recently he's been playing really well too. On another site I post on I was mocked by the Liverpool thread for praising Yossi. I wasn't even being mindlessly fanboyish, the question was 'apart from Gerrard and Torres, do Liverpool have anyone that can really change a game?' and I said Yossi. No, I know he's not remotely on the same level as them and I'm not even suggesting he's Liverpool's 3rd best player because guys like Reina, Mascherano and Alonso are all up there, they just don't score crucial goals or make crucial runs as often as Benayoun.

Never speak ill of Yossi Benayoun again, Liverpool fans!

Things are going to be fucked next season as well. The SPL runner-up has a nightmare route to get to the group stages, far, far harder than at the moment. Definitely one of the biggest losers out of the change.

I think that hooker bit would be.

Not to worry Liverpool fans, but Balague says it definitely isn't happening. He still is, by most. If he leaves it'll be because he wants to, almost certainly. He's a Madrid man, he definitely wants to go back there at some point and Gillette and Hicks are messing him around.

Oh my god, what are the chances of this happening just as Liverpool play Real?

You can't really blame Sheringham anyway. He's told what kind of attitude to take and he's probably hired on the basis of what he's like. Blame the producers.

Yeah, I hate ITV commentary. It's even worse than Sky for weird vague quasi-poetic language. "It's a battle of hearts and minds tonight. United have been ebullient in the face of an apathetic Inter ... incredible discipline and strength of spirit."

Just came across the UEFA co-efficients for European leagues. Very strange after last season: 1 England 75.749 2 Spain 75.266 3 Italy 60.410 4 France 52.668 5 Germany 48.722 6 Russia 43.750 7 Romania 40.599 8 Portugal 39.927 9 Netherlands 38.213 10 Scotland 33.375 11 Turkey 31.725 12 Ukraine 30.100 Romania 7th in Europe? Holland down in 9th? France above Germany? Granted, a lot of these will change after this season's results, most likely. They're calculated over the last 5 seasons and France have their best season of those coming off next season (and Germany by far their best.) Holland have one of their worst coming off and Portugal have one of their best, so they'll probably swap over.

Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat. I've watched games semi-regularly for the last couple of years but my understanding of the behind-the-scenes stuff is even less than my knowledge of the game itself. I kind of ended up supporting the Ravens because my ex was from Baltimore, what are they like? Unpopular team or not? Decent team or not? Anything else noteworthy? They seemed to do pretty well last season, at least, but things change so much season-to-season in the NFL.

I voted no because I can't quite see how it's going to have a really important use beyond the What Did You Watch thread. Most of the prominent new releases like The Wrestler, Watchmen, Wolverine, Terminator etc. will end up with their own thread anyway. The idea that you're describing is based around the benefit of having multiple people adding their comments. When that happens in a short space of time that film probably has its own thread. When that doesn't happen, it probably goes in the What Did You Watch thread. Something like an EWB Simultaneous Viewing would be good, though. Everyone watches a given film, series or genre in a short space of time. In fact, Xbox Live has that Netflix Party thing in North America, doesn't it? Get hooked up with the Xbox thread and this could work. Everyone else will be a pirate

I liked it as well, I just thought the ending was a bit flat. I wasn't expecting a massive revelation or a fight scene ... I don't know, maybe I just got a bit distracted. Alias was really good, it just got a bit out of control towards the end. I rushed through all the seasons after they aired as well so it's a bit of a blur, but the last one was all over the place. Swerve after swerve and betrayal after betrayal and honestly I got a bit lost even though I was watching them back-to-back. Which is my worst nightmare about where Lost might be going, but with a good 2 years to plan out everything I've got a bit more faith. Back on topic

A little time has made me look back really fondly on Alias, I'm going to have to rewatch it. I was totally burned by the last season which was not what I wanted at all, a JJ Special. Then there was Cloverfield where the end just left me feeling a little unsatisfied.

Cor blimey guv'nah, someone been messin' with your noggin'?