Dan

This is the kind of content I'm here for! I've got another tomorrow as it happens. Albacete v Castellon Sabadell v Girona Austria v Denmark Will give your leagues a look though. I've noticed already that the odds on the draw goes up in leagues such as Germany where there are more goals.

Ends 0-3 never mind.

Alcorcon v Oviedo is in but Malaga are 2 down with 25 left, can't see them doing it, you never know though.

My play time on FM is well beyond even that but part of that as well is that I'll often leave it on when I'm not playing it, but even so in the past year in-particular I've played it loads. Yeah FM only really needs subtle tweaks, it doesn't need overhauling, you get some silly things happen and you can point at flaws over time of playing it but it's probably the closest thing to real life football on the market. It was awful at first, I'm often a bit iffy with changes but I really did think christ what the hell have they done to this, they've made the match engine great but ruined loads else. I do still think it's pretty annoying that you have to go onto the tactics screen to move players around now, making subs is far more of a pain on this one than previous and I'm struggling to see what the point of them doing that was.

Cheers both. I've not won any since but I still think logically if you keep backing games like that you'll win in the long run, I've got to go on an extraordinary bad run to lose from here. The majority of games as well are close. There was a 3-0 in there but you do find most of the games are tight. I just think in theory when the bookies themselves are seeing no clear winner, a draw is surely a logical pick. You could easily do it with just two selections. A double gives you 8/1 or 9/1 on average. A four fold you're looking at 80/1 - 100/1. I'm slightly miffed at myself as the initial plan was to do it on lower leagues of Spain, France and Portugal as they're all quite low scoring, but I've introduced a couple of others too. I didn't do one for La Liga 2 on Sunday - all four games implied a decent chance of a draw, all four games ended 1-1. I'm £240ish up and it could've been even more. I've got another running now as it happens. Alcorcon v Real Oviedo, Malaga v Almeria, Wales v Czech Republic.

I get what you mean, competition isn't a bad thing. I'm worried that Football Manager are going all FIFA - you know like this year they have removed the timeline at the top of a match screen which is absolutely ridiculous in my eyes, if they bring that back in FM22 and announce that as some kind of upgrade I'll be convinced they're running out of ideas - not that I ever really want FM to overhaul things. FIFA's definitely gotten worse in relation to where it should be since PES went downhill so I'm for any competition. FM will never be beaten though I think. I think with FM you either hate it or you're obsessed with it, any game that can do the latter is special.

Will keep an eye out but I would be amazed, absolutely amazed if it was good enough to put me off FM.

I think the two cancel each other out a bit. Either situation could lead to Bamford thinking the best thing is a move to a bigger club. That said I don't exactly think Villa and Leeds are a great deal apart so maybe not.

The proof so far of the winners, both in the last week:

I spent a bit of time looking at odds and implied chances of things happening because it does quite interest me. One thing I've always thought is that draws are a bit overpriced and even more strange, you often find games where the home team is 8/5 to win, the away team is 8/5 to win, yet the draw, a surely likely outcome implied by the fact the bookies themselves can't pick a favourite, is something like 12/5. So I've started doing something where you back trebles of draws, always in games where the odds between the two teams are pretty tight. For a treble you get odds of around 25/1 at worst in this instances, and it's usually nearer 30/1. Anyhow, so far, I've done five trebles, £5 each time. Two of them have won, and in total out of the 15 games I backed, 9 of them actually ended in draws. Whilst I do take a longer term view here, I'm convinced landing those can't be as uncommon as that. I don't expect 40% of them to land, but I expect more than 4% of them to - which is what the odds imply. I'm going to keep doing this and see where it gets me.

Yeah I do have you down as quite a big defender of it, to be honest us two have been chalk & cheese on the subject all along it's tricky regarding where you draw the boundary, because for me you're continuing to aim for a goal you will never achieve. I was convinced VAR would never fully work when I saw an instance of three qualified referees analysing a decision that was made during a game and they were having no end of disagreements on it. That to me proved that the refs are either totally incompetent, or that the rules are just far too complicated to even be sure on. It's an almost impossible job really, and VAR has proven that as well. They've brought in things like that handball rule to make it easier for refs when using VAR, which I do get, but in doing so it's put so much more of the game down to luck and that's just wrong to me. I won't be 'happy' if a big decision wrongly goes against us but having had a taste of the other, I think this ongoing debate is far more tedious in the long run. I think I can take the odd decision against us (even if I will moan about it) over this. It isn't goals being ruled out that I'm concerned about, for me, it's the overly increased number of goals where it's going to be paused, the moment 'paused' whilst we check for X and Y. What I mean is it makes a lot of goals a lot less enjoyable, even when they still count. Tyrone Mings not celebrating at Old Trafford because he's scared he's about to get flagged, Scotland's goalkeeper at Serbia's gut reaction to saving a penalty to get them to a tournament for the first time in god knows how long is to look over at the official now. Football's beauty, something that for me is what sets it apart from American sports, is that it's hard to score. The 'moment' is rarer. The 89 minutes of dross served up before the 90th minute goal just make that 90th minute goal even sweeter. When it becomes 89 minutes of dross, followed by the goal that we'll spend 2 minutes checking, that pauses that pouring of ecstasy, for me it's just wrong and with VAR there it's an inevitability. This is nothing to do with biases against my own club either. On the very first day we had VAR in this league, Wolves had a goal chalked off for a handball in the build up, completely accidental, next to no benefit at all if I remember rightly, and it was ruled out. Correctly by the letter of the new rules, but I did watch at the time and think.... this is bad. This isn't going to be good for the game. I've seen nothing since it to make me think otherwise either. I think the only way you 'save' goal moments is offside technology like they have with goal line, but that's probably much harder to implement, totally alleviates the need for linesmen which again, is another move for the game that would be a shame, though one I can see being necessary too, their job is absolutely impossible as far as I'm concerned. I'm not totally sure what the solution is. I'd personally rather they scrapped it and kept it more natural, but I just don't see them doing it. Something's got to change though. It's been nothing short of a disaster. Even worse than I imagined it would be.

You're missing the point again. My issue isn't even necessarily with the refs getting everything wrong. It's an overly ambitious demand for them to get every decision right and as proven by the fact that they still can't even with VAR in place, it makes you question why they bother having it at all. The rules in place are largely subjective, largely down to interpretation and it's an impossible ask to get them all right. Therefore, why ruin goals and steal some of the moments that make the sport special in the attempt to achieve a goal that they will never fully reach? I read a brilliant article on the athletic once from Michael Cox, it was a VAR in or out debate, Raphael Honigstein made the pro-VAR case and while he put forward a decent argument himself, Cox listed far too many things that were spot on. Harry Kane when scoring a winner away at Dortmund is asked how he feels about scoring a goal and his first reaction is "I hope that isn't ruled out by VAR". That's just completely damaging to football as a spectacle. I will never dispute that it has increased the number of correct decisions you get in games, but the cost for me completely outweighs the benefit, to a level that I can barely comprehend the fact any fan, player or manager wants it in the game.

You're telling me if Welbeck's goal against us in 2016 was stopped for a minute as they checked it that wouldn't taint that moment at all for you? I mean fair enough, you're entitled to think that, but it just loses something for me. See also things like Aguero's goal v QPR, could you imagine that moment with VAR? It just wouldn't be the same, even if the goal still stands. The sport is an emotional game, it's a release, I won't even hide that I'm vocally critical of refs during games and what not, it's just a part of the game to me, football's beautiful in its imperfections and yet we're aiming for a perfection that you just simply can't achieve - as proven by the fact we still can't get 100% correct decisions even with VAR.

Too many grey areas again. How clear is 'clear'? What's the point where it isn't clear enough? It isn't fixable. It never will work. I'd bet anybody that they will make some further tweaks to the rules (to supplement VAR, which the VAR apologists will then as usual absolve VAR of the blame for), we will still have problems, rinse and repeat. Football is the best sport in the world by any objective measure. The most popular in the world and the most popular in the most countries, and it very much was that before VAR as well. It doesn't need to taint itself with video technology that fundamentally changes the flow of the game, killing the enjoyment, robbing us of moments and memories. It ruins the spectacle.

It isn't fixable. It compromises the enjoyment of football and it would do so even if it got everything right (which it doesn't), I'd love to eat my words one day but I say with near certainty I won't be needing to.

We've been trying this for a year and they still haven't got the message.

They will come up with another way of using it, it will be equally shit. Boring but reality.

Jesus Christ can remember it last time, was the same day we lost at Newport.

I did think about that previously, I think Barnes will become our 2nd highest PL scorer behind him personally - I don't see anybody signing him for what we'd demand, unless he really starts hitting about 20 a season and he's a bit below that at the minute. I wonder if it'll just be a bit like when we sold Mahrez. We've never effectively replaced him in his actual position, but we've compensated for his loss in other positions. Admittedly it's harder with a striker.

I think the signings of Diogo Jota and Bruno Fernandes will keep us safe from losing either of those two luckily. I think we're likely to try and add another on the right wing as well, Perez isn't the answer and it's becoming pretty apparent that Cengiz Under isn't either. Thauvin's being quite frequently linked. It's nice seeing Barnes getting some recognition though.

I noticed that when I was typing out the bit about Puel. It's already been 3 years since Puel tried to start phasing him out it's scary. I remember the arguments around it at the time. That was a battle he was never going to win - even if he was right. Best thing about us this season is the lack of reliability on him for goals. He's gotten the majority this season from the spot. Barnes and Maddison have both upped their goal tallies this season. I think that will end up being what we have to do, just simply obtain other threats. We'll never get another like him.

I've said this before but he's England's Di Natale.

He's already surpassed a previously optimistic prediction. If you'd asked me 3 years ago, based largely on the fact he relied a lot on his pace, I'd have said probably 2/3 years. Well here we are with him now. I actually think he can go for another 2 years potentially. The fact he started late, the fact he's a bit less reliant on his pace than he was, the fact we use him pretty economically now (it's not uncommon that he'll touch the ball about 9 times but score), I think we might've prolonged him for a while yet. He'll always have the finishing and the intelligence and his passing and whatnot has improved no end in the last 2/3 years. I think we will buy another striker this summer but he will still be the main man for a while, we'll eventually phase him out gradually but I think we'll still get goals from him for a while yet personally. I could be totally wrong, but it's how it feels to me. Rodgers has handled him the best of any of our managers I would say. Puel tried to phase him out 2/3 years ago. That looks a silly move in hindsight.

Seems like there might be a particular trophy we pick up at the end of this season if that's the case. I said a few years ago I'd like us to be like them and we really have become like it.