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If you're wanting to apportion blame for the goal I'm not sure you need to look that far back given Buonanotte tries to skin someone on the edge of his own box and then Justin shanks it straight to their player

It's such a weird game, pretty much everyone on the pitch looks absolutely ****ed

And now, your Leicester City side Smichael De Leat Wesolowski Macguire Castange Ghazzel N'didi Preat Gallacher Ineacho Woods

He gets through a fair amount of tackles and defensive work but yeah I think his work rate is being overstated in some quarters. I certainly don't think he's noticeably more impressive without the ball than Buonanotte, Fatawu or Mavididi who are all younger, fitter and a lot more capable with the ball than he is. He has his qualities, is good for the occasional goal and there are some situations he is ideal to bring into but I really can't see any reason for him to be even a semi-regular starter.

If I were a Palace fan I suspect I'd grow quite tired of watching Eze and Nketiah taking it in turns to shoot from 30 yards every other minute

That is fine and I think most sane people accept we aren't going to be swashbuckling our way to the European places but pragmatism is not necessarily synonymous with being defensive and grinding out ugly results. It means using the tools you have in the way that makes the most sense and I do not think that's what he's doing. I want us to play more expansively and give more chances to our creative attacking players like Fatawu not for entertainment's sake (or because in my subjective opinion it's the right way to play or whatever) but because we see basically every game that is when we are at our best.

About due another international break aren't we? Please?

Might want to let him know then, they'll be wondering why he hasn't been turning up to training

Who is Iversen on loan to?

Being able to produce a list of realistic replacements isn't a prerequisite for wanting Cooper - or any manager - gone though. I am a humble football fan who thinks Cooper is shit, not a director of football with a big contact book and the resources of a Premier League club at my disposal. It's a bit like how in January '23 I didn't have a big long list of quality goalkeepers who I was confident would sign for us, yet I think it would have been pretty reasonable of me to say I wanted us to sack Ward off and get someone better in. I think you are completely right in your previous post in that almost all of us would happily take finishing 15th - my concern is that I don't think our current level of performance extrapolated over the course of the season sees us finishing that high, nor have I been given any reason to believe that level is going to increase to any significant degree.

I can't personally give any advice on emulation but I know EmuDeck is meant to make installing and setting up emulators easy. Moonlight and Chiaki work very well for streaming from PC and PS5 respectively. For general use I would say Decky Loader and then any plugins you like the sound of - I would recommend ProtonDB badges as they're usually a better indicator of performance/functionality than the Steam Verified badges

He's not as dominant as you'd expect someone his size to be but he's still our best CB aerially. If you're picking Okoli or Coady over him it's not because they're better in the air.

People are citing a number of stats, including but by no means limited to our xG and xGA, that demonstrate we are playing badly and suggesting if we continue to play badly over the course of the season we will probably finish in a bad position. Our current league position and points per game are not hyper-efficient predictors of the future either.

I just don't get why he appears to have so little faith in his players

Obviously pleased we've got a win - I don't see how we pick up too many more if we're going to keep approaching games like this. There is a difference between grinding out wins through resilience and completely handing your opponent the initiative while hoping they're sufficiently profligate for us to get away with it. With every game that passes I become more convinced that the squad is good enough for this level and the manager isn't. Hopefully we use the next three league games to generate some momentum.

Yeah the first couple of trailers were not great but it looks a bit better with every new look at it they give. My only experience with the series is a few hours of Inquisition but I'm intrigued to see how this does, partly because I like fantasy RPGs but moreso because I want to know how worried I should be about the new Mass Effect

All well-taken goals but the finishes for his second and fourth are fantastic on what is nominally his weaker foot. If I remember correctly he usually played in a front two for Preston and it looks like this was his first time doing so for Stoke with Gallagher starting alongside him.

I really appreciate the 20xx in Music threads as a way to keep up with new stuff and although we've got all sorts of threads for specific games/genres/platforms, I feel like they tend to get a bit lost amidst the broader remit of the Entertainment Forum. I thought we could perhaps do with a similar topic dedicated to discussing and highlighting new games. My thinking is to do a post at the start of each month (if I remember) mentioning a handful of notable upcoming releases and stuff I'm personally looking forward to, and then if there's anything you're interested in that's slipped under my radar - I don't really keep up with anything Nintendo for instance - you can chuck it into the mix. Without further ado, here is some of what's coming up in October. 8th - Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred (PC/PS/Xbox) - first expansion for the base game with a new questline, region and class. I've not touched it since around launch but apparently stuff like loot, crafting and the endgame have seen pretty comprehensive changes since then so this could be a good time to jump back in. 8th - Silent Hill 2 (PC/PS5) - remake of what I understand to be one of the best horror games ever made despite not having played it, partly because I was a young child when it came out and partly because I am a coward who hates being scared. The recent Resident Evil remakes seemed generally well-received and this looks a similar sort of deal with the modernised camera and fancy graphics. 11th - Metaphor: ReFantazio (PC/PS/Xbox) - Persona but with modern Japan and anime schoolgirls replaced with medieval fantasy and anime elves. If that sounds like your sort of thing, or it really doesn't and you are looking to punish yourself for something, there is a demo available now that covers roughly the first five hours with your save carrying over to the full game. 11th - Undisputed (PC/PS/Xbox) - a new boxing game for anyone still mourning the loss of Fight Night. Made by a British team I believe and has been on Steam Early Access for a while so maybe some of our PC users can shed some light on how it's shaping up. 25th - Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (PC/PS/Xbox) - you probably know what to expect from this by now. I played the beta which was OK but if you are tired of the franchise I can't imagine this is going to do anything to change that. 31st - Dragon Age: The Veilguard (PC/PS5/XSXS) - it is quite a long time since BioWare made a good game and yet I find myself cautiously optimistic about this. I don't think the combat looks like anything to shout about and I don't expect a return to anything like the glory days but I reckon we can probably expect a slightly naff but broadly enjoyable 7/10, which would represent a sizeable improvement on the likes of Andromeda and Anthem. If you're interested/profoundly disinterested in any of those or indeed any game coming up over the next month, have at it.

Project Keep It Tight off to a flier. Looking forward to seeing what sort of scorelines we can rack up in the second half of the season when Hermansen goes to Chelsea on deadline day and we make a late move for Wayne Hennessey

Yeah definitely. I think we are all sadly well accustomed to clubs being run as businesses first and foremost but we don't even do that particularly well and stuff like this you can't put down to greed, more spite. I can't see how it changes.

**** this club and the people who run it so hard. Making dodgy football and football-adjacent decisions is one thing but the absolute contempt they have for us is genuinely remarkable at this point. Showing support for mental health causes and one of their foremost fan groups at presumably little to no cost should be an absolute tap-in for them I would have thought and yet they seem totally committed to turning the relationship between them and their community into an adversarial one.

I would just love to see a compelling argument for keeping HIM. Not an argument for why getting rid of a manager early is bad, which is what most defences of him seem to boil down to - I want to know why Steve Cooper specifically should be our manager rather than someone else.

Those people will detest any manager who instructs our players to pass the ball along the ground so possibly not the group to be consulting on potential appointments

I also thought he would be a good deal more useful than he is. He's like a less skilful Perez and though Ayew is also very underwhelming he looks electric by comparison.

Yeah exactly. Games like this are free hits until you fail to beat relegation rivals at home or convert 2-0 leads against mid-table dross like Palace into wins, at which point they become games you need to get something from like any other