Finnegan

I don't think we'd be top 2 even without the points deduction

Handball rules in football are just not fit for purpose anymore. Been messed around with so much they're just madness now.

If this is given I just give up tbf. Hand might be away from his body but he's running and not even looking, it's obviously a natural position.

Yep. Playing same role he does for Leicester basically. The more box to box of the sitting two. Looks very lively so far. Whole team do tbf.

It's on S4C if you can't find it anywhere else. Currently playing Belgium off the park for the first four minutes before they annihilate us.

Not a bad idea that

Stat padding?

He's a good coach and you've got a world class squad. It should click really tbf.

In fairness, we're making the Faroe Islands look like Brazil at the moment, it might not be the best yard stick

The way this has started it wouldn't surprise me

What we get for dropping JJ.

Welp

He's not wrong, we're a dross rugby nation.

Absolute scenes as well. Imagine how ****ing amazing that must feel compared to playing in front of us lot haha.

Just to be clear, we're all JJ vs the Saes right?

I don't understand why everyone was celebrating, to be quite honest. There were rumours literally a couple of years ago that there was a rift between Whelan and Rudkin (from a source close to Whelan's family @LinekersLugs ) My initial gut reaction at seeing Whelan go was "oh shit" not "oh yay." Don't particularly think is great at all.

You know that fans put out database updates right? They do it for older versions, too? You can probably get a 25/26 database update for like, FM 2018 if that's your favourite version.

Jesus ****ing Christ this says so much about the gaming industry. I'd happily pay a tenner every year for that, maybe? Thirty to fifty quid for a new database would be abusrd. I don't disagree with the concept of leaving the game alone for two, three, four year cycles and just releasing database updates but obviously that'd be a terrible business model and they aren't going to do it. I also don't necessarily agree that Football Manager's potential has hit a plateau and the game can't be any better. The game could be massively, massively better it's just that it would take years of development time to do that and they don't have the resources to both bring out the next iteration and also work on turning FM in to a brand new game.

I mean I figured but even adjusting for hyperbole it's a bit of a silly response, isn't it? We pretty obviously have significant squad building challenges that are much bigger priorities than Thomas. You can carry a few mediocre players in lower impact positions and still perform well in the league. History is littered with far more teams that won things despite having an average, mid table full back than they are succesful teams that didn't have any recognised quality goal scorers.

I'm confused by whether or not this is an extremely sassy strawman or an innocently weird post.

We have no reliable striker and Ayew, Soumaré and Skipp are still getting consistent minutes. I'd say Thomas is the least of our problems. We could comfortably get promoted with our current back four if we were an actual attacking threat at the other end of the pitch tbh.

I'd be over the moon if Carranza kicked on and turned out to be a goal machine at this level but I will admit to being a bit concerned by some of his early showings. He looks, at best, very rusty. I'd be over the moon if one of the academy kids stepped forward with Monga-esque confidence and impact and immediately got a knack for scoring at this level but I think if any were that close to ready, they'd at very least be getting a chance off the bench. The reality is that, for now at least, it's Daka or Ayew and it just isn't a contest. Whatever positive attributes Ayew has or hasn't got, he just isn't a 9. He makes our attack slow, predictable and ineffective. He makes the players around him worse, he makes our shape and balance worse. It doesn't matter that his touch is more confident or that he's stronger, holding the ball up a little is fine, holding on to it indefinitely and not bringing others in to play is not. Daka is just better for the team than Ayew is. Does that make Daka great? No. Do we need better? Yes. This isn't me defending him ad nauseam, the two things aren't mutually exclusive, he can be a poor option and still be our best option. That's just life with Jon Rudkin.

Newcastle end product makes us look good

Were they all offside?