Some vein of form Armstrong is in at the moment!

A better version of Edge's return, as the original RR version is pretty terrible:

Riddle is definitely a potential megastar. Just a case of whether WWE trust him enough to strap a rocket to him.

Interesting. Riddle has form for getting himself into trouble with stuff like this unfortunately.

Hey now, you're being very unfair here in forgetting those three hours or so when we reached the promised land of 6th place.

Really enjoyed the Royal Rumble PPV. One of the strongest efforts WWE has put out in a long time. Both rumble matches were excellent, and the other matches were decent as well. I liked that the aesthetic was a bit different to normal - it gave the PPV a unique feel rather than the usual homogenised sets. Reigns/Corbin was a good brawl to start the show, but I really can't care about a feud with King Corbin as the centrepiece. It does nothing for me at all. I thought the women's rumble match was interesting and entertaining. Random thoughts: - Always great to hear the old Hurricane theme, and Mighty Molly was a fun throwback. - The Mandy Rose/Otis spot was really clever. - Naomi looked good on her return, still very much over with the crowd. The spot where she jumped from the steps to the barricade was very well done. - Nice pop for Beth Phoenix and she still looks and performs very well. She got some serious colour in her hair though, assume she must have gotten a cut somewhere. - I found the Santina stuff pretty funny. - I think I have a bit of a crush on Tegan Nox. - It doesn't bother me that Charlotte won, although I think it would have been more interesting to have Baszler go over. I would rather have seen Becky/Baszler at WM than another Becky/Charlotte match. Will be interesting to see whether they do end up going with Becky/Charlotte or if they choose a different route. Bayley/Lacey Evans was certainly the worst match of the night. Bayley's run as champion has just been awful, and Lacey needs to drop the whole "Southern Belle" gimmick and transition into something a little more natural. She has a hell of a genuine backstory but the Southern Belle stuff is campy and limiting. Wyatt/Bryan was a good match. I'm glad they toned down the horror movie campiness and had more of a traditional match. No red lighting either, thank goodness. The Fiend continues to look unstoppable, although I'm guessing they will find some kind of weakness to exploit storyline-wise before Wrestlemania when I expect Wyatt will lose the title. Lynch/Asuka was solid, not much more to say on it. Although I will say that the ending was weird - why did Asuka's head shoot up from being kicked in the stomach? Should have done an uppercut or something. The men's rumble match was one of the best they've done in recent times. From a storyline perspective it was top notch and had me engaged the entire way through. Also loved Booker T being back on commentary, he's very entertaining. Random notes: - Brock mowing down competitor after competitor in the early going told a good story, but I'm not sure Morrison (who has only just returned) needed to be thrown to the wolf like that. - Poor Kofi - what a come down after his run as champion last year. Firstly getting buried by Brock on the FOX Smackdown debut, never getting or seeming to want a rematch, tossed back into tag team nothingness, and now fed to Lesnar along with Big E and Rey Mysterio in the rumble. It feels like in the end his title run counted for little in terms of raising his stature, as he's now right back where he was before essentially. - It was cool to see MVP back, even briefly. - Lesnar upon seeing Keith Lee: "Ohhh, big boy. [to Heyman] Who is this motherfucker?" - hilarious. - Brock was definitely eliminated at the right time, he was looking seriously gassed by the time Ricochet came out. Sweat everywhere, face beetroot red - I was getting a bit concerned for him! I'm not sure why he didn't just toss Ricochet out when he had the chance, but that ultimately led to the low blow which allowed McIntyre to eliminate him, so at least it served a storyline purpose. I thought they might have Brock stick around and attack McIntyre, but after hanging around at ringside for a while he just left. To be honest he looked so exhausted I'm not sure he could have done much more anyway. - Hell of a pop for Drew eliminating Brock. They told a great story with McIntyre during this entire match. - I had to laugh when Drew chucked Ricochet out of the ring like a sack of shit. - What did Miz do to get jobbed out like that? I was a bit surprised to see him handled so easily by McIntyre. Not a good night for him or Morrison! - Edge's return was just awesome. I got goosebumps when his music hit and he came out. You could see how emotional he was. He looks old facially now but he still has a great physique and he didn't miss a beat in the ring. It was like he hadn't been away at all - what a pro. - With that said, how the fuck did they manage to completely miss Edge's first spear? Somehow they cut to the crowd just as he ran to hit it. Crazy bad camera botch. I bet Vince was raging. The camera cuts in general during Edge's entrance were ridiculous. Calm the fuck down. - AJ's injury was unfortunate. A seperated shoulder apparently, from Edge's spear. You could see he landed really awkwardly taking it, and was pretty much done for the rest of the match. He called his own elimination so I guess they had to change some stuff on the fly - would be interested to know what the original plan was and how far into the rumble AJ was meant to go. - Matt Riddle super over, as expected. I laughed when Graves called him the original bro and Booker was like "I'm the original bro" - obviously referring to his old G.I. Bro gimmick. - Disappointed with how quickly Riddle was eliminated - by Corbin of all people. A small nitpick though. - So much for people saying Roman would never be booed again when he came back. A very mixed reception for him tonight. With that said this eternal feud with Corbin isn't doing him any favours and I wish they'd drop it. - The KO/Joe & Seth/AOP/Murphy storyline was integrated really well into the match. - Seth is a great heel, thank god they had the sense to turn him. For some reason as a heel he's always reminded me of nWo era Hollywood Hogan. Just some of the mannerisms, the colour scheme, always being surrounded by heavies to do his dirty work. It might just be me on that one though. - One thing I will say is that the above portion of the rumble did highlight a major pet peeve of mine when it comes to this match. It's no-DQ, so why do people interfering stand around outside the ring? Why did AOP & Murphy not jump in the ring with Seth and beat down the others? I've never understood the logic here. I also wonder why, if it's no-DQ, more weapons aren't used in the rumble. Theoretically there's nothing stopping anybody grabbing a chair and going apeshit. - Related to the above I also think it's logically flawed to have competitors either not in the rumble or eliminated from the rumble assisting in eliminating legit competitors. I don't feel like it should count. For example when Lana caused Liv Morgan to be eliminated in the women's match - why should this count? Lana wasn't in the match anymore as she had already been eliminated. - I was digging the Team RKO reunion. The double RKO was great, and the spot where Orton got caught sizing up Edge for an RKO was pretty funny. - When Edge and Roman were on the apron fighting at the end I thought Drew was going to hit the pair of them with a double Claymore to eliminate both. I think that would have been a great spot, rather than Roman eliminating Edge, getting back in the ring and then eventually getting thrown out by Drew. That was a wicked looking Claymore to Roman at the end though. Overall a very good Rumble - one of the best - and now we start the road to WrestleMania.

Tbf they had some really good results after we beat them. They got a 3-1 win against Hull a couple of weeks later, beat QPR 5-3 and got a 2-1 away win at Millwall. Also respectable draws against WBA and Swansea. Their form has declined again recently but they had a pretty good little run going towards the end of November to the end of December.

When we went on our winning run we generally stuck to the same team, Bristol City aside, which was a big difference to TM's usual rotation policy. Doesn't sound like he's learned from that though unfortunately. TM is talking extremes there but it's not that he's a good or a bad manager necessarily, he's just an average one, hence the fluctuating results and inconsistent form.

They are better than us because they have more points than us. As a team they have all been more effective than we have over the past 28 games or so. Every team has to deal with injuries, that's why squad depth and not relying on injury prone players are a part of long-term planning. Lenihan and Nyambe being constantly injured isn't bad luck, it's natural for both of them. If we can't account for that then we can't chalk it up to bad luck, it's just poor planning.

Stopping the bad runs before they really get going will be key to us getting anywhere this season or indeed any other. If we can stop ourselves falling into a rut every time we have a poor result then it will definitely be game on. Otherwise it's just BAU.

At this stage of the season the table doesn't lie. We're past the half way point and 10 other teams have been better than us and accrued more points, that's just a fact regardless of any other speculations. It doesn't mean we can't go on to have a storming second half of the season and ultimately finish top six, but there's no real evidence pointing to that happening right now. What we've seen is the same old story of the team collapsing mentally when we get within touching distance of the playoff positions, only to start playing well again when we're back in mid-table with the pressure valve off. I'd like nothing better than for the manager and the players to prove me wrong, but unfortunately I don't think they have it in them.

Tbf I think that's largely because he's been in and out of the side, mostly out. At his age irregular playing time is only going to speed up the decline. I think if he'd been playing regularly the entire season he'd likely be at least at the 8 or 9 goal mark, but Mowbray has made the decision to phase him out and he'll be gone in the summer, so we will have no choice but to plan for the future without him. Better hope one of Brereton or Gallagher comes good soon

Armstrong has always been a purple patch player so it remains to be seen if his current form continues. Nyambe is injury prone so until he manages to get a decent run of uninterrupted games we can't pin our hopes on him yet. Jury still out on Holtby despite some impressive moments and also has fitness issues. No argument on Downing. Tosin being a future City captain is wildly speculative, although as a ball-playing defender he's undoubtedly the best we have by some distance. Rovers still have it all to prove as far as being playoff contenders. We haven't been in the top six at all this season as it stands. Let's crack that first and see where we go from there.

You've never heard of Kobe Bryant? I literally have no interest in basketball and know who he is.

TMZ reporting his daughter was in the helicopter as well. Tragic.

I wish we'd had this mindset in the past two summer windows, then we might have avoided spending £12m on two duds and being in the situation we're in now.

Ipswich back to the top of League 1 despite going two months without a win between 9th November and 11th January. Rotherham also up to second now. Ainsworth's Wycombe have fallen to third after three defeats in their last five. Bolton 18 points off safety with 22 games left to play.

Yeah, the whole crowd singing along was pretty awesome too. I'm not a huge fan of Fozzy in general but Judas is a banger. I think AEW definitely needs a proper midcard title. I'm not sure how NWA Powerrr has two mid card titles and AEW has none. For me the basic aim of any wrestler in a promotion should be to become a champion. In AEW the male wrestlers only have the world title and the tag team titles to go for. That leaves a ton of mid card matches just being matches with no real purpose beyond boosting the win-loss statistics. I would add a few more titles personally. A light-heavyweight/cruiserweight title would be cool for the lighter competitors. I'd never buy Marko Stunt as a world champion, but I could definitely buy him as a cruiserweight champ. A mid-card title for all weights that acts as a bridge to the world championship is surely a must at some point (US/TV/Intercontinenal equivilent). I would also consider a Trios title due to the amount of three man tags AEW has. It's something that hasn't really been done in the States before and would help AEW stand out. I'm not sure any defined rules on the titles need to be added - the main issue with that is that it can limit storyline options and increases the chances of plot holes or logic gaps, which wrestling tends to have issues with anyway. All they need to do is make sure every title actually means something. WWE's biggest problem in recent years has been making the mid-card titles seem meaningless, having champions regularly lose non-title matches and as a result title changes mean very little. A mid-card title should naturally build a star to the point where when they lose that title they are ready to step up to the main event scene. Tournaments are great if done right. WWE seems to have largely gone off the idea on the main roster so it's a gap AEW could fill if done correctly. A cruiserweight tournament to crown the first champion would be great as they could bring in all sorts of amazing high-flyers from around the world to compete, as WCW used to do back in the day.

For sure, it's the hope that kills you.

For what it's worth I do remember questioning making the loan a permanent signing, but at the time I think the concensus was that he had earned the deal through his performances during that season. Also found this on his wikipedia which I found kind of amusing:

Whilst I agree Downing should not have been sent on loan if we weren't going to bring in a replacement, I also don't think he was ultimately Championship standard. I think he's been in L1 ever since he left us. He was basically brought in to provide cover for our League 1 campaign, did a good job and was then moved on due to not being quite good enough for the Championship - or our ambitions for it, anyway. The fact he was let go without replacement is a seperate issue for me, and I'd still say his signing was successful for what it was meant to be.

Also as an aside I've stopped watching Smackdown entirely now. There's just too much wrestling over the week to watch all of it, and SD isn't good or exciting enough for me to put time into watching. I like NXT but I've stopped watching that as well. Again just limited time, as I do like NXT. I'll probably still watch the major episodes and Takeovers though. Nowadays I basically just watch Raw, AEW Dynamite/Dark and Powerrr.

@Bigdoggsteel did you order Hard Times in the end? I've just watched it and thought it was a decent if not spectacular show. The audio was a bit off at the start but seemed to stabilise as the event went on, but there were still glitches throughout the night. I heard someone in the crowd yell "fire the sound guy" at one point which got a chuckle out of me. Spoilers ahead btw so if you haven't watched the show yet and are planning to don't read any further... Question Mark/Murdoch was alright, although it felt like a match that could have been on Powerrr. Also a bit surprised they had QM take the L here. Was a bit of an underwhelming way for him to take his first defeat. Dice/Maff was another match that was okay. Neither guy is in great shape but I think Maff has some serious upside. Dice has a great personality but his look isn't great for a proper competitor. He's not in shape at all. I think he'd be better as a manager/interviewer. Starks/Cross was a solid match with the right guy going over. Starks has a lot going for him and it wouldn't surprise me if he ended up on NXT or AEW sooner rather than later. He's got all the tools to become a player at a higher level imo. Not sure why Ken Anderson wasn't at the show, I assume an injury, but I figured they'd get Storm another opponent. A bit disappointing that they just gave him a bye, but I guess it gave a little more time to some of the other matches. Storm's promo was really good as usual. It's a shame Storm never got a shot in WWE or TNA when he was a bit younger, as he's so charasmatic and likeable, plus a decent hand in the ring. At 54 I can't imagine he'll ever get to WWE or AEW at this point - still looks incredible for his age though. They announced the next PPV will be the Crockett Cup, which should in theory be a decent draw, and said the event will be held somewhere bigger. That's good news as whilst the studio setting is fine for Powerrr I don't think it conveys the 'big feel' needed for a PPV show. It just makes it seem like an extended edition of Powerrr. Good triple threat tag match for the titles. I like that competitors from all three teams were in the ring rather than just two of them. I never understand when there are multiple tag team matches and there are only two competitors in the ring, able to tag anybody whether it's their own partner or not. Those rules make zero sense to me. An an aside Ricky Morton of all people hitting a Canadian Destroyer never gets old. A visual I never thought I'd see! Storm/Drake going over was fine. With the age of the RnR Express you can't realistically keep the titles on them for that long, even though it was nice to see them get another brief run. Thunder Rosa going over Allysin Kay was the right call, as TR is by far the best and most popular wrestler in the women's division. Kay is, imo, too bland to be the champion and in-ring she's nothing special either. The match itself was pretty good and a long one, but compared to what we see from the gals in WWE/AEW, NWA's women's divisions always comes off as second-rate to me. Thunder Rosa is another one I'd expect to see in NXT/AEW at some point. She seems a bit wasted in the NWA women's division tbh. End of this match was a bit weird, TR's finish appeared botched to me although she did hit it. Maff/Murdoch was just a quick hoss fight. NWA seem to be going full in with a Murdoch push putting him over Question Mark and Maff. Storm/Starks was a bit disappointing, although I have no problem with Starks going over as he's clearly got more long-term mileage than Storm at this point. Stevens/Steiner was just a throwaway, obviously building to more down the line. Question Mark taking the Steiner Recliner further burying him on this show. I wonder if they're cooling the push they've been giving him. I was a bit confused by the TV title tournament final being in the main event ahead of the world title. Aldis/Gordon is a much bigger match than Murdoch/Starks. Weird decision. I certainly wouldn't have thought Trevor Murdoch would be headlining NWA's second post-Powerrr PPV. As I mentioned before Starks definitely has something about him, although I wouldn't say he's been built up to main event level yet. Anyway, Aldis/Gordon was a good match even though the result itself was never in doubt. I think the lack of major storyline build hurt it a little, as it had absolutely nothing to do with any of the Powerrr tapings beyond the highlights they showed of the ROH event where Aldis showed up and attacked Gordon. If it got more PPV buys then I guess that's all that matters, but I'd rather have seen someone like Eli Drake in that position personally. Starks/Murdoch was okay - not really main event quality but fine for what it was. It's cool to see Starks get the strap as he has a huge upside and should be featuring more prominently on Powerrr. Hopefully being the TV champ will help with that. Overall I thought it was a good show, albeit not as good as Into the Fire and probably not as good as some of the recent Powerrr episodes. In a lot of ways it felt like a massively extended Powerrr show rather than a PPV, although that is at least partially due to the studio location and the lack of cosmetic alterations to even alert the viewer to the show being different to normal. I think they'll address this at the next PPV though.

Public transport in general needs to be improved massively if the Government are serious about reducing car usage/emissions. It's well and good telling people to use trains/buses more often, but in this part of the country at least both of those options are extremely unreliable. Buses turn up whenever they want, rarely on time, making scheduling around bus travel almost impossible. Trains meanwhile are expensive, often delayed and if you're on a rush hour train good luck finding a seat. I can't blame people for choosing to drive over public transport because the latter is just not up to standard. I have less tolerance for people choosing to drive short distances rather than walking, excluding issues like bad weather, medical conditions, travelling somewhere else afterwards, etc. To me that's more to do with laziness and a contributor to the poor state of public health in general.

In fairness he did state permanent signings at the top of the post. I pretty much agree with the assessments, although I'd say Paul Downing was a success overall as he did much better than expected, and Nutall could probably be considered successful as well due to the low fee/wages and the return we got on the pitch and in the eventual sale. On the whole though our permanent signings have been pretty poor. No point anybody taking about speculative squad value as that only counts when we actually sell somebody for decent profit. Dack in particular is a total question mark after his injury.