DE.

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.

Mowbray will probably want to keep Smallwood around for emergencies, especially with Evans out and Johnson's fitness and commitment questionable. Bennett and Tosin could play CM but Bennett is often needed for RB cover due to Nyambe's own fitness issues (although personally I'd rather play JRC there) and we need Tosin at CB due to the lack of decent cover there, too. I suppose theoretically Mulgrew could play DM in an emergency as well, but he has his own fitness problems and with his legs gone I'm not convinced he'd be able to adequetely protect the defence if put in that position.

I'm sure I read somewhere (possibly on this thread) that Mowbray and Brereton have the same agent which if true lends more credence to the idea that it was Mowbray's decision with perhaps some influence from his agent. As for why Brereton isn't being loaned out - the only reason I can think of is that Mowbray doesn't want to lose face by loaning out a guy we paid a lot of money for only a year and a half ago. Not a good look for him to say the least.

The nostalgia brings a warm feeling to my chest. Good memories all around. The peak of the Venky era, no doubt.

If Brereton is still here at the end of the window then IMV that is a failure on our part to help this kid out. He clearly needs to get out of here for a bit and rediscover his form. Keeping him here for u23 matches and playing the odd match here or there, largely out of position, isn't protecting the player or our significant investment. It's just making a bad situation even worse.

I'm certainly not writing off the season at this point as thanks to the division being incredibly inconsistent we are still very much in the mix. However realistically I'm not anticipating a top six finish because we are one of those inconsistent teams who goes on very good and then very bad runs of form. Until we stop doing that (and there's no evidence of that issue being solved this season) we most likely aren't going to get into the playoffs. There's obviously also the fact that under Mowbray we're yet to get into the top six even momentarily. Even under Bowyer we only managed about three hours in 6th briefly. Breaking into the top six, even if only temporarily, and stopping a bad run of form before the rot really sets in will be indications to me that we might be ready to make a genuine challenge.

Yep I'm pretty sure all the quirks and silliness that are part of what makes FF7 so loved will be gone, replaced by a slick but largely soulless production. Barret's dialogue is basically just sound bytes from Mr T, but who cares? Everyone loves Mr T. Now granted I wouldn't be against a bit of a translation clean up as the original translation was adequate at best and often made no sense or mistranslated entire portions of the plot making the story impossible to follow. I'd be okay with those problems being fixed on the proviso the tone of the original is retained. In fact I'm sure there's a fan patch for the PC version that pretty much does this.

On a game that is literally a remake of something from 1997 I would have preferred them to retain the original battle system and tweak it for modern sensibilities (ala Persona 5) rather than adopt FF15's battle system which to me feels completely out of place in FF7. It's funny but I think the thing that bugged me the most on FF15 was the translation. I pretty much always have the original Japanese voices on, and even though I speak practically no Japanese I still know the subtitles are incorrect as they're just repeating the English voiceovers. It's something small which really annoyed me.

It seems like the battle system as a whole is basically lifted from FF15. Unfortunately turn-based combat in general seems to be obsolete these days with a few exceptions such as Persona 5. Funny thing is P5 was wildly successful so clearly turned-based combat is not a deal breaker to many people.

Technically yes although it's the same "new" battle system, you can essentially just pause/slow it down whilst you're deciding what to do next. I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose as the whole point of this newer combat mechanism is to make fights more fluid and realistic.

Appreciate the sentiment but the best thing to do if you feel a thread is veering wildly off-topic is to either hit the report button to alert us, or send one of the mods a PM. We can then either move the posts to a more relevant thread or advise posters to continue the conversation elsewhere.