The9

Having fun with my 34 Saints songs as recorded on Saturday, managed to set up the playlists and linked them correctly but the sods still won't play in game, would have made my 1-0 victory over the Skates (winner scored by me, the Be A Pro) that much better. They're currently iPhone voice messages from Saturday, copied from iTunes into Media Player, so mpeg4files in Playlists as streamed from my PC and even though the 360 and FIFA recognises the Playlists I've set up, they just aren't playing - so I think I'm going to convert them to mp3s on a CD and drop them onto the 360 HD directly and create a playlist from there. Would have done that last night but my blank CDs are somewhere in the garage and I couldn't be bothered to download more software to rip to DVD properly having just reinstalled Win 7, blah blah...

To be honest, I don't think I've said anything to suggest FIFA11 isn't a good game, but I've been playing it for 12 months and paid for it 3 times over now... As for the player models, I'm talking about the visual appearance - the PES animation is worse, there's no doubting that, the players run too upright-looking and they do move robotically - FIFA movement is more fluid. But in terms of the visual accuracy of the players, faces, the textures of the kit in detail, the way the socks sit on the shinpads, etc., PES player models are so much better looking than the FIFA ones. I'd argue the point about ball physics, I think both games have accurate ball physics, and FIFA's got rid of the floatiness it had until recently. I don't think PES has ever had it (based on 3 games on the current demo only, and not having played 2010 at all, though). In terms of player models, yeah EA have far more players to model, and it shows, because they just don't bloody bother. Is Chamberlain in the squad btw, couldn't see him last night ?

Yeah but will anyone buy next year's if its just more of the same again..?

Oh, one other thing, I tried to upload a Titchfield team yesterday (to play against my lot) and it wasn't allowed "due to profanity". However, there's Scvnthorpe in the game, in the npC. One rule for one and one for another ! Having said all that, I recorded a load of chants from the Northam on Saturday and will have a go at incorporating them into the game.

Still not impressed personally, I thought there was more difference between FIFA10 and World Cup 2010 than between the latter and FIFA11, and it's just too samey. Still not enough impact of the player stats on the individuals, and still the same story about players being basically interchangeable, within the parameters of trick levels. And FFS EA, how hard is it to get the colour of a team's numbers right, especially when they send the bloody findings to the manufacturers and club to confirm them (allegedly) ? And as for the total lack of effort that goes into the goalkeeper kits... just completely lazy and just not acceptable after 18 years of them (not) trying - even sticking the manufacturer's default kits would cover it, but they just don't bother. You can't edit keeper kits for a created team either, so my whole team has no name on the back... except the goalie, who sometimes plays in almost the same colour as the rest of the team. The only major improvement is taking Creation Centre offline, and even that's massively limited.

Did he do it 6 weeks ago then ?

Wales have been doing this kind of thing forever, especially when Cardiff and Swansea were in the bottom 2 divisions. What's more telling relatively speaking is that Lloyd James has NEVER played for the full Welsh side despite having 3 seasons' experience in the CCC and League 1. The pool of welsh football talent at full and U-21 level is a little deeper now Cardiff and Swansea are in the npC. FWIW I've only seen Doble play once, at Eastleigh in 2009, and he looked like the best player on the pitch for big chunks of his second half performance, strong, lively, skilful and creative - and playing in attacking midfield. I'm surprised he hasn't played for Saints yet, but judging by Adkins' results with Puncheon's quick-release passing on Saturday he's in good hands.

Bought it this morning at Sainsburys Shirley - went to Tesco first but they didn't have F1 2010 so I didn't go for the "buy one game at £35 get FIFA for £25" offer there. Needed groceries anyway, so that worked out well. Have to say I'm pretty bored of it already, have downloaded my created team and once I'd done that and seen them, well, meh. Everything else is pretty much the same as FIFA10 and unless I take a liking to playing as a goalie I'm just not going to bother with it much, can't be bothered to build my pro up again and much as I like Saints new kit it doesn't look right on us in the game !

I'm good thanks!

You're all mental. In a bad way.

He's already scored for them, I reckon they're up on the deal.

Meh, clearly my OF standards are higher than yours. I've seen people ranting and raving about how awesome some OFs are and then when I've got them, spent days just correcting the style and colours of the shirt and shorts numbering which have been inexplicably wrong, or overwriting completely the wrong away kit, or ones which just aren't as good as the ones I'd already done. Pedantry is my thing. As is not settling when I can do something about it - so I'd rather just not get involved in the first place than settle for second rate. Same goes for the Football Manager series - I'd never put it down and never stop messing with it, so I just don't buy it.

PS Now's the chance to start "so-and-so isn't in the Team Photo" rumours, no-one will check...

You'd think they could have had all the players face the camera.

But again, he's running it like a business rather than a football club, which seems to be the problem in 90% of the issues (downgrading the importance of ST holders in favour of by-match pricing, photographer and media "ban", media rows with other chairmen, charging travelling fans for parking etc). They all show a stubborn refusal to accept everyone else's best practice, build up over years of numerous different clubs and a variety of business models and financial situations. He can't change everything unilaterally, and there are too many of "them" that have been going on fine without the likes of him rocking the boat, and not enough of "us" (just Saints) to make the changes Cortese clearly thinks are logical. Personally I think I'd be inclined to fall into line with the rest of the league and then suggest changes through the appropriate channels - the protocol of not charging for boardroom drinks is clearly in place because it's a mutually beneficial arrangement - what happens now when Saints representatives go to a club with a free bar ? Doesn't it look just a little, what's the word... "grasping" ? I actually think it's more of an issue than any rumoured "ban" of Mitchell - which is not to say it's anything resembling a big deal anyway. But it is further indication that Cortese does things his way, for better or worse.

There's not likely to be an official story on something that potentially makes everyone involved on both sides look a bit silly, is there ? And honestly, I'm not remotely bothered, and most importantly, I seriously doubt it will have any effect whatsoever on the Bournemouth players' attitute. We already beat them comfortably once, can't say I'm too worried about Saturday either, it's always been in Saints' nature to raise themselves for teams higher up the league.

I noticed ONE person say they thought Cortese was in the wrong, which is probably more in the minority than you'd expect in any given thread on most subjects on here.

I've been very critical of Cortese, but I can't really complain about this one. I daresay if we'd played S****horpe at any point he'd have done the same thing, and he's within his rights to do so - the bloke's still going to the game at an exec box, he's just not getting special treatment. Whether he's telling the truth or not isn't really relevant.

I think a lot of people have to realise that there are economies of scale at play here - the site doesn't have thousands upon thousands of subscribers so there's no point in having an expensive server with a ton of failover options, and £5 per subscriber doesn't go that far in terms of servers anyway - plus neither of the "owners" are making much if anything out of the subscriptions anyway, and as far as I can tell, nor do they intend to. As for the quality of posting, whose fault is that ?

Meh, you're all about 6 months late on the "Seaborne is decent" bandwagon, he clearly showed signs of improvement when regularly picked alongside Fonte towards the end of last season. In fact he was the less hoofy of the two, and was winning everything in the air.

Two obvious things here. Stripes are slimming, as is black. Let's have a pic of the porker in the unflattering home kit from August...

I had just assumed Steve was in denial about the rest of the season, though it might just possibly be that he has a job with a big commute and is in the process of moving house...

I get an "uninterrupted service" thanks. Cunningly I choose to either go to the games or not pay the remotest attention to them, so I'm not often on here when lots of others are. That said, the matchday info stuff probably does need to be hosted separately. Oh, and great site though it is, even a fiver looks steep in this great big world of free information.

Match was 01/03/95 : http://www.soccerbase.com/results3.sd?gameid=221501 Grobbelaar was arrested two weeks later : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/bungs-and-bribes-football-cant-kick-this-habit-1611274.html But the videoed meetings were in September and October 1994, and the "bung" video came out in November 1994... http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200102/ldjudgmt/jd021024/grobb-1.htm so he'd have had to have been pretty stupid to chuck a couple in AFTER everyone was watching him following these revelations.

Have I missed something ? Are people actually trying to claim that Pardew was anything other than a massive success for Saints ? To be fair to Adkins there was a rot setting in when he took over and it's going to take him some time to turn it around, I'd say it's beyond just the personnel.