Daweii

Last I heard from Gregg Evans of the Birmingham Mail is that the paper work has all be filed and that the final stage is merely Tony Xia flying in to the UK to meet with officials from the FA and Football League. That said it's unknown if Xia is in the country or if he is summoned when they are done looking through the paper work. That said this deal isn't dragging on all that much most takeovers take about this amount of time, it'll be done soon I think.

Bethesda are gaining a lot of hype this year despite it clearly being apparent that Elder Scrolls 6 isn't happening. They stated last year that conferences wouldn't be yearly unless they had something huge to show. This of course sent the internet into a bit of a frenzy when they finally announced another conference, but despite Elder Scrolls 6 clearly not being there it's still generating insane levels of hype. Evil Within 2 is gonna be great for fans of action-horror. Evil Within was a great throw back to classic Shinji Mikami gameplay from Resident Evil 4, maybe not on the same level as that but good classic horror is hard to find. There are so many run and hide horror games now like Amnesia, Outlast, Outlast 2 and the hundreds of smaller indie games that hopped on the bandwagon, but not many good horror games with guns and puzzles recently. Evil Within wasn't brilliant but it was refreshing to play after years of Resident Evil going further and further downhill with 5 and 6. So I look forward to Evil Within 2, I am most curious whether Mikami is coming back as he did say that the first game was his last as director so who knows. Wolfenstein 2 is gonna be hype. Machine Games for such a new studio have had such a great start. The New Order was hype as **** one of the best throw-back retro style shooters released in over a decade. The Old Blood was a great standalone expansion to that which also showed they weren't a one trick pony even if The Old Blood was only 3-4 hours long. I have heard rumblings that they are also in charge of a Quake reboot, but I personally think that either Bethesda has expanded their studio with very little fanfare or someone else is doing that one. Either way Wolfenstein 2, is gonna be insane. Prey 2... I remember the teaser trailer around the time Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was unveiled, but I'm just not convinced it will live up to the hype that it's cancellation and subsequent revival will create. Prey was a fun if not janky game some 10+ years ago and it introduced some new concepts like portals to FPS, but whether this will be the game worthy of the hype it will no doubt get is yet to be seen. I do think Bethesda have one hell of a track record publishing incredible games at this point though, so I am sure this wouldn't be getting revived if it didn't live up to their standards. Should be a good show overall. I don't think there will be many surprises. Dishonored 2 will likely open the show and Prey 2 will likely close it with a hype gameplay trailer with a possible release window. Aside from that Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein 2 can duke it out for who gets the most attention at the mid-point of the show.

Why is it always one solitary person to blame for everything? Kevin Bond was always that assistant manager to someone else or on the rare occasion the manager, who by all accounts seemed to do pretty well at managing. Yet now he has even less of a say than ever before as he has to get his opinion through Steve Clarke and then Di Matteo before it gets carried out. He is the first team coach his role is to assist and lead training sessions while providing Clarke with the info to give to Di Matteo about who is performing well and who isn't. We have a hierarchy for once with Di Matteo's opinion as the most important and Battara's as the least, Bond kinda fits in the middle of all of that like a very well stacked sandwich. Long story short whether Bond was the weak link in the past or not he doesn't have the same amount of power that he's had in the past either.

Not sure it's happening for a while. Ready At Dawn have already announced their next game and it's not The Order 2. They are working on a cute arena brawler called Deformers which is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC likely next year.

The same thing most managers do in pre-season which is plan for the future cause there is very little to really do now. What RDM will be using this time for is to look at players to sign in July while also likely watching a ton of our performances last season. Most managers at this time of year can almost chill a bit like the players do, but they also have the luxury of seeing their team play last season. So while it may seem some teams are getting ahead by signing pre-deals now, we're not that far behind if at all. Now if the takeover takes until July or later to get ratified then we have an issue, but right now this pre-season is no different really to any other club that just got a new manager.

@Richard To me optimism isn't as scientific. I am optimistic because I will be in a shit mood for the next 2 months waiting for the season to start if I am anything but optimistic about it. So I choose to be optimistic regardless of what facts there are against my current mindset.

Depends what kind of remaster it winds up being. Dead Island just had a remaster which saw the game remade on their newest engine and it looks so good in certain areas, yeah still a bit dated looking but the game is like 8 years old. Remasters are getting a lot better now that they have noticed gamers are more likely to buy it if the upgrade is sizeable.

Yeah as more of the board pass they get added to the list. As they fail they seemingly "resign" could that be why Hitchins resigned after only 15 days as he was ruled out almost immediately. If so at least it means the FA aren't failing us for one part of the board failing the test, of course if that is why he resigned..

Nifty little player isn't he.. Still question marks over the quality of the opposition but some of the things he was doing like the crosses and making space are pretty universal skills, so provided he finds it as easy in the Championship to run past players as he did in League Two then he'd be a quality signing.

I think a lot of players here already will be transformed with Max Marchesi over seeing fitness training this coming season. We're likely compensating Inter Milan a pretty penny to get his services so players like Veretout will have no excuse come the start of the season if their engine isn't there.

Good to see us seemingly making moves early especially for freebies. We would wind up kicking ourselves if we passed up players we could get now even without the takeover completed if they wound up at a rival. I understand being potentially limited financially prior to the takeover being ratified, but bosmans we can do..

Not to mention the only cast-offs we are looking at are those that have proven they can get promoted in the past. I wouldn't say that it's sad just that it's common sense to look at players that can do a job in the Championship that have also worked for RDM before to great success.

In the 09/10 season he played for West Brom under RDM's management he scored 13 goals in 45 appearances. 18 goals overall counting the cup competition. In the 7 seasons since that season he has only scored a grand total of 12 times. I always heard that RDM gets the best out of creative attacking players and it seems that is the case at least with Dorrans.

It could very well be a mental block. It's the same thing that gets people with lower back pain, you expect it therefore you avoid bending and when you have to bend you expect the pain so there is pain. It may just be that light exercise will get you past it eventually but of course if the pain gets worse cease whatever it is you are doing and go see your physio again.

All I have read from the likes of Birmingham Mail is Di Matteo can start assessing the squad now and anyone he's not happy with that likely won't sell for their "valuation" can be sold at a majorly cut down price. I have seen some sources taking that and insinuating that does also mean releasing some of them once Xia has taken over if no one has taken the bait, but for now all it seems we can do is list people for transfer that Di Matteo doesn't want. That said all we are missing out on are those pre-transfer deals that a few clubs are making, but it seems that work is happening now and the takeover will likely be ratified by the time the transfer window is open.

To be fair it's hard not to be a selling club these days especially in our position. I mean Leicester are struggling to keep their best players and they won the league and have Champions League ahead of them. Lowly Aston Villa with nothing but the potential of promotion ahead of us haven't got a leg to stand on keeping players like Amavi if clubs like Liverpool with their £100k a week wages come knocking. The only way to not be a selling club is to stay successful long enough that your current players believe that there is no where better to go, as Leicester are finding out though one season of greatness is not enough to convince their stars that they will manage it again and again and again.

There are teams out there likely concerned about us. We have appointed a manager that wins things and has gotten a team promoted before. We are also seemingly backed by a lot of money which doesn't guarantee success but it helps, there are lots of teams in the Championship wondering how they will make a move in the transfer market this Summer without selling prized assets to do it. We on the other hand appear to have £50+ million regardless of if any of our players are sold, we are in a decent position once all the fit and proper is sorted out compared to many in this league.

That said seeing his name added to Recon Sports as of yesterday seems to suggest that he's passed his part of the fit and proper, so unless there is someone else super dodgy that we don't know about it seems to be going smoothly. Definitely a filing to keep an eye on as more names may be added as they pass the checks.

I get that he's unproven and a work in progress but it does seem awfully like Villa these days to sign a player from Barcelona and then rarely play him. I mean yeah he played a lot for our U21's (good for them) but not for the Senior team. Adama seemed like he would be useful even on a bad day as he would have likely created something in a match. That was our issue last season, we had no shortage of players that could score goals I mean Ayew banged them in with ease when he finally made a chance for himself we just lacked creative players. It annoyed me that we had arguably one of the most promising creative players in Europe in our team and he rarely featured, more annoying was when he did he made things happen.

Depends how much we're planning to pay him. We need at least one transfer to happen on our side to know just how much a change in owner has changed our buying policies. If we are that confident of getting promoted we could be signing players to Premier League wages even in the Championship, it's down to the player then if their pride will allow them to play in the small leagues. The fact we are going for El Ghazi if reports are true shows that we aren't letting a change of league inhibit who we are after.

I dunno if it happened today or when he got in yesterday but he's already told Tony Parks to pack his bags, he was of course our goalkeeping coach.. I wonder what he was doing for the last year cause he certainly wasn't making Guzan a better keeper that's for sure.

Like Sharky said in grand total of 20 minutes he played last season he made defenders in the Premier League look like they lacked any ability whatsoever. He doesn't need to pass if that keeps happening.

@cyrusr He's a kid waiting for Christmas Day basically and he's growing impatient, he wants to play with his new toy.

I think we should be more morally ambiguous though not lacking morals 100%. Right now we play it straight 100% we won't do a single thing that is even close to breaking the rules, yet we should in some instances. Now I'm not saying go 100% off the deep end and start breaching every rule left, right and center because what is the worst that will happen? A fine? That's not what I'm saying, all I am saying is stay competitive and if that means bending the rules from time to time like all the other clubs are then so be it.

29 years since we started the 1987 season in Division 2. I was 1 month old when we were promoted back to Division 1. It's been a long ass time, but thanks to alphabetical order when they do update the tables we'll be starting in 1st place so only 21st in English Football. We'll be back in our rightful place soon enough.