Johnnyshaker

The last campaign's away top is a classic and will be worn at games in twenty years time. The current away rag however, is just appalling.

Really? Worse than that pink rag we currently have as an away top?

Januzaj went to the world cup, I remember him coming on in one game so he's definitely played a competitive game.

Iainmac1 summed it up dan cake. It's not a criticism, everyone would probably do the same thing if they're sensible. I'm just lamenting the way football is going!

The domination of the English PL in money terms is going to fundamentally ruin football (even more some might say!) and will inevitably lead to some sort of European Super League soon enough. You can already see it with e.g. Stoke's front 4 of Shakiri, Arnautovic, Afellay and Bojan. That level of forward line 10 years ago would have been at clubs of the stature of Dortmund, Juve, Valencia, etc. Now it's not Stoke's fault that they're well run so good luck to them really, and it's not the PL's fault that they're so well run in a business sense that they're leaving every other league behind on the money side. However I do find it a bit sad that Shakiri would rather play for Stoke than Inter.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was talking the other week about setting out a standard date for Easter but it would need Catholic and Orthodox agreement. As they've been unable to agree for centuries I don't anticipate anything happening soon!

Finally got the wee man into Little Kickers, starts next Saturday. Something to get us out the house on a Saturday morning if nothing else!

Jordan Rhodes has signed for Middlesbrough. Edit to say apparently not yet! Will be interesting if it does go through and they go up if that changes Strachan's feelings on him any.

People will moan about anything, I think it's pretty good pricing really considering the cost of football nowadays. On the face of it, the South/North England game tickets are astounding but a lot of people will pay a similar price for the equivalent rugby match at Murrayfield next month so it's perfectly understandable.

How's he getting on with it? Still going? I've got the wee man (he's only 2 next week) on the waiting list for little kickers. I'm really looking forward to it, I'll be stunned if he doesn't like it!

I brew my own but I only do the kits, I'd love to do full grain but I just don't have the time to set aside for it. Give a simple malt extract kit a shot and see how you get on, I was pleasantly surprised with my first one so carried on and just set my 21st one off fermenting the other night. Most of them have been pretty good and it's always nice to see someone else's face when you give them a taste and it's not the moonshine they were expecting but actually quite a good beer.

The height and weight ones can be discounted IMO, the other ones are concerning to varying degrees. particularly "% of minutes, footballers under contract with top division clubs, 2015 matches" @ 62.1%.

I'd be staggered if we played a game before Malta. Everyone else will but we won't.

I'm with you on that tbh, I don't watch as many games now either. I still enjoy going to games and putting a coupon on a Saturday but I can go many weekends and not see any of the goals. Maybe a symptom of getting older, I figure I'll get back into it again when my son gets into it!

We should play another friendly but I wouldn't be surprised if this was it. Should be a good test, if we're going to qualify for tournaments we need to beat this standard of team at home. They have some decent players despite their car crash of a campaign just gone.

Aye I went hunting to see if he was still on here. No hiding these days! :-)

He was from somewhere in England if I remember right, can't remember where he lived or if he'd moved up to Scotland though.

Aye that's the bloke.

One that springs to mind is GiMac, he was a regular poster and I saw him at the Travis gig in Amsterdam the night before the 6-0 game. He had a top with his name on the back so I went up and said hello and chatted to him for a bit, nice bloke. Haven't seen him post on here for years though!

The Irish win against Germany would have had no effect on us had we won in Georgia.

These are all teams that will adequately prepare for the qualification campaign by playing friendlies as well. The attitude of most of our recent managers to friendlies has been awful and obviously hasn't helped our attempts at qualifying for a tournament. England and Slovakia will have played a minimum of 9 games between the qualification campaigns, Slovenia will play a minimum of 6 whereas we will probably play 3. Our squad that goes to Malta will - accounting for injuries - be almost exactly the same as the last 2 that were picked and couldn't qualify, but it's ok because we're going to have a warm weather training camp! Brilliant!

My son is 2 in January, they do those little kickers sessions near us and I really fancy taking him. I go from being really enthusiastic one minute to thinking I'm being ridiculous the next! It's only 45 mins and the youngest group starts at 18 months so it must be popular!

With the realistic hat on, England will win 8 or 9 games minimum. If they're going to drop points then it's as well being against us, we're more than capable of nicking something in 1 of the fixtures. The key will be the other 4 away games, as isolated results defeats in Slovenia and Slovakia aren't the end of the world as long as we win the home games. However if we want to finish 2nd we should be looking for 4. As usual it's the banana skins that worry me but if we don't take 12 points off Malta and Lithuania then we don't deserve to finish above 4th. In summary, I think we'll finish 3rd!

TA Specific?! But seriously, awful idea. 32 works perfectly but as everyone wants their slice of the pie it's sadly inevitable.