As far is pure talent is concerned I agree re: Duffy, but he became a toxic presence by the end and for that reason I'd say no thanks. Those own goals alone should make him persona-non-grata at Ewood forevermore. Marshall I probably wouldn't say no to, but I'd want somebody else around to challenge him as I wouldn't fully trust him.

For the record, this was our squad for the first game of the 2016-17 season: Steele Lowe Duffy Ward Henley Feeney Lenihan Akpan Bennett Marshall Graham Subs: Raya Greer Byrne Stokes Hendrie Guthrie Conway Excluding players who are still at the club, is there literally a single player on that list that anybody on here (excluding Jim picking Lowe) would want to bring back? You could make an argument for Duffy but after his "accidental" own goals against Cardiff I never want to see him in our shirt again. Marshall maybe the only other, but he has issues with mentality which make him a risky regular first team choice. Essentially I think we're already in a much better place now than we were at the beginning of the 16/17 season, despite being a division lower. We need improvements, but give me this team any day of the week over what we had in 16/17.

Getting him for £750k was pretty ridiculous as well, considering Gills were apparently turning down bids of £2m for him previously. Strange that they allowed his contract to run down to the last year if the intention was ultimately to sell him anyway.

Speaking of Incey, he might as well throw his hat into the ring at this point. Everyone else seems to be.

From the article...

They've been linked with some horrendous candidates Lampard, Slippy G, Campbell, Arry "the bankruptor" Redknapp... apparently they were priced out of talking to Luton's boss, which tells you how much Evans is planning to invest going forward.

The thread title for this on the Ipswich forum simply reads "Sol Campbell - WTF?"

Hopefully not. We didn't need him in League 1 and we certainly don't need him in the Championship. I'd say L1 is about his level so once Blackpool's new owners come in maybe Uncle Gary will have some spare cash to give Lowey a new home.

Contract is expiring isn't it? TM clearly doesn't fancy him so I expect we'll be parting ways.

Would get rid of a fair few in the summer. Not many of the 'core' group but certainly some on the fringes. Samuel, Whittingham, Caddis, Gladwin (I just read we paid £1.5m for him, surely not true?!), Evans and Conway I'd happily move on if possible to get in a little extra money and free up a bit more on the wage budget. Think it'll be difficult to shift any of them that aren't out of contract though. In terms of loans I'd only bring back Armstrong. Possibly Chapman too if wages were sensible. Both would be decent options from the bench. Payne and Antonsson need at least another season in L1 to develop imo, and we won't be there. Ideally I'd prefer Nyambe, Williams and Downing to be back up only. We also have to be mindful of Mulgrew's age & traditional injury proneness. So defence should really be quite a high priority this summer. Truth be told we need reinforcements across the park though. Central midfield has been a problem for years and it remains to be seen how Smallwood makes the step up, particularly taking into account his poor form for much of the second half of this season. We don't have any proper wide men and shunting strikers out onto the wings has seen understandably mixed results, often causing disjointed performances. We are also going to need a couple of decent options in attack to support Graham and Dack. Better hope Venky's are feeling generous

Great to read, but unfortunately we all know the buck stops with our owners in Pune who have shown themselves incapable of making good long-term decisions for Blackburn Rovers. We can only hope that they've finally found people in the likes of Waggott and Mowbray who are capable of doing the work for them.

Indeed. The only thing I will say is that the gulf between the Championship and L1 is MUCH larger than the gap between the Championship and the Premier League. There's a very noticeable drop in quality and money in this league definitely talks. IF Short or a new owner is willing to invest a few million into the squad and jettison the poisonous members of the current dressing room then Sunderland should bounce straight back. It's a big if at the moment though.

Still can't believe they paid us money for Steele. Absolute robbery but thanks anyway. There must be some serious toxic elements at Sunderland for them to not only double drop but be the first Championship team relegated. Not sure they'll breeze through L1 like us and Wigan have either.

Funnily enough after embracing the "boring James Milner" character he actually became quite entertaining

Bennett is the type of player every team needs. A, tireless, reliable, hard working grafter who is versatile and chips in with the odd goal too. He's basically our version of James Milner.

It's totally dependent on the individual. I've never suffered from any form of motion sickness, and similarly in VR nothing has really fazed me. Even playing Wipeout on the fastest speed setting didn't cause me discomfort. In definitely varies from person to person, but normally even if you do experience some discomfort it'll go away in time. Playing Resi 7 in VR initially is ridiculous. Even though I knew I was in my living room in the middle of the day with a headset on, playing the game was one of the scariest things I've done. Again over time the effect lessens. There's a game called Farpoint which has huge acid-spitting spiders jumping at you - the first time I played the game I literally fell over after moving backwards in panic as one of the spiders launched itself at my face. Took a few days before it became 'normal' and from then it was fine.

I've played it in VR. Utterly terrifying. I imagine less so when played flat, but still a decent game imo.

The 32X/Saturn period undoubtedly ruined the company. It destroyed any faith their customers had in them. The sad thing is that the Dreamcast was an awesome machine with a really nice, eclectic library of games. The PS2 absolutely murdered it though.

One of Venky's few positives points is that they, for the most part, have insisted on getting decent market value for our players. Obviously there are some exceptions - N'Zonzi & Cairney for example - but I would expect them to demand a pretty hefty fee for Dack should any interest arise.

Yeah, Shenmue was a huge, multi-year project. It was originally supposed to come out on the Saturn but after SEGA dumped that console development was switched to the Dreamcast. In hindsight definitely for the best as the DC was a much better console. I love the Saturn (as I inexplicably love all failed consoles from that era) but they really @#/? up the architecture on that thing. It was capable of great things but only if you were a top level game designer - and most of those were working on games for the PS1 and N64, as the Saturn had already more or less died by mid-1996. From what I remember Shenmue didn't return much if any profit, so it's a bit of a surprise they were even allowed to make Shenmue II. I think on the original Shenmue there's a Saturn console in your 'house', and you can play Space Harrier and Hang On if you win them at a raffle somewhere. Little touches like that are really cool.

I recently picked up the original on Dreamcast (4 discs!) but haven't played it yet. I'll probably wait until this one comes out and play it on PS4 - graphics will likely be a bit better and saving should be easier. Plus the Dreamcast controller is a stupidly awkward shape which makes it annoying to use for long periods.

For anybody who remembers/is interested in Shenmue, I & II are being rereleased on PS4/XB1. Base currently doing pre-orders for £22.85: https://www.base.com/buy/product/shenmue-i-and-ii-ps4/dgc-shenps4.htm

Agreed, apologies, I should have put a health warning up first!

Yeah, I heard that! Nice feature. I was pretty hyped for Final Fantasy VR... then it was just a fishing game. A bit of a let down.

A lot of their fans appear to be looking forward to being in L1. Hard to blame them considering how many consecutive seasons of depressing football they've had to put up with. Even their "great escape" seasons in the PL were largely miserable campaigns. They had that one glimmer of hope when Allardyce was appointed, only for England to snatch him away (then to add insult to injury he ends up being sacked after a single match anyway). Then they had Moyes in full on 'doom' mode. If we can have a successful season under Venky's (assuming we get promoted this season) then in theory there's no reason Sunderland can't have one next year, even with Short at the helm. We had to extract a lot of poison to get moving in the right direction again, and so will they. The difference is we shifted most of ours (Kean, Murphy, Orr, Etuhu, Agnew, Coyle) in the Championship. They will be trying to get rid of theirs in L1 which might prolong their stay a little.