St Marco

Going for a 2-2

Been back for a bit and was not sure if worth posting or not as not really much to say. QPR are a decent team, they look better then when i saw them last year. They have better players it is as simple as that. We looked average at best and as with the other games i have seen pre-season we lack the defensive quality which has plagued us for the last couple of years. We did not really create all to much which again highlight we need some creative players. As i said a week or so ago the team as it is right now will struggle in L1, especially with the -10. You could have god managing the team and would make no difference. What we need is players and a fair few of them. At least 1 CB and a left back. That is bare minimum. Then a right winger and cental midfielder who can actually pass. In my view the game on saturday will be very tough with the team we have. We are the new boys in the league with the big stadium and everyone will be up for their games against us. We have to match that and im sure Pardew will try and install that determination. This season is about surviving and building for next season. We lack the players and depth to mount any sort of promotion challenge. If we get in some players with the quality needed then who knows. But to expect anything other then survival with this squad is insane.

Has the potential to be amazing or has the potential to be really ****. If they follow what EA did with the Battlefield series (especially number 2) and what Infinity Ward did with Call of Duty 4 then it could be the best online shooter ever made. But if the go the Socom or Warhawk route then it will be just another shooter.

Seeing as your wrong most of the time think we must assume this nickstradamus prediction will be wrong too. The way i see it is quite simple really. We have in under a month gone from having new owners and new manager. We have a lot of players at the club who were out of contract, a lot of players who are not really wanting to be here and a lot of players who simply are not good enough. ML did not make his money by being stupid, your post implies he does not know how to run a business. The most important thing as Pardew has said "We need players who want to play for Southampton". The squad has lost a lot of these players who clearly do not want to play for Southampton. There will be more players leaving most likely Saga,Rasiak,John etc.. Once this phase is over and Pardew has his core squad of players he feels are commited to the cause you can then begin to add to it. There is no point paying people stupid wages just to fill the numbers, your not get anywhere doing that. If we have learnt anything over the past 2 seasons is that if you have a team full of people who can't be arsed then you will fail. The fact that Pardew has openly said he will give everyone a chance to prove themself and would prefer to keep players like Rasiak is just proof your view is baseless. Because that means ML is paying a high wage bill already, he is paying for all of those players who we could not afford to pay last season. Add to that he has obviously given Davis a much improved contract just cements it. The important thing people seem to forget is that Pardew is a guy who builds his teams piece by piece. Sometimes that takes awhile. He himself said only a few days ago that the team will not be a team until 12 months from now. You have to be realistic about it. Are players in Division three worth millions? Are players in the prem league or CCC going to be commited to the club by dropping down the leagues or just after a pay cheque? The team will be built but it will take time. The right players will come eventually. To compare a guy who has put £20m odd of his own money into the club to clear the debts etc with Lowe has to go down as the worst comment/comparison any Saints forum has ever seen. As i said awhile ago Nickh you come across as a guy who wants to see the club fail just so you can say i told you so. The dark days are gone, be happy.

If your getting rid of old games to get games games you don't have then CEX are probably the best for that. If you want other things then HMV are alright as they give you more for store credit. For cash though i guess best bet would be Ebay as most places give pretty **** cash deals. But then again if the game is **** then i guess thats what you expect!

I remember the same thread last year...... And i will say the same thing i said then. The squad is crap and is even worse then last years as people have left. We will be in a relegation battle unless new players who will go out in those cold nights up north in winter and give it there all are brought in. We have a good manager but we have next to no backroom staff. We have minus 10 etc etc Until at least 4 or 5 players of ability come in then we will be very lucky to stay in this league. Aim as high as we can aim, but you would be a fool to expect us to go for playoffs this year, maybe crazy to expect promotion. This season will be a set-up for the following which im sure we will get promoted during. This year is about building that team for that push.

Very damaging. The reality is we are left with 2 weeks to go until the new season starts. we have no clue on what players are coming in or which ones are going to leave. We have basically no backroom coaching staff, and to top it off we have to start with minus 10 (cheers Rupert). The fact is they just beat our current owner into exclusivity. The reasons why Mark Fry agreed is clear and that is it helped to pay people and keep the club going for another month. You have to put guranteed money ahead of potential money. If he took the ML bid and waited and waited for the cash who is to say that it might not have appeared and they backed out? leaving no money at all. We got lucky, we were lucky that ML waited and waited. But if as suggested he was going to do the deal but Pinnacle got in 1st then that means we were robbed of 4 weeks to prepare for the new season. If we had 6 weeks instead of 2 then things would look very different today in terms of both playing staff and coaching staff, i believe we would be in a better position for the new season. Today was a good display by the lads but the goals were scored by players who potentially might not be here next week. We need a team out there who will all be here for the whole of next season. We need to get a team together and we now have only 2 weeks to do that. So it was/is very damaging, time is of the essence now. We need a lot of new players and a lot of them who left in the month pinnacle were looking like getting the deal might have stayed on i.e Surman.

Top 2 = no chance Saying stuff like that is a bit silly really. He is setting goals and trying to gear the players,fans etc up and that is a great thing. But realisticly we are in a bad situation still in terms of the players. We got great fans, a great stadium, a great owner with loads of cash, a good manager etc etc but what we don't have is a superb squad. The team was **** last year, other then Davis nobody else could hold their hand up and say they did well. A crap team that was relegated has now been made even crapper by some of the crap players leaving. Skacel,BWP,DMG,Surman,Euell and of course that world class player Smith have all gone. All we have brought in is one player on a free. No offence to him but he will not change anything on his own. We need a huge increase of players with ability and attitude if we are seriously going to push for promotion this year. The squad we have now i think will struggle to stay in the league with the minus 10. Only two weeks until our 1st game and so much is needed to be done. What i want to know is how much Pardew has been given to strengthen the squad if he has been given anything at all. There are some decent people out there on a free but there are better players out there already at clubs. We need to exploit our new found wealth to get in those players who will make us a promotion chasing team. The defence pretty much needs a total overhaul, the midfield lacks creativity and the strike force all want to bugger off (apart from John). It just goes to show have damaging that Tony and Michael **** take bid really was, we lost 4 weeks because of those chumps. If we had 6 weeks left to prepare for the new season then i would say we had a chance, but with just 2 weeks, a pretty poor pre-season and lack of people coming in i can't see anywhere near a top half finish. I can see us in a relegation battle once again with this squad. With a coupel of signings we could maybe get to mid-table, and in all honesty i would be happy with that.

Just a press conference to say there will be no press conference then?

Yeah they should employ that guy who made that thread, he banged that out in 5 mins, but it highlights fully what i said and obviously lookslike most people on there agree with my view. You know your in trouble when a guy makes better looking screens for a game in his bedroom in 5 mins then a team of 15.000 people do in a year.

"A fresh modern look".....seriously mate that looks no different at all. What is the new feature this year? The box colour is orange? The disc has a new artwork of a football? The menu's have been slightly tweeked so that you can now get to your manager screen that has your stats while your at the training screen quicker?! Wow sounds awesome Interestingly this other SI games fella mentions what i have mentioned and most of the board of SI games people tend to agree with it http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=26782 Guess they all want to have golf days with superficial graphics too right

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B001FA0DLK/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0 would not say people find it very popular.... As i mentioned i love Football Manager, the old CM games i probably played more then any other. But how long can you release the same thing year after year and not expect things to go down hill? A fine example of this is Fifa. They made the same crap just changed the last number in the title. They tried to say "well we changed xyz, this and that is new" when in reality it was new years ago. People stopped buying Fifa and went to the competitor which was Pro Evo. That games was more realistic and that is why people loved it. That in turn made Fifa go back to the drawing board and create something better. Point being Football Manager is now like the old Fifa games, the same crap year after year, it is a rip off for what it is.

- Series looks dated in comparison to other games - Series lacks features other games have - Series is in decline both sales and review wise, question is why? - Series is tedius and just the same game year after year - Zero atmosphere to the game, you do not feel any different going to Old Trafford as you do going to your local sunday league team's ground. - The series is predictable and has few if any shocks, in some areas the game is very unrealistic e.g every year at the end of the season Fergie retires, he is still going nearly 5 years later..., a player scores a hat trick every few games when in reality this is a very very rare event, in fact only two people did it last year (Gerrad and Arshavin) etc etc. - Prediction of players is poor. You say you have a group of researchers but are they gamers or fans who actually are at the games and in a position to give un-biased feedback on every player? By the looks of it they are just gamers on a forum most likely. - No individualism at all. Every person is different by their number and that is it. Having contact with that person is the same with everyone else. The same goes with other managers. You can have mind games that actually have zero influence on anything. FM prides itself on being a database but what is the point of having asthetics like that if they do nothing? i can go on and on As i said before FM at it's heart is a text based game, this can only go so far, while the other genres are progressing with the technology available to it FM does not, in fact if you look at its scores as i said it has gone backwards. I am a die hard Saints fan, go to most of the away games, i am a massive games fan but more importantly i am a massive Championship Manager/Football manager fan. If people such as myself now no longer care about the game what does it say about it's future? Looking at Amazon i see it has just a 2.5 rating from nearly 300 reviews. The question as i said is do you continue to make the same game or change things? What changes will make people happy with the series once more and make them pump in those hours that they once did? My view as i have mentioned countless times is to change direction, drop the prehistoric engine and presentation and join the HD digital age and make a game that blows you away both graphicaly and gameplay wise. If the database numbers of FM met with the virtual world of FIfa manager then that would be the greatest most realisitc football manager game of all time, why won't they do that?

See i don't agree that it is better then Fifa Manager. I hate Fifa Manager but they are more likely to be the ones to make that realism break through. All im saying is in today's 21st century world where we have a games which are based on realism FM is in need of a huge change to be on par with that. Text based games died out long ago and if sales of the FM series are to go by in recent years then it would seem the trend is continuing with the series. If you look at its metacritic score it goes as follows 09 = 83 08 = 86 07 = 87 06 = 89 05 = 89 CM4 = 92 The game has been in decline since 2004 opinions wise with its latest version just into the 80's. Now that is loads better then any of it's competitors but as you said the 3d pitch was their 1st try this year. Which shows they are trying new things which is great. But they are in my view trying the wrong things. They need to make the game more realistic and in text format that is not as emersive as virtuality. Example if you look at COD4 does that make you feel more like you are there then reading Hearts of Darkness? Does driving a lambo on Forza 2 make you feel more there then reading Top Car magazine? Text based format is very limited, there are only so many ways you can say "xyz takes a corner" or "xyz has scored a goal". A huge part of the atmosphere is missing from the game and in my view as i said that is a area that at some point a games company will look at to it. It happens with every genre. EA at some point will do what they did with their other franchises and go back to the drawing board. They will realise their is a massive market for these games that is waiting to be exploited if done right. I remember ages ago a football manager game called Premier Manager on amiga. They had the right idea. Here is an example of their progress in terms of graphics from over 20 years ago all the way to this in 07 and this in Fifa Manager 09 [/url If you look at it you can see the evolution of this style of management game, it has grown with the graphics available to it. Where as if you look at the CM screens of 10 years ago and compare them to today they are almost the same, and that is the problem with the FM series. It is technically the same game every year just with updated teams. Which could be done by a patch every year, there is no real need for a new game yearly as not much is different. And in my view this is why the series has gone stale. Soon as i get FM each year i play it for a few weeks then stop playing it until the new one comes. Fifa 09 has taken the place of FM even though it has a crap manager game to it.

yes i have 09, but as i said it is bog standard, my mobile phone football game has better graphics then that. The pitches need to be made unique with each stadium.

Personally i think they need to sort of go in a different direction and add better graphics and animations to it. If you can remember the old Total Football Manager series or Fifa manager they do some really good things but overall it is let down by the statistical side of the games. I would love to see the series evolve from a database late 80's early 90's style game into a modern era game. So if there are press conferences then have them so you can see yourself sitting down at the table, if you sign a player you have him shown to the press with you. You can go to games and see the players playing rather then reading text and so on. Because at the end of the day that is what FM is and always has been a text game. This is fun but it is old now. We are in the HD era, the world could be virtually made to a degree which would add a lot more realism to it. For example in a shooting game they get more and more realistic, racing games and most sports games do too, but FM is stuck. They have the licence's to the leagues, they should use that to it's max potential and re-create the stadiums. Playing Fifa it is one of the best things when you go to say Anfield or Old Trafford. You know it is that place by looking at it. In FM it is just a pitch, you could be anywhere. It is things like this which FM could be thinking about rather then just the text aspect of the game.

Fifa 09 without a doubt, have that whole "one more game" mentality which is never just one more game, its like half a season.... Other games Total War series especially the new one: Empire. Forza 2 and a few other sports games like Fight Night. Used to play Football Manager loads but got bored of it, just the same old thing every year with maybe 1 new type of text. Could probably just update the games files yourself and save yourself money. They really need a huge overhaul of the game, need to make it more quicker like how it used to be. Could finish a season in a day, now takes ages and ages.

Then you obviously do not know much about peoples opinions of him Have a read of this thread on the main boxing forum in the world http://www.boxingforum.com/boxing-forum-general-discussion/12402-khan-vs-kotelnik.html Even though he won and won well people still shooting him down saying he will fight bums for the rest of his career etc etc. Do not let your biasedness of being british cloud your judegement. Any real fan of the sport see's the two fighters as equal not as countries and that is why the commentators on Sky have come in for some crap if you read it. What they were saying did not match what we were seeing, they were praising how great he was and how great the display was when in reality it was good not great and was effectivley fighting a moving punch bag. In the last 3 rounds they were saying he had loads left in the tank when he was clearly struggling once Kotelnik realised he needed a knockout. So as i said most people dislike him and to use a quote from someone on that thread "I find it difficult to think of any boxer in British boxing history as unpopular boxer as Khan is at present in the UK."

Excellent performance by Khan from start to finish, as i said above if he could hit and move and do it all night he would easily win. The only negative is that the opponent is slow and weak but still he got a few hooks in especially in the last 3 rounds. If he goes up against any of the main fighters just one of those will take him out. But maybe he has learnt a new punch resistance under Roach who once again shows why he is the best trainer alive today. So excellent win for Amir and has in my view earnt more respect, especially from people like me who are not his greatest fans. It will be interesting to see what direction he goes in from here, a fight with Hatton would be good for english boxing.

http://fr.justin.tv/vip_boxing_4/old disclaimer: i am mearly linking a link to a website, i have not put it on the web therefore i am innocent guv

Was a nice game up to about the 75 mark. Was good to see the new manager and owner and the atmosphere was awesome. Obviously Ajax are a better team then us by quite some distance but we did ourselves proud. However i still think the squad needs about 4 or 5 new players who are of better quality then what we have. Our defence was ok for the most of it but saw the same problems we have had for past few seasons. Slow players who are a bit clumsy now and then and not always chosing the easiest options for dealing with crosses,passes etc. Thomas did good i thought and if we can keep him fit then he would be a big plus for us. Perry is ok and has the commitment level but i think we need to keep him as cover, get at least 1 CB in and at bare minimum a decent left back. Our wingers did ok but we need better players out there, without the people creating chances for the strikers they will never score. Im sure Pardew knows this and as he said will be bringing in some players. A lot of positives for the team and im sure we will do ok. With the current squad i think mid table is best we can hope for. With a few clever signings we could push for a playoff spot.

Should be a good fight. What annoys me about Khan is the whole MAB thing and the way he conducted himself after it. If you hear his comments he says "Everyone thought i was going to get beat by him, everyone doubted my ability, even some people in my own camp doubted my ability, i proved them wrong, i proved everyone wrong, i beat Marc Antonio Barrera up and i will do the same to Kotelnik. I will be champion and i will go on to big fights, maybe against people like Marquez or Hatton. I am in the mix with those guys". It is his complete and utter disregard for reality which i think makes most people dislike him. MAB is a true gent and a true legend, he was beaten by Khan because of a clash of heads in round one which made it so he could not see at all. The ref should of stopped the fight right there. If it was a title fight and the same thing happened to say Hatton everyone would of been up in arms about it. But even with a blind past it Barrera he could not hurt him nor looklike hurting him. He truely believes he won that fight fair and square. He believes he does not need a re-match with MAB. So in my view Khan has some good skills, Roach would not touch him if he did not think he had potential to be something good. But the problem with Khan is Frank Warren. He has done as he always does and hype people, that is his job, the more he does it the more money he gets. It is the same with so many other previous fighters. Khan is the new one, raise expectations to these high levels and make people believe he is the next great British boxer. The night is called "The Man Who Would Be King", isn't that the same thing we saw with Harrison,Williams etc? The truth is he had to go up in weight to fight a champion who would not beat him bad. At Lightweight you got Marquez who has 3 titles and Valero, a guy who has 25 fights and 25 knock outs, that guy is as dangerous as dangerous gets. Was Khan going to beat those guys? Hell no. So he had to move up to the weight of Super Lightweight to fight either Kotelnik or Urango. He would not fight Bradley because Bradley is undefeated and has a habbit of being stripped of the titles he wins for not fighting the people he is supposed to. So the only place he could have a title shot would be SLW and against Kotelnik. Urango is still a dangerous fighter. Kotelnik is no chump, he is a hard fighter with one of the best defences in the game. He has never been knocked down let alone knocked out. But he is slow, doesn't hit hard and comes forward. Khan will do what Khan does and stay on the outside and hit and move and do that all night and win on the score cards most probably. If he does that then he will earn some respect from a lot of people including me. But i have a feeling he has over looked Kotelnik, he has been dreaming of a potential fight with Hatton and because of that his head will not be in the fight. Kotelnik is not a hard hitter but Khan has a glass chin. All it takes is one shot on the money and it is over. So in terms of boxing skill Khan is the better boxer, but a lot more goes into it then that and i think he might get caught again and lose.

HMV doing this "Prestige Edition" for £119....... HMV.com Exclusive Prestige Edition – This highly limited edition version of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the ultimate for any Call Of Duty fan. This exclusive set features the game in special-edition SteelBook case, the hardbound art book “Behind The Lines”, Call Of Duty Classic full downloadable game and a very special fully-functioning, wearable pair of Night Vision Goggles along with a display stand head stand. Please note this set is only available online from HMV.com and will not be available to buy in any HMV stores. HMV Exclusive Prestige Edition - Full Content Details Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game in premium, special-edition SteelBook case with custom artwork by Infinity Ward Hardbound art book, “Behind The Lines” – Designed by artists at Infinity Ward, featuring the art of Modern Warfare 2 Call Of Duty Classic full downloadable game – For the first time ever Infinity Ward’s 2003 award-winning game that launched a franchise comes to consoles Fully-functional, wearable Night Vision Goggles – features: See in absolute darkness up to 50 feet Ability to view in black and white or night vision green Custom-Designed and painted to replicate the in-game goggles Wearable, adjustable and hands-free Individually-numbered and engraved collector’s stand inspired by game character Captain “Soap” MacTavish, displays goggles when not in use http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=-1;6;-1;-1;-1&sku=44193&WT.ac=games-PBODY-HC_HOMEPAGE_LEAD-44193 Be handy for trying to get in without waking the misus on those nights out with the lads

Winning the only cup in this clubs history = automatic free season ticket for life in my book

Yes, technically. At that point he had 16 points from 17 games. Which was a 0.94 points per game average. After he left they got 23 points from 29 games which is a 0.79 points per game average. So they dropped by 0.15. However if you follow his record through to the end he would of had 43 points which would still of been relegation. But of course he would of had 29 games to work on it.