Zaz

£4.3 million for a loan?

I hardly ever pay for loans, and even if I do it's more in the reaches of £10,000.

Yeah, they wouldn't sell him, and this was in the January transfer window and I was desperate to get someone in to replace Jenas, but although the deal was organised then it didn't go through until the summer window. But I probably wouldn't want him any longer, he's 31 now so he'll probably start to decline after this season so I wouldn't get that price for him anyway. And I've had West Ham bring in a couple of loans for fees of 750k and 550k and Wolves for 525k, and none of those guys are as good as Ferguson. Probably a bit expensive, but I more than made up for it with my other transfers IMO.

I've been carving it up in the 09/10 transfer window with Spurs. All the prices are in pounds.

IN:

Barry Ferguson - year long loan for 4.3m, in his peak and will probably start on a decline after this year

Jamie Ashdown - 1.3m to be my number two keeper

Jaime Gavilan - 3.5m after he impressed on loan, left winger from Getafe

Lee Cattermole - straight exchange for Ricardo Rocha

Erik Edman - 600k, awesome back up for Bale, might even start ahead of him

Michael Owen - free

Matt Kidd - 250k from MK Dons, 6 star potential right mid regen

Leonardo Ponzio - 9m from Sunderland who signed him in January

Steven Fletcher - 6m as a third striker and AML

TOTAL: 25m

OUT:

Ricardo Rocha - for Lee Catermole

Luka Modric - 20m to Barcelona

Cesar - 170k to Portsmouth

Benoit Assou-Ekotto - 4m to PSG (in real life he said he wanted to play for them one day, so there you go >_>)

Darren Bent - 15m up front and another 1.5m after 10 league goals to Sunderland

TOTAL: 40.5m

So a nice 15m profit there, and I reckon my team is much better as a result.

Whereas Man City have spent 78 million so far, for a 21 year old James Vaughan (22.5m), Glen Johnson (31.5m ), Florent Malouda (9.5m) and Fabio Coloccini (14.5m) and have just received 3.8m, for Ben Haim to Portsmouth.

Am I'm glad I just offered dos Santos a new contract with no minimum fee release clause (it was 24 million) as Man City just offered 25m.

Can't believe this is the only thread on it. I found it really, really enjoyable and a sequel will be champ. Plus, Berbatov's character was awesome >_>

With freekicks, I've scored two so far that haven't been on the edge of the box so you can just power them into the top corner (got a couple of those ones as well).

One was with Gareth Bale on the left hand side, curved around the wall and into the top of the net. Keeper really should have saved it, tbf. Second was with David Bentley against my brother, on the right. I put it over the wall, it curved left slightly and dipped at the last moment into the top right hand corner. If you push the left analogue stick (on the 360 anyway) diagonally up and left/right (so at 315 or 45 degrees, depending which way you want it to curve) the ball will go higher originally to get over the wall and then dip suddenly, as well as curve that way.

What's that? Another last minute goal to knock me out of a tournament? This fucking game

Just lost in the UEFA Cup Semi final on away goals to Everton as Yakubu scores a late goal to win it for them :@

And despite the fact I was knocking off really good opponents to reach the semi, at the same time I'm on a winless streak of 11 games in the league. Bloody hell.

Argh, bloody hell. How typical. 0-0 against Arsenal in the FA Cup e.on (>_>) 4th Round until the 5th minute of a 4 minute injury time and Toure scores off a set piece. Rargh :@

Edit: Damnit, must have missed it in the rush to sign him before the January window closed, but it appears Barry Ferguson will be coming in July of 2009 and not now which I wanted as a replacement for Jenas So I'm probably gonna have to give either Boateng or Taarabt a run off the bench every now and then instead :@

In good transfer news, I managed to sell Michael Dawson to Everton for 4.7m AND Phil Jagielka. Also sold Jenas to Portsmouth for 8m and signed Jaime Gavilan on loan until the end of the season. Tried to sign a back-up keeper for Gomes who isn't past his use-by-date but no one wanted to loan them to me

Man City are bitches though, signing both Diarra (20.5m) and Kranjcar (15.75m) from Portsmouth who I tried to sign myself, just couldn't afford. Other big transfers include Newcastle buying Ferreira from Chelsea for 1.2m, Portsmouth signing Pennant for 4.7m, Aston Villa buying Rodrigo Palacio for 23.5m, Bolton signed Paul Caddis for 2.2m (pretty good deal there), Everton signing Ameobi for 1.2m, Fulham getting Landon Donovan on a free and Liverpool got Nigel de Jong for 6m.

Sunderland signed Gary Cahill (10.5m), Paul Scharner (6m) and Tranquillo Barnetta (6.5m) and this Argentinean bloke called Leonardo Ponzio for 5.75m for a grand total of 29m, don't know where they got the money from.

2nd edit: Probably had one of my best comebacks on the game. Versing Feyenoord in the UEFA Cup 2nd Knockout Round, at home after drawing the away leg 0-0. They go up after 66 minutes, so knowing I had to score 2 to go through I went all out attack, playing Bent and Pavlyuchenko up front, Gavilan, Modric and Bentley just behind them and Huddlestone covering everything behind them at central mid. Nothing happened until the 88th minute when Huddlestone played a beautiful 50 metre ball for Bent to run onto, who did a typical Bent finish low around the keeper. Then in the first minute of injury time Hutton got the ball in their half, played it straight up the middle, splitting the defence for Pavlyuchenko who did the rest. Don't think I've ever cheered like that for an FM goal before >_>

Also, I'm not sure if it was the same in previous versions, but I find it a bit annoying that a player's history (before the first in-game season) only includes league games, and not cup, continental and international. Might be a bit picky, but I'd find it better if it had all games in there.

Man, this is annoying. The opposition attackers always seem to just dance around my defenders as if they weren't there, allowing them plenty of easy shots in the box

Ah, OK. It might be that you have highly-rated players that haven't played the minimum number of games to get on that list. I think you have to have played in at least half (it might be more) of the games to be included.

Nah, I can see their ratings aren't good enough, it's just that I think they should have better ratings to begin with. Maybe it was that we were winning but still playing poorly, as we've now gone 6 games without a win

Anyone else think the player ratings seem to be a bit off for your team? I'm coming second with Spurs, yet only have 2 players in the top 100. Might be I'm only 5 games in and things will even themselves out later, but you'd think I'd have a few more in there.

The top 100 for what, though? Average rating? Value? The Player Search screen gives you results for the entire planet, so if it's something like 'value' it's understandable that you can be second in the Premiership with only a couple of the top 100 players worldwide. With good form and luck you can get a midtable club to second with hardly any valuable players.

In the Premier League average ratings. I had Zokora at about 25 and someone like Bentley in the 80s. Pavyluchenko was joint top scorer in the league and didn't even get a mention.

Ah, fair enough. I thought Kraigy had made a typo >_>

Btw Kraig, the fixes thing is fantastic (Y)

Anyone else think the player ratings seem to be a bit off for your team? I'm coming second with Spurs, yet only have 2 players in the top 100. Might be I'm only 5 games in and things will even themselves out later, but you'd think I'd have a few more in there.

Edit: Also, Kraig, why does it say 'FA Cup e.on'? :@

You're a complete twat, Zaz. How is that cheating?

EDIT: I am going to be home from work in about an hour and you and I are going to have words about this!

It was tongue-in-cheek (hence the ). It's not 'cheating' per say, I just find it more realistic by having it not on.

I'm also playing as Spurs, but don't cheat () and have transfer budgets turned off in the first window. So no signings, there's a current batch of about 8 new players that still have to fit in.

So, with this whole activation malarkey, will my bro and I each have to buy it or can it still work on both PC's as long as we have the CD in when it starts up (like previous versions)?

Edit: Just found out you can have it up to five different PCs with the one CD, so all is good.

Dead for a few years.

Well then, the time has come to allow Ralph Macchio to replace his sensei

For a minute there you had me thinking 'Holy crap, Todd from Scrubs was the Karate Kid?!'

I had to IMDb him

This looks pretty damn awesome. Do we know yet if it's just a natural disaster or something supernatural? I reckon it'd have to be the latter if rescue hadn't come after six days (unless it was some worldwide earthquake >_>)

Watched it all on YouTube last year sometime, really, really awesome show. Probably the funniest sitcom I've seen, mainly because they didn't stretch it out over too many seasons like most American ones do.

Has anyone had their player get transferred in BAP yet then? Do you ever get subbed off? Say if you're having a really awful game.

Two player offline Be A Pro is the most awkward shit ever.

Two player can be pretty awesome, except I think the player rating system is different to the single player one, in that it's harder to get a higher score (think they use the rating system for the CPU players).

Hmmm, there's one thing that really annoys me about the Be a Pro season, which is when you're in an attacking position, then they get the ball, and the game expects you to run down half the pitch in 3 seconds or else it knocks marks off you for being in a bad position.

Yeah, especially sucks for a midfielder. Ooh, my team mate tackled the opposition, we have to immediately be 20 metres further up field!

When I was younger I found Family Guy pretty funny. But now that I've... matured (for want of a better word ) a bit, it seems too boorish and simply not as funny. Although some of their movie and show take-offs can still be pretty entertaining, it's just lost that edge to me. Plus, that South Park episode about Family Guy didn't help much, as I every time I watch Family Guy now I think of that >_>

The Simpsons, on the other hand, still gets laughs out of me (old episodes mainly) on the umpteenth rewatching as there'd be jokes I didn't get as a kid. That's one of the best things about The Simpsons - their gags (old episodes again) usually work on many levels, so they'd be funny to you as a kid and when you watch the episode again say five years later, the joke would be even funnier as you either see it in a different way or fully comprehend the joke they're making.

So IMO, Family Guy probably has a smaller target audience and it's designed to get you with the absurdity of it the first time around, whilst The Simpsons can be more subtle and entertain many different audiences.

Re: the new stadium, from what I've read it'll be built adjacent to the current one, and may actually join up with the Paxton Street end (I think), but there'll be no disruption and we won't have to ground share at all.

Bent wins and scores a penalty.

Modric has been brilliant today, involved in everything.

Pavluychenko!

That's what we need. Playing with a lot of confidence now.

I know it's only been ten minutes, but Tottenham are looking better in attack already. Modric seems to be playing a more AMC role behind Pavluychenko and Huddlestone has been brought in next to Jenas which gives a bit more size to our midfield. And King is playing his second game in a week

Thank God my 'If Spurs don't finish top 6 I'll do something stupid' post got lost in the missing month.