In the absence of...

...any football for us a for a little while, what with not having Carling Cup action this week (could we have been knocked out by the eventual winners??!!) and then having a Monday night game at home to Villa (surely the worst of all TV scheduled kick-offs?), I thought I would post some comment on some alternative City action today.
Yep, it's true winter hibernation time now thanks to the recent release of Football (nee Championship) Manager - the game that can ruin (social) lives and leave you cut adrift from normality and the real world. But we love it all the same.
Not too far into the game at the moment, but my City side has already shown frustrating signs of mirroring the 'real' City. The fixture list was none too kind in giving me United away on opening day. However, the Blues rose to the task tremendously and a Cole and Vassell double gave us a 2-0 lead before Richardson pulled one back. Still, we hung on and I took great delight in announcing to the media post-game that Fergie had 'lost it'.
In true City fashion, I then posted a five game winless streak including creditable draws against Newcastle and Boro but listless defeats at West Brom and Portsmouth (turning a 2-0 half-time lead into a 3-2 defeat).
Stemmed the slide with a 4-1 destruction of Spurs at home before mirroring City's Doncaster Cup exit by crashing out to Coventry in the Carling Cup.
Not added to the squad so far, but Distin, Cole, Vassell, Barton and Sun Jihai look to be decent players, whilst Croft has impressed in the 'hole' behind the front two. Young Micah Richards looks to be definitely one for the future as well, and is currently loaned out at Tranmere for the season.
The game itself? Not a big overhaul and mainly cosmetic changes, but they have overhauled the in-game tactics facility - one new feature is allowing you to administer half-time bollockings or words of encouragement.
If anyone has any suggestions for signings, tactics etc etc please feel free to post a comment at the bottom.
Anyhow, for want of actually trying to have some sort of life, amongst everything else I seem to have on at the moment, I now am trying hard to resist the temptation to spend the next seventy-six hours solidly playing it.
Currently I'm standing firm but expect regular updates on here every once in a while.
Sod it, where's the disk?