Delphouneso

I don't think we should sell him - far from it - I just think it's a weird thing to bash Gerrard for. Bailey hasn't exactly been setting the world alight in his cameos, not enough to warrant his dad/agent calling out Gerrard/the club in public anyway. As I already said, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticise Gerrard, this probably isn't one of them.

Guy's done far less in a Villa shirt than Bertie who most seemed happy to let go. Gerrard needs to go for a whole bunch of reasons but Bailey's Dad/agent being a plonker isn't one of them.

yeah that's enough now get him out.

We've not really been tested but as expected Luiz and Kamara look a solid foundation to go and play football from. It's been boring but it's progress at least. I'd think about bringing on Buendia or Ramsey for McGinn, Coutinho actually looks up for it today but he needs other players around him on his wavelength.

Wasn't pretty but some players will have gained some confidence from that. Still think the captaincy is part of our problem, Ginny isn't a leader and neither is he playing very well at the moment either which I've no doubt is related. Needs taking out the team for a bit, he's currently just doing a great job of breaking up our play. You could hear Ty barking orders at him as well which must be a pretty weird dynamic.

It's not the first time this has happened though. When he first took over he was having the two 8s cover the space left by the attacking FBs, which also left the middle of the pitch largely empty. Maybe a symptom of Gerrard wanting his players to play in his own image and expecting a little too much from them.

Shame to see Bertie leave, equal parts mad and maddening. Also leaves us with Bailey as our only out and out wide player, which is a bit of a concern if we wanted to change shape, or manager.

Another poster said it a few weeks back and I can't remember who it was so apologies for not giving them credit, but all of Gerrard's decisions just feel wrong. Win or loss under Deano you always felt he was making the decisions that were best for the club, Gerrard seems to be making decisions based on what's best for Steven Gerrard.

Weirdly I didn't have an issue watching the Walsall highlights though. And yeah the subscribe page is empty for me too so I couldn't even subscribe if I wanted to. Meanwhile Leeds have the highlights on their Youtube channel for free.

So I have an active 12 month subscription to VillaTV+ which expires on 21/7/22, but I can't watch highlights of this morning's game without a VillaTV+ subscription. Makes sense.

Cracking stage. Pogacar paying for all these little unnecessary efforts he keeps putting in? Tomorrow should be another corker, Pinot for the win on Bastille day?

Bertrand Traore enters the chat..

Pretty sure they had interviews with JPB and KKH at this point last year and both ended up going out on loan.

Have. Should have cashed in. And no we shouldn't have.

Archer again JJ assist, great goal.

Gets one chance and buries it. JJ just hit the bar as well.

I'd like Forest to stay up and I think Cooper is a decent manager but I can't see a situation where they don't go straight back down. They need to sign 2 x forwards, 1 x CM, and 2 x WBs just to replace their loan players, which would still leave them starting a CB who can't get in the Scotland side ahead of an out of position Scott McTominay and Grant Hanley (starting CB of the Norwich team that conceded 84 goals this season).

"the Seasiders have consistently attacked goal with a structure shared by the world’s best teams (including Klopp’s Liverpool and Southgate’s England)"

Not really sure what our game plan is today. Neither do I know what's happened to Ezri Konsa's ability to play football. But the irony of the Burnley fans booing Martinez is delicious.

Wordle 319 6/6 one of those today.

Can we all spend the next 12 months continually pointing out to Bournemouth fans that they only got promoted because Surridge was mistakenly flagged offside? Feels like we should.

Farming sunlight medals isn't fun so I decided to crack on with the DLC before it completely ruined my enjoyment of the game. Finished the Sunken King (was okay, Elana was a good boss, the other two not so much), started the Old Iron King and then I met the blue Smelter Demon, or rather the corpse run to him, which might even be worse than that of his previous incarnation. Might be the first time I've ever walked away from a boss (I'll go back later) but for the two attempts I had at the boss itself I probably died 15+ times trying to run back to it. This game really doiscourages running past stuff. Reaching the end of my tether I reluctantly forged on expecting more of the same only for the Fume Knight to rise out of the ground and save the day. Probably the best boss in the game and one of the better balanced bosses in the series. It doesn't quite have the aesthetic appeal of something like Artorias but in terms of mechanics it's really well designed and basically serves as the punisher of bad habits. Get greedy? Dead. Panic heal? Dead. Don't manage your stamina well enough? Dead. Varied moveset, unpredictable combo lengths, and a second phase which is basically the first phase but faster and more punishing with some added hard to dodge new attacks. Enjoyed that one, and in the end made it look easy (kind of a weird first phase). Almost made me forget I still have 24 sunlight medals left to farm.

Darklurker down. Might've been my favourite boss so far if it weren't for the effigy farming required and having to get past Havel and friends before every attempt, really tarnished my experience. Also spent ages (and a bunch more effigies) dragging Lucatiel through the Rotten three times only to discover I can't complete her questline anyway because I already spoke to her at Aldia's Keep, so I guess I have to do it all over again in NG+? Which is pretty annoying.

I mean just look at the state of Vendrick's boss room:

Finished the main story today. I can see why this is the least loved of the series but I kind of enjoyed it, maybe because I had lower expectations going in. Its flaws are pretty obvious, there are a bunch of unecessary downgrades in quality of life stuff from the previous game, mechanically it's the worst in the series, but there's a bunch of cool stuff in it and atmospherically the game felt really good, although it's a shame most of the bosses were kind of underwhelming and forgettable. I like how abundant crafting materials were too, the lack of slabs/blood rocks/etc in other games forces you into picking a weapon early and sticking with it but I had a lot of fun playing around with different weapons in this one before mostly settling on splitting my time between the Warped Sword and the Partizan. I do feel like the hp loss when hollowed thing kinda put a dampner on the whole experience. I just found myself constantly checking how many effigies I had and debating whether or not to use one (particularly once you start needing them for the Dark Chasm thing - side note: haven't beat the Darklurker yet due to dwindling effigies), it's just an unnecessary complication. I did play the whole game with base vigor though so when hollowed basically everything one shot me which maybe amplified how annoying it is. Lastly this game needs a spam filter. It's not something that usually bothers me but this was by far the worst of the FS games I've played in terms of the number of soapstones and bloodstains cluttered everywhere, and you can't perform certain actions whilst the tooltips are on the screen. Reading 'therefore try but hole' for the 100th time whilst you're trying to switch to two-handing isn't funny, it's just annoying. Anyway, onto the trophy hunt. I briefly scanned the trophy guide and I'm sure I read something about co-op so I'm hoping it doesn't involve online play or if it does that there's a workaround.