Scotland 2, Iceland 1. Not amazingly convincing but it really is the result that counts at the moment. Job done. I think qualifying for the Finals is still something of a long shot because if you look at some of the teams currently in second place in the other groups... Well, let's just say, I wouldn't fancy our chances over 2 legs against too many of them... We don't play another competitive international now until August so attentions can once again turn to domestic matters (and fantasy matters!)
Big week in fantasy land. Only 8 rounds of fixtures left and following the disaster I had last time (curse you Gerrard and curse you no clean sheets for Man Utd and Chelsea) I find myself again with a lot of ground to make up. I've studied the fixture list quite extensively looking for opportunities to milk every last point I can in this run-in so hopefully I can make it back into 4th (or even 3rd) before the end.
The 'Well are at home to Aberdeen tomorrow in what is yet another must-win game. With Dundee Utd and Hibs facing each other at Tannadice (draw please!) it's a chance to move into the top 6 again and close the gap to the European places in preparation for the split. Hopefully McGhee has had the lads working hard this week as not too many of them will have been off on international duty (Clarkson is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, as Craigan didn't figure for Northern Ireland due to an injury). 3 points please lads. Nothing less will do.
Shearer takes over at Newcastle. I have to say I really didn't see that coming. I mean, obviously if you cut him open his blood is black and white but he has always stated he'd move when the time was right, both for him and for Newcastle. I'm not so sure that time is now. We shall see. It's hard to imagine a club of the stature of Newcastle being relegated from the EPL but when you take a glance at their remaining opponents there's not much comfort to be found for the beleaguered Toon army. Can their next Messiah lead them out of danger?
Friday drinks tonight, undoubtedly, then more drinking tomorrow (in the name of charity) and a haircut on Sunday. Rock. On.
Played some of the new Rock Band DLC last night. A couple of tracks from Offspring (moar plx!) and Get Up (Sex Machine) by the godfather of soul. Funking it up with JB on Rock Band is pretty f'n cool!
Have a good weekend folks.
Friday, 3 April 2009
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Massive night for Scotland
It transpired that last week's pessimism concerning Saturday's clash with Holland at the Amsterdam ArenA was absolutely justified and tonight Scotland welcome Iceland to Hampden in what is being billed by all and sundry as a 'must win' game. This is undoubtedly the case as failure to beat the men from the even more frozen north would send the good ship carrying Scotland's world cup qualification hopes crashing into an iceberg and ensure a frosty reception for manager George Burley in Thursday's press. 'Snow joke. I started out well behind Burley but every little new development is serving to drain my confidence of the man who took Hearts to the giddy heights of the SPL summit a few years ago (albeit temporarily) but now seems a little lost in the foothills of the national side. Fallouts with players, notably Kris Boyd, combine with poor results generally to make me somewhat concerned for the future under Burley's stewardship. I'm not sure of the ins and outs of the disciplinary action against McGregor and captain Ferguson but if nothing else it does show the players aren't being kept in control as well as you would like. One thing is for sure; failure to beat Iceland will mean a sharpening of knives amongst the Scottish media pack and to be honest, you wouldn't blame them.There were reasons for optimism on display in Amsterdam. Ross McCormack was arguably Scotland's best player in his first start and his attacking flair will surely be a crucial part of what needs to be a positive approach to the match against a team we really should be opening up against, especially at home. Hutton and McManus look like they'll be back to shore up the defence and the Celtic stopper will need to contain the attacking prowess of Barcelona's Eidur Gudjohnsen if we're to get the clean sheet that I think we might need to win this match. The tartan army will fill the national stadium again and I really hope they get right behind the team right from the get go and don't get too impatient if we don't score early. I've seen it happen too many times and the jitters of the fans do sometimes filter through to the players which wont help anyone!
'Mon the Scotland!
Kick off 8pm, Sky Sports 2.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
5 things I hate about...
Empire Total War
To kick us off, I'm going to moan lyrical over the latest instalment in this franchise. So, in no particular order, here we go:
1. Friendly unit AI in battles. If history has taught us anything, it's that no matter how much you tell them to fire at will, line infantry will invariably stand around picking their noses with bayonets having several ounces of lead shot pumped at them repeatedly, with nothing so much as a harsh word thrown in retaliation. 'Concerned: Losing slightly' Yes, me too.
2. Time to play a game. Like the great dynasties of yore, at the rate it takes to proceed through even a short Grand Campaign, I'll have to pass on the mantle of stewardship to my sons and them to theirs if my family is ever going to see a campaign through. Real-time strategy? You're not kidding.
3. Thugees. Yes I know the term is accurate but DAMN, every time I hear the advisor chick's voice saying it I almost snort a lungful of my soup. For some reason I have images of 50-Cent's crew roaming around the sub-continent in their pimped-out carts terrorising rice farmers and cotton weavers. Don't be a menace to South Asia while drinking your lhassi in the jungle.
4. Enemy AI on the campaign map. Watching enemy manoeuvres sometimes feels like you are watching two very stupid dogs chase each other around, waving their tails like these virtual muppets wave their flags with seemingly no sense of purpose to it at all. One unit will march from point A to point B, about face and march to point C. Meanwhile, another, perhaps slightly cleverer muppet (but who really knows) will start from point C and march straight to point A. The end result? Nothing has changed except a wasted turn of movement and the player sitting there giggling uncontrollably as she ponders which region to next meander over and swallow up into her empire.
5. Difficulty. A vegetablised donkey could prolapse onto a board made of solid stupid and that dubious deposit could swallow a couple of valium, play this on hardest setting and STILL easily mince to victory. Hell, I could even play this on the hardest setting and mince to victory (although as point 1 above suggests, probably only using good old auto-resolve (or should I say auto-win by the way but that's technically sneaking in thing number 6 that I hate)). This is also pretty much only theory as due to point 2 above, I've not got a spare year to actually find out. If conquering the world was this easy, America would have done it by now.
*offers pinch of salt*
Got any more?
(((Note this is crossposted from my new blog over at GAX. I'll keep crossposting for a wee while even though it's also kinda doing that automagically. )))
To kick us off, I'm going to moan lyrical over the latest instalment in this franchise. So, in no particular order, here we go:
1. Friendly unit AI in battles. If history has taught us anything, it's that no matter how much you tell them to fire at will, line infantry will invariably stand around picking their noses with bayonets having several ounces of lead shot pumped at them repeatedly, with nothing so much as a harsh word thrown in retaliation. 'Concerned: Losing slightly' Yes, me too.
2. Time to play a game. Like the great dynasties of yore, at the rate it takes to proceed through even a short Grand Campaign, I'll have to pass on the mantle of stewardship to my sons and them to theirs if my family is ever going to see a campaign through. Real-time strategy? You're not kidding.
3. Thugees. Yes I know the term is accurate but DAMN, every time I hear the advisor chick's voice saying it I almost snort a lungful of my soup. For some reason I have images of 50-Cent's crew roaming around the sub-continent in their pimped-out carts terrorising rice farmers and cotton weavers. Don't be a menace to South Asia while drinking your lhassi in the jungle.
4. Enemy AI on the campaign map. Watching enemy manoeuvres sometimes feels like you are watching two very stupid dogs chase each other around, waving their tails like these virtual muppets wave their flags with seemingly no sense of purpose to it at all. One unit will march from point A to point B, about face and march to point C. Meanwhile, another, perhaps slightly cleverer muppet (but who really knows) will start from point C and march straight to point A. The end result? Nothing has changed except a wasted turn of movement and the player sitting there giggling uncontrollably as she ponders which region to next meander over and swallow up into her empire.
5. Difficulty. A vegetablised donkey could prolapse onto a board made of solid stupid and that dubious deposit could swallow a couple of valium, play this on hardest setting and STILL easily mince to victory. Hell, I could even play this on the hardest setting and mince to victory (although as point 1 above suggests, probably only using good old auto-resolve (or should I say auto-win by the way but that's technically sneaking in thing number 6 that I hate)). This is also pretty much only theory as due to point 2 above, I've not got a spare year to actually find out. If conquering the world was this easy, America would have done it by now.
*offers pinch of salt*
Got any more?
(((Note this is crossposted from my new blog over at GAX. I'll keep crossposting for a wee while even though it's also kinda doing that automagically. )))
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day.
Greetings loyal readers! What a lovely day it is (where I am at least). Inverse seasonally affective disorder it may be but there's something about the sunshine that puts a big dumb grin on my face. I even managed to sit in the beer garden of a pub at the weekend wearing nought up top but a t-shirt. Hailing, as I do, from the frozen north, this is something of a new experience for me and one I'm really looking forward to repeating over the coming months. When I moved down here the improved weather conditions were something I was really looking forward to and while the summer of 2007 was, I'm assured, somewhat disappointing (by my standards it was positively lovely), 2008 was much more promising. Hopefully this trend continues and the summer of 2009 is an absolute roaster.
The Mighty 'Well lodged a crucial 2-1 win against the Arabs at the weekend. Somewhat fortunately, by all accounts. Dundee Utd were denied what looked to be a good shout for a pen and had salt rubbed in the wounds as the 'Well broke up the park and nicked a winner. Harsh times for Craig Levein and the old cliche about these things evening out over the course of the season will be scant comfort to a team who have hit a sticky patch just as the season reaches crunch-time. Not that I'm crying into my porridge for them... Hearts did us no favours by losing at home to Hibs so we're still sitting in 7th for the moment but if we do make the top 6 I'm really confident we can take that 4th spot.
In fantasy land my tactical decisions paid off handsomely. Benching Van der Sar for Schwarzer was an obvious move which most of my rivals replicated, so was less effective than I'd hoped it would be but the rest of the lads did well and I was equal top scorer for the gameweek, moving quietly into 4th spot in the league and now focusing on Mr Bishop, sitting only 20 odd points ahead. I think 3rd is all I have left to fight for as 2nd is over 100 points ahead of me with only 9 (or 10 in Man Utd's case) games to play. There would have to be some utterly amazing results to haul back that much of a deficit.
It's been a while since i dropped a video in for your viewing pleasure, so here's a funky mash-up I've been listening to a fair bit lately.
Stay safe kids.
The Mighty 'Well lodged a crucial 2-1 win against the Arabs at the weekend. Somewhat fortunately, by all accounts. Dundee Utd were denied what looked to be a good shout for a pen and had salt rubbed in the wounds as the 'Well broke up the park and nicked a winner. Harsh times for Craig Levein and the old cliche about these things evening out over the course of the season will be scant comfort to a team who have hit a sticky patch just as the season reaches crunch-time. Not that I'm crying into my porridge for them... Hearts did us no favours by losing at home to Hibs so we're still sitting in 7th for the moment but if we do make the top 6 I'm really confident we can take that 4th spot.
In fantasy land my tactical decisions paid off handsomely. Benching Van der Sar for Schwarzer was an obvious move which most of my rivals replicated, so was less effective than I'd hoped it would be but the rest of the lads did well and I was equal top scorer for the gameweek, moving quietly into 4th spot in the league and now focusing on Mr Bishop, sitting only 20 odd points ahead. I think 3rd is all I have left to fight for as 2nd is over 100 points ahead of me with only 9 (or 10 in Man Utd's case) games to play. There would have to be some utterly amazing results to haul back that much of a deficit.
It's been a while since i dropped a video in for your viewing pleasure, so here's a funky mash-up I've been listening to a fair bit lately.
Stay safe kids.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Bring on the tangerines
Mark McGhee today received his Manager of the Month award for February and gave the credit to the players after a terrific ten game run in the league of 5 wins, 4 draws and just a single defeat (last week to Hearts in a game which no-one can quite understand how the capital side managed to win). Tomorrow we face Dundee United at Fir Park in a more or less must-win match if we are to make that crucial 4th spot and qualify for the Europa League next season. Back to back European campaigns hasn't happened to Motherwell for as long as I can remember. It would be some achievement given the atrocious spate of injuries we suffered towards the tail end of 2008. Last time out against the Arabs, we cuffed them 4-0 on their own patch and they will no doubt be out for revenge but with everybody fit and raring to go I think we should run out comfortable winners. I'm going for 2-0. Sheridan and Shuggy Hughes to score.
Games against Dundee United have held an extra significance for me since December 29th 2007. This was the last Motherwell game I actually went to (and my first since the 5-1 thrashing by Rangers in the league cup final years ago) and was of course marked by the tragic death of our captain Phil O'Donnell, who collapsed during the game and never recovered. On that day the football was magical. We were 3-0 up after half an hour and playing some truly scintillating stuff. It's not just fond memories. We really were that good. I still think about Uncle Phil from time to time and especially about his young family. Mostly when we play Dundee United. What a legend. Thanks for the memories Phil.
Games against Dundee United have held an extra significance for me since December 29th 2007. This was the last Motherwell game I actually went to (and my first since the 5-1 thrashing by Rangers in the league cup final years ago) and was of course marked by the tragic death of our captain Phil O'Donnell, who collapsed during the game and never recovered. On that day the football was magical. We were 3-0 up after half an hour and playing some truly scintillating stuff. It's not just fond memories. We really were that good. I still think about Uncle Phil from time to time and especially about his young family. Mostly when we play Dundee United. What a legend. Thanks for the memories Phil.
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