senorsoupe

I have Knox in my game to try to build an entirely Scottish Celtic team, it's only the start of 2017/18 but he has played pretty well in the handful of first team games I have given him, including goals in the League Cup against Motherwell and in the league against Dundee. His rating has improved to 2 stars with potential for 4+ stars. Will probably send him on loan to a Premiership team this season, but want to get through Champions League qualifiers where there is a chance to play him in the second leg of qualifiers, such as my next one at Parkhead against Partizan Belgrade, I won the first leg away 6-1

Whelp, time for the next dodgy character to come through the doors at Ibrox

Wow, that looks like it will be an impressive ground! I gather Lazio will still play at the old Olympico? I went to a Lazio match in 2008 there and it wasn't a great atmosphere with only 25,000 people there (capacity was 80,000) at the time. Coupled with a bizarre decision not to sell tickets on match day (we had to buy them off a dodgy bloke near the stadium) and the seats being far from the pitch meant that it wasn't the best day out, however I was determined to see a Serie A match! On the plus side, the Lazio fans did sing most of the match, I just wish it was more full! Oh, also it was Sunday so there was no place to get anything to eat in the area around the ground, every restaurant/shop was closed!

Mike Ashley might actually show up at Ibrox on occasion, so that would be an improvement over King. Granted it's an easier commute from Newcastle to Glasgow than from South Africa but still.

Sometimes the Brexit situation you get does nothing, the WP rules don't change. Morton update. All is not well in my 2018-19 season as Morton. 10 games into the Prem season and I am near the bottom, despite changes to my formation and new defenders, my defending is still rubbish. I ship far too many goals. At least I beat Sevco 4-0! Only league clean sheet so far this season

Also to point out that the two players referenced (K. Dembele and Gilmour) are 14 and 15 years old and a long way away from first team football. Even at Celtic and Sevco there are youngsters that are easier to evaluate than those two.

Wasn't able to get the guy you suggested, he didn't want to leave Falkirk, but I did sign 23 year old fomer Liverpool and Oldham man (and Northern Ireland International) Ryan McLaughlin on a free. He has yet to make his debut as I just signed him after 2 league games but hopefully will solve my problem. I had tried to give the 16 year old a chance, he played well in the league cup group games against lower league opposition but struggled in the premiership. Kilday's future looks grim, in 2 starts this season he has been dire and I just signed Kyle Benedictus from Raith for 110k so he should be Thomas O'Ware's partner in the heart of defence. O'Ware has been excellent thus far while other CB options have been poor.

I'll see what they are asking for him in my game world. Falkirk just got promoted so they may try to hold on to him. A fall back plan is bringing Celtic's Anthony Ralston either on loan or permanently. Celtic will probably want a good 300k for him so that may be a bit steep, I have some League Cup games coming up against lower league opposition, will give me a chance to evaluate how good this 16 year old academy kid is.

Morton update. Finished 8th in my first season in the Premiership. Defending remains a significant problem with only 3 league clean sheets and the second worst defensive record in the division. Coming up with an established back 4 seemed to be a problem. Young Lewis Strapp has claimed his spot at left back but in the centre of the park I tried a number of combinations to limited results. Thomas O'Ware ended up playing his way back into my team after some really poor performances and big mistakes while Gavin Gunning got dropped after some bad games. Jordan McGregor played well down the stretch so he may get the spot in the next season, but he will be pushed by an academy product Reece Bain who had a couple of good games before going down injured. Right Back is a concern though, Michael Doyle and Lee Kilday both struggled to make an impact. I handed a debut to a 16 year old academy kid in the last couple of league games and he played very well (a 1-0 win over Inverness and a 7-1 thumping of St. Johnstone) so that could be a plan going forward. Elsewhere Andy Murdoch won all sorts of awards, his 18 assists were by far the best in the division and he had the highest average rating. Unfortunately it still wasn't enough to get a Scotland call. Gary Oliver led the way up front with 25 goals, I also made Aiden Nesbitt's loan spell permanent after the season ended. Looking good to continuing to develop my young and exciting Morton team.

So umm, apparently tonight's NASCAR pickup truck race (AMERICA!!!) was a crash fest. Only going by my twitter feed mind you but Kaz Grala won and pretty much everyone else crashed

Don't forget Financial Fair Play rules. If the main source of income over there is Dave King pumping personal money into the club then they will fail the FPP rules, meaning a hefty fine or exclusion from European footy.

I think Cathro needs time. Losing the players who I thought were Hearts' two best defenders (Souttar and Patterson) is really difficult and the winter market isn't the best place to go shopping for good replacements. I think 4th looks probable this season and they can do a proper re-assessment in the summer.

The folks with MLS ambitions were a different ownership group. The MLS bid was led by Eugene Melnyk (owner of the Ottawa Senators) who wanted to get public money to build a stadium in Kanata while the Fury are owned by Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group who also own the Ottawa Redblacks CFL team and Ottawa 67's OHL team, all of whom play out of the Lansdowne Park complex. The MLS push happened as each group were lobbying for public stadium money, one group to build a soccer specific stadium and the other to rebuild Lansdowne Park

That's Toronto though, ticket prices are often inflated in that market. Just ask anyone who wants to go see the Maple Leafs play at the ACC. I'm up here in Ottawa and our team just went down to the USL due to higher costs in the second tier NASL. Tickets for NASL fury games were between $30-50 which was hard to swallow for a second tier team playing in a third full stadium. Apparently they were losing $2,000,000 per year despite the 4th highest attendance in the league

Happy that MLS has finally updated the "domestic player" rules so that Canadian players will be equal to American players. Previously Canadians could only be considered "domestic" on the 3 Canadian teams while Americans could be "domestic" on all teams, including the 3 Canadian ones. There are some caveats to this but it's a step in the right direction. My fav. team is Montreal, so hoping the Impact can continue to progress from last season's successes.

Agreed. He's one of Scotland's best young prospects playing at the top of one of the top leagues in Europe. Scotland fans should be all on the Burke Bandwagon

I'm in my second season as Morton boss. First year I got promoted via the playoffs playing a bunch of academy kids and am now at the halfway point of my Scottish Premiership season and am sitting a solid 6th place. Team can't defend but can score goals! Highlights include a 3-2 win over Celtic at home thanks to an injury time Scott Tiffony winner, and a 5-2 win away at Ross County thnaks to a brace from new signing Craig Tanner (a winger who had been released by Reading) and a Man of the Match performance from Andy Murdoch who has developed a habit of scoring long range screamers. Lowlights include a 4-0 loss at Ibrox in August that featured Andy Murdoch getting sent off and new signing Jon Routledge damaging his cruciate ligaments to be ruled out for the rest of the season as well as a 7-3 loss at Hearts

Kilmarnock fans, what has been your opinion of Greg Taylor? He's a young Scottish player and he impressed me in the game against Celtic at Rugby Park in November. I also signed him for my Celtic team in Football Manager lol. What do the folks who have seen him week in and week out think of him? I know that he was cut by Sevco for being too short, and as a fellow short fella I wish him well.

I've been impressed by Morton this season from what I have seen and read. Jim Duffy has got a really good young squad, have been particularly impressed by Thomas O'Ware and Jai Quintongo

I'm glad it is getting changed. Before De Vos worked for the CSA, he was a pundit and a fairly vocal critic of the CSA and these rules, now that he is working for them it's good that he appears to be getting things done.

I can answer this, and the answer is "Not Really". We have a couple of good younger players coming in such as Cyle Larin, but we haven't been able to reap the benefits of a strong MLS as much as we would like due to the domestic player rules being slanted in favour of Americans. For example an American player could be considered "Domestic" on a Canadian based MLS team (Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver) but Canadians were not able to be considered "Domestic" on American based teams. This will change starting next year as the Canadian Soccer Association has signed a new deal with MLS to modify the rules. We recently appointed Jason De Vos (Dundee United fans will remember him) as Director of Development so hopefully he can help improve the development of younger players.

He's been pretty good for the National team so far,still a bit weird to think of Arfield as a Canadian, but we have lost players like Owen Hargreaves and Jonathan de Guzman to other national teams due to fathers born in different countries so sometimes the shoe is on the other foot, although I'm not sure Hargreaves and De Guzman for Arfield is a fair trade... As for the goalie situation, Gomes has represented Canada at both the U20 and U23 level. We have been trying some youngsters from Canadian MLS/USL teams in recent friendlies against the likes of Mauritania and Bermuda but our March 22 game in Scotland will be a much tougher test so we will see who the coaching team see as a long term option

Milan Borjan has been the starting goalie in most competitive games. If the Canadian Soccer Association wasn't so badly run it would have been Asimir Begovic...

The good news is that those are all teachable things and he's still only 21 so he has time.

Cheers guys, thanks for the info. I look forward to seeing how he and Gasparotto progress, the Canadian national team needs all of the good young talents we can get and if they can get quality playing time at Falkirk then all the better!