DE.

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.

Sorry that wasn't aimed specifically at you, more a general reflection on the idea that FF7 needs to be revamped for modern sensibilities. I don't really care that they changed the combat system for new FF games. It's their prerogative and the games continue to sell in good numbers so if they want to do that then that's fine. Just because it doesn't appeal to me doesn't mean a lot of other people won't enjoy it, and they obviously do judging from FF15 sales so that's cool. I have other franchises I can go to if I need my old school JRPG fix. Hell, there's a ton of older JRPG games with the traditional combat systems that I've never played, so I'm not starving for new content in that regard. Funnily enough I think implementing the 'new' combat system was probably just easier for them than reimagining the traditional turn-based system. They basically just lifted what they'd already done on FF15 and tweaked it a little, rather than designing a new system from scratch. I get it even though I don't like it. Potential storyline changes bother me a lot more than the battle mechanic.

I haven't been able to get into a FF game since 10, so the 'new' style definitely isn't for me. All I wanted from a FF7 remake was: - next gen graphics - a better translation and more effective telling of the story, which admittedly is a bit confusing in the original game That's it. No storyline changes, no major gameplay changes - just some very minor tweaks to the original translation and upgraded graphics. The idea of the older gameplay not appealing to 'new' gamers is just nonsense to me. Persona 5 showed that the traditional turn-based combat system can still be utilised effectively and that game had huge sales. Granted P5's overall sales are probably half of FF15, but I don't think that's down to gameplay - it's just that Final Fantasy is a much bigger brand with a larger fanbase than the Persona series. Admittedly some of the FF7 minigames would probably need to be reimagined or removed for a new release as even in the original they are a little clunky and wouldn't work in the same way with modern consoles, and the world map section of the game would probably need a bit of a redesign as well, but these are minor tweaks. The battle system did not need to be overhauled and changed. Storyline elements did not need to be altered in any way. These are additional tasks Square has taken in which are, imo, totally unnecessary.

I agree that it isn't a good situation, and it's not the first time we've been in this position over the years. We lost money on almost every signing in the Kean era, and although we did a lot better during Bowyer's tenure we still gave certain players contracts which made them essentially impossible to move on, even on a free. I dread to think the amount we've wasted either terminating contracts of players we couldn't sell or letting contracts of useless players run down because nobody else was willing to pay what we were. I thought that kind of mismanagement might be behind us after the dual-accountancy firm audit a few years ago... but here we are again.

Absolutely, certainly not arguing the case for Smallwood being here, I just think there are bigger problems - the manager's transfer and contract renewal policy being one of them.

As he's not even in the match day squad and probably won't play for us again his appearance bonus won't count for much tbf. Even if Smallwood is on upwards of 7-8k that's still a lot for a League 1 club, especially considering sign on/agent fees. I imagine most of them will be waiting until the summer when Smallwood is out of contract and his demands may be a lot lower. This contract will probably be the best he'll get for the rest of his career, so I imagine he'd want more to move now than he will in the summer.

Perhaps, but I don't think Smallwood being here is a massive barrier to deals being done this month. With only another six months to run he'll surely be gone in the summer regardless. I'm far more annoyed by Mulgrew coming back and taking up a much larger slice of the wage bill with him likely to have minimal impact - and his contract runs until summer 2021 ffs. I genuinely think even if Smallwood had gone on Jan 1 we'd still be in the same position now in regards to incomings. I don't think it makes any difference.

I don't think Smallwood's wage being on the books is that much of an issue as he can't be earning much more than 4 or 5k a week. Mulgrew meanwhile is probably like having 4 Smallwoods on the wage bill with the same impact (nothing) so for me that would be a far bigger concern. Also far from convinced TM would put any wages to better use. Would probably still end up with nobody coming in, just like when Paul Downing left last January.

Traffic here is absolutely awful as well. Almost impossible to navigate down some residential streets due to the amount of parked cars littering the sides of the roads. I walk whenever possible but it's definitely not a mindset shared by most people around here. I live next door to an Asda and see neighbours literally drive into the car park just to pick up a bag's worth of shopping. It's ridiculous.