Fry Crayola

I guess it's that time of year again where I have the inner debate about whether or not I have any time to actually play this. The answer is always "no", and yet...

I do suspect had Rahul baked better but not met the brief then they'd find a way to keep him.

Manon didn't bake Danish pastries, that was her undoing. Rahul was very, very lucky that she fucked herself over.

Wimbledon will have a final set tie break from next year, to be used if the score reaches 12-12 in the final set. The aim obviously being to avoid lengthy games such as the Isner - Anderson semi-final this year, and the knock on effects it has on scheduling and player exhaustion.

They should do, although I'll be starting a new ML as I didn't have the Bundesliga in my current one, and I'll want China/Thailand too to open up Asia.

It may well be. PES has never brought the J-League in even when Winning Eleven had it, which always struck me as weird, especially when FIFA didn't have it until 17.

No J-League which remains a glaring omission, especially from a Japanese developer. No mention of Celtic Park and Ibrox either.

The next update is due out on October 25th, and brings the Chinese Super League and Thai League 1 into the game - the first time the series has had Asian leagues in it in the western release as far as I can tell. There's also a bunch of improvements to the gameplay, including reducing the amount of low crosses from the AI, which is a good thing.

He was one of Ireland's two scorers in the U17s Euros last season when they were knocked out on penalties by the Netherlands (who beat England in the semis, and went on to win it). The other was Norwich's Adam Idah who was top scorer in qualifying. Both were in the U19 team that beat the Dutch team containing many of the same players 2-1 on Tuesday afternoon, with Idah scoring. I've read reports that Idah was on some top clubs' radars over the summer. There's some raw promise there but we can't read too much into under-age success. Still, the last time Ireland had any joy at youth level, it produced Richard Dunne, Robbie Keane and Damien Duff.

I'm having an existential crisis about this.

Yep. Some gold there all right!

That's a better assessment than "Ireland's players are Championship level". I mean, right now so are those from Wales but many will play higher, some won't. At least one could have played for Ireland, which is slightly gutting. Ireland's men are pretty much all on the wane, with a few exceptions, and the players are being selected for industry and experience instead of technique. At least the U19s are doing ok, results wise if nothing else.

This strikes me as a self-fulfilling prophesy. We're no good at playing with the ball on the ground so there's no point in trying to get better at it. They definitely had better players in Trap's reign, and they were underused and on occasion outright ignored in favour of his defensive and rigid play. There was more of a scoring edge when you compare the Robbie Keane era to now, but the two managers have almost identical records in that respect. I think the country needs to accept that long ball football isn't sustainable, it's detrimental to the technical development of the players. Who brings that in the role of the head coach isn't massively important though it won't be O'Neill or Keane, and change is needed elsewhere to improve the situation in the domestic league. I've said before I'd like to see Stephen Kenny given a chance after Dundalk's impressive European performances, they were far more entertaining to watch in games with greater disparity between opponents than recent Ireland displays. If Ireland have a technically deficient side, a commitment to keeping the ball on the ground and playing smart might not qualify for tournaments, but the long ball game isn't either. I'd rather see fallow campaigns of transition than an approach which can only bring forth results if the next generation emerges spontaneously.

You think it's gonna run for ten years?

None. I've seen a lot of talk recently on Twitter about the need to unionise, even before this latest blodge of shit.