Amazon’s Prime Video and Kilter Films have revealed the first-look images for Season 2 of Fallout, the acclaimed series based on the legendary video game franchise. This has been highly anticipated as Season 1 successfully satisfied highly expectant fans and newbies to the franchise.
Following Season 1’s explosive finale, viewers will return to the wasteland. But this time traveling through the Mojave to the post-apocalyptic city of New Vegas. Expect more humour, violence, and signature Fallout weirdness as the story of haves and have-nots unfolds 200 years after the apocalypse, where survivors from luxury vaults are stunned by the wild world their ancestors left behind.
Images from Prime Video.
The new season will debut globally in December, only on Prime Video.
Everyone is so obsessed with air fryers. I’ll never fully understand why everyone gets so excited about something their oven can do. Especially when all that excitement should be dedicated towards rice cookers instead. For years I’ve threatened to buy a top rice cooker, and I finally have. The Xiaomi MFB120A-1 3L Multifunctional Smart Rice Cooker has made making perfect rice at home every time a doddle. I love it. Here’s why.
Common Rice Cooking Problems Solved
Now, to start out, if you can’t remember the last time you ate or cooked rice, this probably isn’t the review for you. I’m not really sure how you ended up here. Because I’ve ended up here after years of using a €20 rice cooker I bought in Argos or microwaving €2.50 packs from Asia Market and telling myself I really need to learn how to make amazing rice at home.
I was utterly tired of either mushy rice, rice being overcooked or rice being stuck to whatever I’m cooking it in. Everyone says making amazing rice at home isn’t overly difficult, yet I’ve only managed it since getting this new smart Xiaomi rice cooker. The smart part really isn’t all that important, but it’s how I pass this as a business expense (that’s a joke, but really maybe it shouldn’t be).
My old rice cooker had lost a lot of the non-stick surface which meant I was getting rice sticking to the base, crusting to itself, or burning.
You will probably laugh at how passionately I speak about the Xiaomi rice cooker, but it really makes me want to cook rice dishes on a regular basis. No more mushy rice or constant checking. The smart rice cooker promises foolproof results and consistent texture, from fluffy basmati to perfect sushi rice.
Smart Features & Daily Use
I’m going to start with a sizeable criticism of the rice cooker. You need to be a little organised. Perfect rice, as simple as it seems, requires time. This rice cooker generally needs an hour to make perfect rice. Normally not an issue because dinner takes time in general, but if you just realised you’re hungry in a hurry – it’s not ideal.
But that small criticism aside, it really does make amazing rice. You can fully control this smart rice cooker on the cooker itself, but I like using the app. It’s wild, but you can plug in the exact type of rice you’re making and the cooker will make some small adjustments to make sure it cooked to perfection.
Homemade rice with the Xiaomi Smart Rice Cooker. Image: Marty Meany
I’ve made basmati rice and Japanese rice – both taking an hour and both being absolutely perfect. If you’re making something like brown rice, the cooking time will go closer to an hour and forty-five minutes, and congee (a type of rice porridge that is popular across many Asian countries) around an hour and a half. Each mode tweaks the cooking time and heat profile to suit the grain, so brown rice gets the extra time it needs to soften, while congee is gently simmered into a porridge.
Smart cooking options for all rice types. Image: Marty Meany
A massive bonus with the model of rice cooker I bought is the steaming tray. I line this with a bit of baking paper and put frozen dumplings in for the last 25 minutes with the rice. When the rice is done, I then pop the dumplings on a pan to crisp them up (personal preference – you can just steam them). You can also steam vegetables – naturally.
The rice cooker will keep the rice nice and warm without drying out for as long as need. In fact, it can go for a day keeping rice warm. Recently, I tested out reheating rice too. I put in a few spoons of water (far less than the 1:1 cups of water:rice for cooking) and it reheated it perfectly. So no harm making more than you need for lunch.
I do have to say that the smart features are very much a “nice to have”. I don’t need an app-controled rice cooker I can tweak from outside my home, but I can. I guess if I was to read more into it, I’d find that some people set it up in the morning and have it come on during the day at some stage so the rice is cooked just as I come in. Now, I use the smart features – but they are not essential.
Buying the Xiaomi 3L Smart Rice Cooker
If you are in the market for a new rice cooker, I can strongly recommend this one. And I’ll wrap that up below in terms of why I love it. But I need to tell you where I bought mine.
Over the past few years, I’ve been to South Korea, Japan and China. I love the culture and the food. Having some insider information on how to buy goods from so far away is helpful. I’m very fortunate to have a Chinese friend that helps me navigate these kinds of purchases.
She introduced me to Ochama. Ochama operates in 24 European countries, most importantly including Ireland. This same rice cooker would have cost me nearly €65 on Amazon.ie. To buy from Ochama, it cost just €39.99. Delivery cost €11.99 but I got a €5 off voucher, meaning I still got a great deal.
Happy with my first Ochama order. Image: Marty Meany
Ochama is one of those websites that you could easily spend a fortune on. Not because of the prices, but because they have so many interesting products, including grocerics beyond electronics.
Really, I only wanted and probably needed a 1.5L rice cooker. But bizzarely this model was cheaper despite being bigger. I had seen several restaurants in China using Xiaomi cookers at your table, so I figured it would be a sound purchase.
It is important to note that this cooker came with an EU two-prong plug. You’ll either need an adapter or alternate cable for it.
Xiaomi Smart Rice Cooker: The Goosed Verdict
If you like cooking, particularly dishes with rice, it’s an absolute no brainer to have a good rice cooker. I’ve used this cooker to make katsu curry, various bowls, including Mexican style dishes too. I often find myself discovering plenty of healthy recipes with rice at their core and these dishes are often perfect for meal preps, particularly if you get yourself a bento box for lunches.
Being able to cook great rice, should trump everything you can do in an airfrier (assuming you do have an oven too).
The Xiaomi smart rice cooker is available for under €50, which to me is affordable. Now, you may be able to get other rice cookers that are just as good, cheaper, without smart features etc. But this happens to be the one that I bought, thinking it was good value and having the seal of approval from a Chinese friend make it a no brainer purchase for me. Every single time I’ve used it since, I’ve said to myself – that’s money well spent. I would have been happy with the 1.5L model, but happy I have the extra capacity for some sort of emergency or lunches!
Checking out Ochama means you can easily get this rice cooker delivered to Ireland too, an app/website I’ve used myself and am happy with.
I blew the minds of a few lads recently while at a football match. We were going to somewhere in Northern England that was serviced by Aer Lingus Regional and the ATR-72. That’s the wee prop plane. You’ll know if you were on one. But I love them. It got me talking about flight simulator and how much I enjoy giving routes a lash on my gaming PC. You never know when you might have to flight the plane home from Newcastle away.
So imagine my joy when I saw that Pete the Irish Pilot and RTÉ presenter Carl Mullan had teamed up to create a video on YouTube to see if the duo could land a plane into Dublin.
Who is Pete the Irish Pilot?
If you haven’t been following Peter the Irish Pilot on Instagram, you’ve been missing out – regardless of your interest in flying. He is Pete Hutchison, an ex-commercial and military pilot from Belfast, Ireland. He has over 40 years of flying experience and more than 20,000 flight hours.
After years of commentary on the aviation industry, Pete started his social accounts and YouTube channel, regularly commenting on viral events and bad landings. What you’ll typically notice is that he doesn’t have a filter, which is great when a pilot makes an arse of a landing. Pete lets you know all about it.
Carl Mullan probably doesn’t need as much of an introduction. He’s been growing from strength to strength in recent years. Carl is is an Irish radio and television broadcaster, podcast host, and general content creator. He currently co-hosts the “2FM Breakfast” show and has just been announced as Rose of Tralee MC for 2025.
A couple of years ago, before rising inside the RTÉ ranks, Carl was also a massive fan of Casey Neistat. So that title of “content creator” doesn’t come lightly. His YouTube videos are edited in a similar style to Neistat and regularly as funny and entertaining.
Another massively important thing in Carl’s life is aviation. He’s a plane nerd. If you follow his Instagram, you won’t have to wait long to see him at Dublin Airport with his kids monitoring planes landing, or not at Dublin Airport absolutely fuming that he’s missed a rare Antonov AN-124.
So you could argue it was only a matter of time until Pete and Carl met and created a video. And that time has come.
Carl Mullan Flying a Plane
In Pete the Irish Pilot’s most recent video, he takes Carl into a Boeing 737 simulator setup in Swords. I’m not going to spoil the video, but I will say I highly recommend watching it because if you only know one, or neither, of the two guys – it’s a great intro.
It’s also highly interesting to see non-pilots taking on the controls of a plane. Because surely we’ve all wondered if it came to it – would we be able to land a plane?
Throughout you get the classic humour of Carl, who is also giddy at nerding out over planes, and Pete’s unfiltered approach to coaching. For example, when Carl asks ATC what he should do next, Pete gives him an encouraging, “just land the f*****g thing”.
Watch Carl Mullan Landing a Plane
And if you enjoyed that, you’ll probably like when Tom Scott tried to do the same thing. This one has less cursing, so it’s naturally more boring.
It’s become somewhat of a tradition before Oasis even takes to the stage that they have start to entertain the crowds. The night before gigs, a drone show (if you can call a floating Oasis logo a show) takes place in the area of the event.
Sure enough, the show has already kicked off in Dublin. Organised by drone specialists Celestial, the light bright Oasis logo could be seen outside of Croke Park, posted by several fans on social media.
You can check it out over on the Beat 102 103 social media account:
🎤 Check out the Oasis drones lighting up the skies of Dublin near Croke Park tonight, ahead of the highly anticipated reunion of Liam and Noel Gallagher this weekend. #oasis#crokepark
If you’ve paid a small fortune for your tickets, you should take a good long look at the display to make sure you get your money’s worth from the full weekend!
I think it’s fair to say we’re counting down the days to Football Manager 2026 now that Sports Interactive has released the first teaser for the long-awaited next game in the much-loved football management simulation series. But just when can we expect the game to be fully released?
With a sprinkle of speculation, here’s how things are lining up for the Football Manager 2026 release date.
What is the Football Manager 2026 Launch Date?
Update: I’ll leave the speculation below, but it’s confirmed that Football Manager 2026 launches on 4th November 2025. Here’s the Steam page. But from here on out, it prior to confirmation speculation.
The only 100% honest answer here is that we do not know the official date Football Manager 2026 will launch. However, we can make an educated guess.
Many hoped that following the cancellation of Football Manager 2025 due to the transition to Unity amongst other challenges, we’d have the next game in the series earlier in the 2025/2026 season that we’ve ever had it before.
But it wouldn’t make sense for the game to emerge until at least the transfer deadline has closed, at least not in my opinion.
The teaser video emerging in mid-August has set a bit of an expectation that Sports Interactive are somewhat confident of hitting at least their traditional timeline. And that means we should have Football Manager 2026 be the first week of November. Here’s why.
Historical Launch Dates of Football Manager
Football Manager first came into the world in 2005 with a first week of November launch. For a couple of years, the game bounced around between mid-October to mid-November launches until Football Manager 2015. Since then, nearly all Football Manager games have launched in November.
Typically, Sports Interactive has released a limited Beta demo of the game 2 weeks before launch. The Beta lets you play up until the January transfer window. Pre-order customers usually got priority early access.
Given Sports Interactive has started talking about Football Manager 2026 already, in mid-August, I believe we’re at least back to normal, and looking at a launch in the first week of November. Despite some concerns that the game still isn’t quite finished.
It may be a cut feeling, it may be due to Myles reappearing on social media again after a year in the wilderness.
Take all of this with a pinch of salt, but I have a feeling (just a feeling) we’ll be gaming well in time for Christmas. If you think that sounds good, you can check out our early speculation on FM 2026 required specs.
People are generally changing their phones less often. For many years, phone companies had everyone convinced that a two-year contract means changing your phone every two years too. As technology advances and becomes more reliable, people are changing less than ever. But there’s a lot more to consider that “when” you change phone. You should also be considering what plan do you want to get, because bill pay contracts rarely offer the best value.
In this article, I’ll bring you through the pros and cons of all the options you have to buy a new phone, show you the costs and give you a handy calculator to help you with your own purchase decision. My hope is that armed with this information, you’ll be able to save yourself a small fortune on your next phone purchase.
How to Buy a Phone from a Network
When you buy a phone from a phone network, you generally have two options. You either buy the phone on prepay or bill pay.
Buying a Phone on Prepay
On prepay, the network you buy with usually gives you a small discount on the phone versus what it would be to buy outright from a manufacturer like Apple or Samsung. This is usually between €20-€50 off the full price. The network will “lock” the phone to their network until you’ve spent a certain amount on phone credit.
Once you’ve topped up by enough, you can unlock the phone and away you go. You can unlock the phone and buy a plan from any other network offering a great deal.
Buying a Phone on Bill Pay
On bill pay, you are making a much bigger commitment and will likely pay more monthly. Typically, it’s a two-year commitment but in return, you pay significantly less up-front for your new phone. This makes it a relatively popular option for high-end flagship smartphones like iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S-series.
However, being enticed by a lower up-front cost can cost you a lot more throughout your two-year agreement. Often, networks will tempt you with “Free” pricing up-front to distract you from the long-term cost involved in a 24-month agreement.
There are alternatives to you that can save you money.
Alternatives to Buying a Phone from a Network
It’s not that long ago that to get a phone really would have meant the phone shop on the high street was your only choice. Today, you have a plethora of options.
Straight from Apple, Samsung and More
Phone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung would gladly cut the phone networks out of their deals with you, the shopper. And in recent years, they’ve done just that setting up online stores and bricks and mortar stores in for you to shop with. The phone you buy from the manufacturer will be a SIM-free phone with no SIM lock whatsoever.
And they offer an enticing option too.
Let’s take a look at a practical example of this. The iPhone 16 on an Irish network today would cost you €399 up-front and about €50 per month for 24 months. Overall, you would spend over €1500 over those 24 months.
Alternatively, you could buy the same phone directly from Apple online for €979. But let’s not forget, you’ll still need a plan. Ireland’s best value sim-only plan right now is 48, at €12.99. In this scenario, you would pay just €1290 over 24 months for the same phone and similar service. That’s a saving of over €200.
Now, I know what you’re thinking – “I can’t afford €979 up front”, and I’ll come back to that in payment methods later.
SIM-Free Retailers
Another growing market in Ireland is SIM-free retailers. These are your big electronics retailers like Harvey Norman, DID and Currys. Just like buying from the manufacturer, these are SIM-free phones, and you will need to go buy a plan elsewhere, like the 48 plan I mentioned earlier.
Oddly, some of these retailers can offer you better prices than the manufacturer, even Apple. I can’t begin to explain how hard it is to get discounts on Apple products. At the time of writing, the iPhone 15 was just €879 with all of the retailers I mentioned; that’s Harvey Norman, DID and Currys.
That makes your savings with this route even greater at €478 versus buying the same phone from a mobile network.
I’m not done yet with how much you could save.
Refurbished Phones
People are less fussy about their new phone being completely “new”. Refurbished phones have become an extremely appealing option for people seeking out a new phone. These phones have already had one owner and gone through a refurbishment process to make them “like new”. This means if the battery was old, it was replaced along with some other parts. Sometimes, these phones were purchased and returned within 14 days because shoppers just changed their minds.
Let’s get back to our iPhone 15 example. Even though this phone is current, you can still find them refurbished from Apple or from companies like Refurbed.ie, which I’ve reviewed before.
A refurbished iPhone 15, which granted isn’t brand new like the one from the network, would set you back €722. Once again, assuming you take the 48 sim-only option, you are now saving €635 in total over 24 months versus buying new from the network on a 24-month contract.
Amazon.co.uk
I can’t ignore the online shopping beast that is Amazon. The e-commerce giant will be opening an Irish store in 2025, but you can already buy that same iPhone 15 online today for just £699. After exchange rates, import charges and everything else, this route to your new iPhone 15 will cost you €850.
Let’s not forget that Amazon Prime Day 2024 is just around the corner too. So by shopping during these days, during another Amazon sale and by using Revolut, you could save even more. But buying that iPhone 15 on Amazon today would save you €507 versus the Irish network on a 24-month contract.
Payment Methods
Earlier, I did say I understand that not everyone will have this kind of up-front cash lying around. Mobile networks have relied on this scenario for years, but the options for you, the consumer, have changed dramatically, but you do need to be careful.
If you look at buying a phone as credit, or hire purchase, it makes weighing up your options a lot easier. Buying the phone from the network would work out at about 13% interest.
Now, you can look at how much other options cost. A credit card with 18% interest would give you the buying power to buy the iPhone 15 from Apple and pay it off over 24 months for less than €40 per month would cost you around €150 interest in total. A fraction of what it would cost with the network.
There are still even better options too. If you’re a Revolut customer, you can also use Pay Later. This lets you split up your purchase into three payments. For the privilege, you pay a 1.6% interest and the iPhone 15 costs you three payments of €331.
With all of these options, it comes with a massive caveat. These are riskier credit options than a phone contract with a network. You need to be confident that you can manage your finances. But once you plan it out properly and make your payments, you could save a small fortune by purchasing your phone from one of the methods I’ve outlined here instead of a 24-month contract from a mobile network.
Bill Pay vs Prepay Calculator
It can be hard to know what the best value is for you, depending on what phone and plan you’re thinking of buying. So I’ve built this calculator to help. You’ll need to pick the phone you’re interested in buying, look up the price it costs on a network (both upfront and monthly) and the price with another retailer like Harvey Norman or Refurbed.ie.
Once you input all of this below, the calculator will tell you how much you could save by buying from a non-network retailer.
Check out how much the phone you want will cost from your network, including the up front cost, monthly price and contract duration and populate the calculator. Next, find out how much the phone costs without network support and which SIM-only plan you want to go with. Once all of this information is in the calculator, you’ll see what’s better value for you; bill pay or SIM-only.
Bill Pay Calculator powered by goosed
Network Contract Details
Choose a predefined plan or select custom to enter your own details
Type to search for your phone model
Select the contract duration in months
This is how much you pay, up front to your network, for the device.
SIM-Free Option
Enter the cost of buying the phone outright
Enter the monthly cost of your SIM-only plan
Click to compare your options and see the results below
Comparison Results
Contract Total
€0.00
This is the total amount you'll pay to your network over the length of your contract.
SIM-Free Total
€0.00
Total up-front cost for your phone plus SIM-free plan over the provided contract term.
We’ve learned Football Manager 2026 is officially on the way thanks to long awaited signs of life from Sports Interactive. The ill-fated Football Manager 2025 was cancelled as the game shifted towards a new Unity Engine foundation. That new engine brings excitement for a series that probably didn’t need a generational refresh. But that excitement should also bring some concern, depending on the specs your laptop/gaming PC is running.
Update: It’s official. Football Manager 2026 is coming on 4th November 2026 and we have confirmed specs.
Below, I’ll keep all the pre-confirmed speculation, but these next two sections will cover Windows and Mac confirmed minimum and recommended specs. And yes, it does look like Mac will be ready at launch without a later launch timeline.
Football Manager 2026 Confirmed Windows Specs
Minimum
Recommended
Operating System
Windows 10 (with updates 22H2), Windows 11 (with updates 23H2)
Windows 11 – with updates (23H2)
Processor
Desktop: Intel Core i3-530 or AMD FX-4100 Laptop: Intel Core i3-330M or AMD A6-5200 Requires SSE4.2 & SSSE3
Desktop: Intel Core i5-9600 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Laptop: Intel Core i5-1035G7 or AMD Ryzen 7 3750H
Memory
4 GB RAM
12 GB RAM
Graphics
Desktop: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon R9 380 or Intel HD 530 Laptop: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M or AMD Radeon R9 M375 or Intel HD 530 512MiB VRAM
Desktop: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT Laptop: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile or AMD Radeon RX 6600M
Direct X
Version 11
Version 11
Storage
20 GB available space
20 GB available space
Both requires a 64-bit processor and operating system.
Football Manager 2026 Confirmed Mac Specs
Minimum
Recommended
Operating System
11 Big Sur, 12 Monterey, 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia – with updates
13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia – with updates
Processor
Apple M1 or Intel Core M
Apple M1
Memory
4 GB RAM
12 GB RAM
Graphics
Desktop: Apple M1 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M or Intel HD Graphics 5000 or AMD FirePro D300 Laptop: Apple M1 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M or Intel HD Graphics 5000
1GiB VRAM, Apple M1
Storage
20 GB available space
20 GB available space
Football Manager 2025 Gave Us Clues at Least
Until now, Football Manager had the unique benefit of being able to run on older machines. You just had to accept it might be a little slow and that an underpowered laptop would likely burn the thighs off you while sounding like a 747 taking off.
But it would work. It’s one of the few democratically available games to most regardless of your hardware, even if you were running Mac. I’m a MacBook user and Football Manager has been a go-to game for me when travelling or staying away from home for a while.
I’m afraid that might change quite dramatically with the move towards the Unity Engine. Now, to be clear, at the time of writing there is no official announcement on Football Manager 2026 required specs. We do, however, know what the recommended and minimum specs were for Football Manager 2025 before it was cancelled.
Football Manager 2026 Will Likely Need Higher Specs
While Sports Interactive has yet to release official specs for Football Manager 2026, early previews and comparison with the unreleased Football Manager 2025 suggest a clear shift: the series is saying goodbye to ultra-light hardware.
FM 2025 proposed minimums include an Intel Core i3-530 (or AMD FX-4100), 4 GB RAM, and a GTX 960 or equivalent. This would only cater to the lowest settings and while it would run, it would likely not be utterly enjoyable. The game’s recommended specs called for an i5-9600 class CPU, 12 GB RAM, and an RTX 2060 GPU.
From the FM 2026 teaser, it’s clear that Sports Interactive wants to set an expectation that the in-game graphics experience is going to be significantly different to that of previous games in the series.
While FM 2026 won’t demand a bleeding-edge GPU, it places significantly more emphasis on processor muscle. In practice, gamers with PCs or laptops from the past five years, especially those with dedicated GPUs and mid-range CPUs, will likely be fine. I’ve taken a look through the Steam Survey and generally speaking a minority of gamers are facing spec issues.
But if you are running a truly budget or decade-old hardware that coughs and splutters through leagues in FM 2024, it might be time for upgrades.
If, like me, you are a Mac Manager, seasons should be a breeze, especially if you have Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3). That’s more than capable of handling the new 3D match engine at high settings.
The only potential bottleneck is older Intel-based Macs from before 2016, which may struggle or miss out entirely if macOS version support moves past Big Sur.
What Laptop Should You Buy for FM 2026?
Right now, this is impossible to say for sure. Sports Interactive has yet to reveal the final specs for the game. If you are buying with just FM 2026 in mind, you’re going to have to wait.
If I was a gambling man, most decent machines from the past few years with a fairly respectable integrated graphics card, will be ok. But we’ll have to wait and see for sure.
This follows a raft of changes in the internet landscape, for example Google Search introducing AI Overviews, Boards.ie has lost significant volumes of traffic. As a result, the platform shifted towards showing ads, which can be removed by paying a fee.
Over a month into their efforts, progress towards their self-imposed revenue goals have slowed.
Interestingly, the website also includes the number of days remaining, suggesting there is a deadline of Friday, 7 November 2025. It’s not clear whether this is just a random date in the future because it adds suspense and increases donation count, or that Boards.ie has a genuine line in the sand with serious consequences.
Should that deadline be quite real, Boards.ie needs a significant uptick in paying subscribers to keep the site alive. It is possible that incremental revenue generated from ads being added to the site has not been factored into forecasts, and that the goals will be supplemented by this revenue too.
Still, without a renewed effort to attract subscribers, it seems that the fundraising efforts are some way behind where they need to be.
I’ve reached out to the team behind Boards.ie for comment.
This is dangerously close to being a sports article for a tech site. But given the wild summer of transfers in the Premier League, and particularly for me as a Liverpool fan, it’s hard for it not to be on the brain. Sprinkle the excitement of Football Manager 2026 being teased on top of all that “in the know” transfer gossip and you’ve got me in full fledged transfer mode. One of the biggest “in the knows” making a comeback in 2025 is Indykaila. I’ve been left wondering just who is behind the account that “reveals” so many transfer storys?
What is Indykaila?
Indykaila is the social media account on Twitter backed by 5 “elite reporters”. The account has over 630k followers; followers who are either seeking the latest transfer rumours, or rumours that border meme-tier. The account could be classed as an “in the know” account. “In the know” accounts claim to be football’s insider knowledge experts. The most famous of this is Fabrizio Romano, with over 25 million followers.
Obviously, Indykaila pales in comparison to Romano, arguably owing to a how often the accounts misses, rather than hits. The account churns out a relentless stream of transfer updates, “inside information”, and breaking news. It’s less enticing to football fans because posts tend to be vague, cryptic, and packed with dramatic language and emojis.
Here’s a good example from the Liverpool, Newcastle, Isak transfer drama:
It would be unusual if the likes of Romano posted saying a bid would come in 72 hours. The Indykaila account has just taken a swing at this, and missed.
Despite this, one of the accounts biggest wins was when it received a tip of the hat from top sports journo David Ornstein from The Athletic.
Speaking on The Sports Agents Podcast, Ornstein said lots of people asked him why did he credit Indykaila. Ornstein said a few people had said they’ve met “the guy” behind the account, that it’s “credible” and “there are some people working on it”.
Adding to fuel to the fire, leaving me asking who runs the account and is this a laugh or not?
Who Runs Indykaila?
The account’s own bio, which I’ve used above, claims to be a “team of 5 elite reporters” which makes sense given the varying style and accuracy of posts. I think what confuses me the most is when I try to work out if the account is pure parody, or a genuine attempt at being “in the know”.
The people behind the account have remained a mystery, despite racking up significantly more followers than many reputable sports journalists. Yet, some rumours surrounding the account are just ridiculous.
One persistent rumour is that the original person behind the Indykaila account worked at KFC. Football fans and online communities have joked that Indykaila was run by a KFC employee, some even speculating the account was started during their shifts and later sold to the current owners.
True or not, it’s all now part of the myth or legend that is Indykaila, with one Redditor posting under the Ornstein story, “the KFC guy is a legit source, that’s crazy”. The Liverpool subreddit uses a tier system to classify transfer rumour credibility, with Indykaila getting “Tier Zinger”, a KFC reference, to indicate this rumour should be taken with a fist of salt.
Indykaila Rumour Misses
Ornstein giving credit to Indykaila was a massive coup for the account. But it shouldn’t be forgotten how many misses the account has had. A famous miss in 2014 stoked a direct response from former Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva:
@indykaila so you giving wrong information to your followers.
Another famous miss was when the account suggested Wayne Rooney was moving to China. Wayne Rooney did not play in China.
So whether the account is an actual “in the know” or just about for a laugh, 2025 has been a good year for Indykaila. Whether or not it’s been a good year for fans trying to get accurate sports news and rumours, well that’s another question entirely.
The long awaited release of Football Manager 2026 is edging closer. To put into context how long it has been, the most recent release in the series is still Football Manager 2024 where my current save is in 2037 and I’ve brought Wrexham from the Vanarama to the Premier League. I’ve gotten my monies worth out of that game, for sure. But the great news for Football Manager fans is that we finally have signs of life from Sports Interactive after a teaser trailer just dropped.
Football Manager 2026 Teaser Trailer
5 Things We Learn from the FM2026 Teaser Trailer
Here’s what we’ve learned from it so far.
1. Football Manager 2026 Might Launch in November
The biggest reveal from the teaser for me is that we may be on for Football Manager 2026 launching in November. The teaser emerging in mid-August means the full launch trailer could very well come in early September. This would put Football Manager 2026 back on the same schedule as FM 2023 and FM 2024.
Music to the ears of fans who have been waiting patiently. However, not all signs from the teaser are massively positive.
2. Sports Interactive Still Has Lots to Do
The story of the teaser is a little disjointed in my opinion. It starts out at Brighton’s AMEX stadium (the last stadium I visited myself in 2025 to see Liverpool lose!).
It appears that the footage of the AMEX is real video footage, before cutting to some great looking Premier League branded shots (more on that in a bit). This footage is tagged as “Actual Game Footage – Not Final”. Which is a tale of two halves. It looks great, but is still work in progress, leaving plenty of space for nerves and doubt to creep back in.
The video then cuts to real world footage at what appears to be Bournemouth and Everton before cutting back to in-game footage. Here we see fully animated players and officials emerging from the tunnel with an animated crowd.
What’s worrying me here, isn’t the in game footage, but the cuts back to real-world footage for anything that would require seeing actual players or officials. The only sight we have of these players has heads out of shot for example. This might be worth a whole point on it’s own.
3. The In-game Graphics Engine Gets a Massive Overhaul
It would appear that the in game graphics is set to have the biggest upgrade in Football Manager (and even Championship Manager) history. This generation of Football Manager heralded the move towards a new Unity Engine. With that came a world of new graphics options and improvements.
The teaser suggests to me that the match experience will be closer to a slightly older FIFA game (which would be awesome), but that those graphics are someway away from being fit for public display.
This leaves me questioning my first point.
It would appear that we will get 3D players for the in-game match engine animation. But I’m left utterly confused by what expectation Sports Interactive is trying to set here. Because cutting to the real-world footage of teams emerging sets the expectation that this is the goal for the pre-match experience.
Hopefully they are just tweaking the final bits, but I do wonder how close to being ready some features are.
4. Peter Drury May Be the Voice of Football Manager 2026
The voice of modern football is Peter Drury. He’s a poet of the game. Him featuring on the teaser is incredible as he delivers a level of drama you’d expect from him: “The wait has been long. The buildup impossible to ignore. So much has changed, but that feeling… it never left”.
I initially thought this would only be a guest appearance in the trailer, but the more I think about it, the more possible it is that he wil feature as a commentator. EAFC has had a long term commitment to it’s commentary team which includes Guy Mowberry et al. So Peter Drury, while iconic in the sport of football, doesn’t have a digital home.
If the game is to get the graphical overhaul that Sports Interactive seems to be hinting at with this teaser, that same experience would be awful without a voiced commentator. Sports Interactive are surely savvy enough to know after the failure to launch of FM 2025, managing expectations of fans of the series is quite important.
All of this; just speculation on my part.
5. Premier League Licensing and EAFC Sponsorship
As I mentioned, a big thing for FM2026 is official Premier League licensing. Now, fair enough. You might not be learning this for the first time given it was supposed to be the big news for the “never saw light of day” Football Manager 2025, which Sports Interactive shelved due to time constraints. But Football Manager 2026 has finally secured the official licensing rights for the Premier League.
This means the proper club names, logos and more. It should add realism, depth and immersion to the gaming experience. Many will argue that this depth was easily added by add-ons easily obtained online, something I’ve done every year. But to have this out of the box, simply improves the overall gaming experience for everyone.
6. Match Day First Look Coming Soon
We are going to learn a lot more from the full match day first look video which the teaser highlights is coming soon. Sega, the game’s publisher, is at Gamescom in Cologne next week. As am I, so I’ll be chasing down some contacts to see if there’s anything to happening.
I expect that new match day trailer to have either right or wrong some of the speculation I’ve made above.
If the game is back on track for a November launch, I’d fully expect that new match day trailer to emerge in the next few weeks ahead of an early September full launch video. Things could start moving quite quickly from here on out. I’m staying positive even after the pain of FM 2025.
