West Brom's defence has been their achilles heel all season and it's why they're likely to end up fighting it out in the playoffs. 47 goals conceded makes them the weakest defence out of the top 9. They've only conceded five more goals over the season than we have - they just score a lot more than us.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/why-the-hell-do-they-have-mouths-a-final-fantasy-7-pc-retrospective/ A nice little article on the original FF7 PC port. The mouths do look very out of place on the PS4 remaster they've kind of gone half and half. Nobody has an "o" mouth any more, but there's now a mixture of models with mouths (most of the main characters) and ones without (most of the minor cast, plus Sephiroth).

I've played it through my phone once or twice as well, it actually works surprisingly well for the most part. I think the PS4 remaster is based on the PC/Steam remaster - is that the one you bought, or the original Eidos PC version released in the late 90s?

Doesn't really matter now. We're going to finish somewhere mid-table, and when you're in the no man's land below 12th it doesn't really matter where you finish as long as it isn't in the relegation spots. I think we'll finish either 17th or 18th, just ahead of Wigan and possibly Stoke as well.

Oops.

It looks likely. Clearly I don't!

One of my Man Utd supporting mates started asking me about Buckley at the weekend, saying he'd heard a lot of top clubs were looking him, including United. It was news to me, but it going by your comments it sounds like there might be some merit to it.

In fairness Big Sam was very much into sports science, etc, and it always seems to work for him. I suppose the differences lies in understanding the data whilst actually being able to apply it in a real life situation. Not many are able to do it.

Make yourself a brew first, it's something like 30,000 words

@Bigdoggsteel really cool and lengthily feature on FF7 here: https://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7 - well worth a read!

I'm planning to get my dad a PS4 Pro for his birthday - partially as a thank you for helping me learn to drive at the ripe old age of 31. I might get the Red Dead 2 bundle package and cheekily ask if I can take RD2 not his kind of game really so I think it'd be better off with me!

Another defeat for Frank Lampard's Derby County.

Main issue for me is going to be the battle system. When turn based is done properly it's still great. I'm 99% certain this won't be turn based, which will definitely curtail my enjoyment. Part of the reason I loved Persona 5 was because of how well they updated and refined the turn based battle system. It might be out of date these days but it's still what I prefer.

I was really excited for the remake when it was announced in 2015, but yeah, now I'm kind of dreading it. All things considered I'm actually fine with the remastered PS4 version of FF7 + Advent Children. That'll do me. No confidence in Square-Enix doing the remake justice at this point, but I guess we'll see. They might surprise us.

Definitely get it, well worth the purchase. I think it's £12.99 at the moment but does fall under £10 every so often, so it might be worth waiting if you don't need it right now. Yeah you can turn off random battles, which is really useful at certain points. The other feature I really like is x3 speed, which makes battles, climbing ladders, running across the world map, etc a lot more manageable. There is also an option to restore your health and boost limit break at any point in battle, but it goes without saying that doing that pretty much removes any form of challenge. The only way you'd be able to die is if the enemy was able to one shot your entire team - possible at certain points (Midgar Zolom early on, for example) but generally unlikely.

Nowadays the PS4. It's got a lot of cool little optional features added in.

I've never really played tactical role playing games so it'll be interesting to get into. Right now I'm doing another play through of FF7, so it'll have to wait until that's done. No idea how many times I've gone through that game but it's at least once a year since 1998!

Yeah I finished it twice in fact, I've played nearly 200 hours on it overall. Up there with my favourite ever games, which I wasn't expecting when I bought it!

Aye, realistically if we're going to have a chance of promotion with Mowbray as manager than it's inevitable we will need better players across the pitch. The man himself has said so. The only other option is to get another manager, but that doesn't seem to be many people's preference, so we'll be waiting on Venky's benevolence to see whether we're in with a shot of a playoff place next season or not (no way we'll be good enough to go up automatically). Personally I'm expecting a relegation struggle next season, as I believe Dack will go and we will seriously struggle to replace his contributions. Graham and Mulgrew will be another year older, and both are already showing signs of being on the wane, although Mulgrew far more than DG. I would obviously love Tony to prove me wrong, but his recruitment over the past couple of years doesn't give me much cause for optimism.

As Merce mentioned a few pages back, at Mulgrew's age form and effectiveness can disintegrate almost overnight. Although in this instance I don't think that's the case, as he's been suspect most of the season. It's just getting even worse now. It's a bit of a catch-22 as whilst his defending is now a liability to us, his goals from set pieces are vital. He's only a couple of goals behind Graham/Dack. Hardly any of our other players score goals, so taking Mulgrew out of the team puts an even heavier burden on Graham/Dack to score in every match.

Yep, all except Rhodes sold by the time he was sacked though, with practically no reinvestment due to the transfer embargo. Bowyer obviously had a good squad at his disposal, but ultimately he was a reserve team manager thrown in at the deep end. We're lucky he was somewhat competent or even with that team we could have ended up in League 1 a lot sooner than we were. Steve Kean nearly relegated a team with the likes of Nelsen, Samba, Jermaine Jones, Santa Cruz, Dunn, etc. A team who had finished 10th only a season earlier. That's a very poor manager - and Bowyer wasn't that. He just wasn't good enough for what we needed either.

Considering all fees from sales under this lot disappear into a black hole never to be seen again I wouldn't be so sure of that!

Mulgrew's reaction after both goals worries me. Head down, moping, negative body language. Not how I would want my captain responding to conceding goals.

Unfortunately, I don't think many of us do anymore.

PS Store sale on at the moment. Ended up picking up Tales of Berseria, Tales of Zestiria and Disgaea 5. Not really heard of any of them before but they have good reviews, so will get around to them at some point in the distant future.