tomav84

No words.

1 hour ago, Lochheads twin said:

We are currently have some of the best players we have had for many a year.

I occasionally think, "He is the best since ............"

Here are a selection of pairings of a current player with a star from yesteryear. Who would you pick?

• Dougie or Gareth Barry (2000's) - making the game look effortless
• John McGinn or Dennis Mortimer (80's) - captains leading by example
• Moreno (2023) or John Gidman (70's) - rampaging fullbacks
• Ollie or Dwight Yorke - (2000's) - silky but deadly
• Leon Bailey or Ashley Young Mk1 - what are you going to get today?
• Emi Martinez - peerless.

If you are lucky enough to be younger than me, make up your own pairing. Who matches with Mings or Konsa, lots of great centre backs over the years.

There are no wrong answers.

Onwards & Upwards!

god how good would peak gareth barry be under unai? dougie for him is the only one from the above (gidman and mortimer are before my time)

it's a really interesting wildcard decision this week. chelsea and utd have good fixtures but both are utter cack

initial thoughts are going big on spurs and newcastle

of course everyone seems to have ben white

12 minutes ago, bobzy said:

If it offers any crumb of encouragement with my FM2023 Latvia save, the board have (finally) upgraded my youth facilities to "Excellent" and I've had a couple of Latvian kids come through who look handy (both are strikers which is a bit annoying as I play with 1; PSG rumoured to be interested in one of them though which is a great sign).  So "the nation" is going to improve.

The Latvian league is still sat 8th in terms of ranking and I got knocked out of the CL in the Round of 16 for the first time in about 8 seasons which has pissed off the board .  Players still want to leave for the massive clubs, but I always go for the talk with them, they didn't meet the valuation, enter high valuation loop.  A few times it gets met and I just refuse it leading to an unhappy player... but they still perform well.  I actually had a reputation amongst my squad of "not keeping promises" which was an actual problem, so had to sell a few players and re-invest.

Overall, though, the side is still very strong and, more importantly, the league is getting better.  Valmiera qualified from the Europa League group again, won in their playoff but lost to Leipzig in the Round of 16.  Other sides (RFS, Riga, Auda) are picking up some random very good players on free transfers.  I think it's because every club is rich so they offer silly wages but they're getting players who are causing my side some (small) problems and should see those sides do better in Europe.

Definitely a bit of a slog, but it does get better once you get past the stage you're at.

yeah the "i'll sell if this fee is met" started massively backfiring when clubs started to meet that fee left right and centre so as you say, you get a reputation for not keeping promises and that upsets people more! i'm finding it easier to just do the "you're not going anywhere" comment and the only time i give in is where they announce they'll leave on a free at the end of their contract. it's manageable though. there's normally a small window between transfer windows where they're all fairly happy and i can use that window to extend contracts. the rare occasions when i'm having to give in i do find that i can create a good bidding war. example being the last player i sold, bids started at 5m, he ended up going for a total package of over 50m.

what a lovely bit of unexpected good news. fantastic. probably one of the club's top earners you'd have thought now?

getting bored of my zilina save. players just don't want to be here at the first sniff of interest from elsewhere, even if they only were signed a few months ago. got a good side that qualifies from the league phase of the CL every year but only twice have i made it past the playoff round.

the league and team reputation just isn't progressing quick enough and it's getting annoying.

definitely need 2 more wins IMO

1 hour ago, a-k said:

Made it to 8 doublers in my First XI without taking a hit. Also looked at getting 10 doublers including bench boost, also without taking a hit, but decided I'll save that until DGW37, based on who I have planned coming into my team with the WC.

8 for me too (9 if you count ait-nouri on the bench), 1 hit.

was always going to do son and KDB for salah and eze plus an additional transfer for the hit which i found difficult deciding on. had olise in my head all week but wasn't happy with just the one liverpool player so taken a punt on diaz as think his minutes are fairly safe

my list pre shootout was luiz, watkins, tielemans, diaby and rodgers. imagine the last two would've been on the list in sudden death

i didn't want bailey to take one. just had a bad feeling...thought he'd try something silly but as it happens there wasn't much wrong with his pen

cash was the main surprise for me. really good pen.

good performance, good finish, and a really well taken pen too (he wouldn't have been on my list of pen takers so shows what i know)

1 hour ago, R.Bear said:

It is odd that anyone who dares to criticise him is jumped on by the usual suspects. The statistics don't mean much to me because the eye test is far more important. I dont trust him at all in big games or against top opposition. It was mistake to start him last night, even with Bailey carrying a knock. Games like that are not for him. His lacklustre performance was inevitable.

you would've risked further escalating his injury and potentially having bailey out for this crucial run in?

has there ever been a more 1 sided MOTM award?

oh good lord we would loathe this guy if he wasn't playing for us. but he is playing for us. and i freaking love him.

fa cup replays scrapped from next season. this is a major contributor to the blanks and doubles. could mean quite a shift to the way one plays FPL. also content creators might see a drop in views too, as i find the strategy aspect really is where they earn their money

13 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Having lived through so much pain for Villa wanting CL so much and making it donor die was stressing me out to no end. Being defeatist is a way of avoiding the pain of failure. 

But what is failure? I think we are now a top 8 side and we can compete for trophies and CL places and win any football game against any side. If we end 7th one season and 5th and get CL another as long as we can be sustainable and compete isn't that success? 

So by that metric this season is a success a resounding one. Nothing that can happen over the final games of the season can really change that 

One I look at it from that perspective life isn't as stressful and every game doesn't bring agonising levels of nerves and stress. 

thing is i think it's really difficult to sustain a europa league campaign whilst being competitive in the league. it's arguably the worst competition to be in. playing good teams so you need to go strong every week (remember we rotated a fair bit in the group games) but without the financial benefits that the CL brings

i'm desperate to qualify for the CL. i want to keep the likes of watkins and emi here and without that there's a chance their heads might be turned. yes it's very easy to say "well if they don't want to be here they can leave" but those 2 are irreplaceable IMO. it totally changes your status as a club. people point to newcastle and how it's not done them many favours but they qualified a year too early. we have enough to get through to the playoff round in the new format so there's no 'group of death' anymore.

whilst on paper it's still improvement and an excellent season, 5th would feel like a failure at this point IMO. i can honestly say i'm going to be more nervous sunday than i will be tonight. sunday's game has occupied more of my mind this week than tonight's to be completely honest...

17 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

It is utterly feeble that Fulham, Brentford and now Bourenmouth can't even shift the normal away allocation. I think all 3 games have been 3pm kick-offs and not even televised.   

Though at least it gives the chance for more tickets for home fans.

I presume the club is selling this at the usual ticket price and not the reduced £30 away allocation fee? 

fulham have always had small away following. i can't speak for brentford.

bournemouth i know they have issues when taking the larger allocations and making it general sale with home fans being in the away end. it's preferable for them to have a small allocation of actual away fans rather than a full allocation that includes a number of villa fans

9 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

67 points could be enough for 4th. I think 70 definitely will be.

Beating Bournemouth at the weekend would be a big step in the right direction and might make everything feel a little easier.

 

yeah i think 3 wins from our remaining 5 basically seals it and the easiest of those is this sunday. it's going to be a nervous one this weekend.

just glad i don't have to hear about it anymore. we know the score now. 4th or bust.

Just now, switters said:

Pretty sure most Spurs fans will be happier about arsenal losing than any coefficient stuff

they are

13 hours ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

We must be one of the more successful sides there with 5 wins. Think City/Chelsea might be the only ones with more

i think we're tied with chelsea on 5 now

anyone watching baby reindeer? 6 episodes in and absolutely hooked

coffee > tea

and chocolate is way overrated. not worth the calories at all

hovering around 42k. final push now. going to have a bit of fun with the doubles this week before WC next week. BB 37 which i'm not overly optimistic about. i just want to better last year's best ever FPL season and finish in the top 100k

there's so much content around now including from the official FPL channels. players are spoon fed so much information that at this stage of the season everyone in the top 500k i'd imagine is what you'd call an 'engaged' FPL player so it's become much more difficult

this is interesting. Stelling refused to discuss what the powers at talk sport asked him to. Just a little insight into how media outlets work in terms of trying to stir shit for likes