Vincent "Freekje" Vanloo

Vincent has been around the CS:S scene since it began and is a well known and established personality in the BENELUX scene.

Although effectively retired, Vincent utilises a lot of his time fulfilling his role as an admin for CS:S helping to run tournaments for E-sports Heaven and has been integral to the smooth running of all competitions so far.

"A new year, a new begining ? Counter-Strike:Pro Mod! After getting it to work and after some testing I was not convinced, so I did some more testing and then some more! Could this be THE next big thing ? 1.6 is slowly dieing. Now Source, well, I couldn't tell you....

It's a fact that we need change, either HPE steps up their game and fix my AK or the guys from promod start pomping out updates monthly (as they promised!)If a free game like LoL can get 10grand and an EPS slot in German ESL the we, as the loving community that we are, should be able to get something like CSP some similar tour.Now I always love to mix in the LAN results, because well, LAN is where it's at. So RAGE cashed in Gamersject and down in France, the flu hit several Sypher players making them unable to fully perform. Hope to see some more action next month !"

Richard Lewis

Richard comes from a journalistic background and has covered e-sports in print, on radio and television having worked for such organisations as GotFrag and CGS. He is the current content manager of Cadred where he contributes a weekly e-sports column. He was last year’s captain of Team UK in the ClanBase Nations Cup, although now he retired from playing.

He now concentrates on writing. Over the years he worked for Zboard, xciteuk, Infused and 4kings. These days he chooses to solely focus on his writing within the gaming industry.

"Well, expect the points to be spread thing this month. Everyone could name their top four teams but the rest is a stab in the dark and everyone has their theories as to who is better and why.

Pessimists say this is because the scene is in terminal decline but in reality it's this way every year after the long festive lay-off. The first few LANs we have seen don't really mean anything other than settling a few local beefs. Well, that and we can safely say that Sypher aren't going to live up to their online billing, even if being unable to play because of "flu" is the most novel excuse I've seen in a long time. What is this? An office job.

It's all about 30P really. Even if the French dodge it, it will be the first real meaningful skirmish of the year. Up until then we should just enjoy the fact that the scene is slowly but surely putting solid teams together and distributing the talent a bit more evenly. "

Emmanuel "Wave" Meunier

The latest addition to our news team brings with him an in depth knowledge of CS:S and 1.6, especially in his native France. His work covering French EPS has been integral to the continued development of the site.

He also joked that having a French person on the panel might ensure less arguments about the top ten in future, although somehow we doubt that very much.

"The new year begun slowly for European big names and there were no major clash to get our teeth into in this month of January. The same situation should remain next month but hopefully things will be brighter in March with the 30P event and Maxlan that will give us something to write about. Also if the EPS.Uk regular season is close to it end we will have the German and French ones starting quite shortly with fully prepared teams.

In the meantime only gamersject and Spirit lan assured us some spectacle even tough for this last one we haven't been able to see much. The lack of activity conducted my votes to remain mostly the same. LDLC will undergo a step back after underperforming this week-end and the new EPSILON still haven't show up, these are probably the most important things of this month's rankings. Hopefully some shocks will take place online and things will evolve again in a short period."

Mike "Rickeh" McGhee

As the new features editor, Mike brings with him an in depth knowledge of the European scene and not just those usual suspects that everyone can claim to know about. Having started plying his trade as a news contributer, he is now part of the management team here at Cadred and contributes regularly with features.

"It's been yet another quiet month in the European CS:S scene as the christmas and new year break seems to have once again crippled most teams desire to practice or play the game, even VeryGames have been taking a break, and that never happens.. Regardless of how long the French side remain on the sidelines they are still the best team on the planet and will be until someone can beat them at an event, sadly that isn't going to happen for at least another month or two given the quiet winter period we're currently in. The team most likely to topple them is still mTw who, despite a rather huge cheating scandal, remain one of the best LAN teams in Europe, whether they will get their chance to pick up their first major event win this spring remains to be seen but until then they will remain my number two.

A couple of new entries for me this month as Epsilon find themselves jump straight into my 4th spot behind the Fins of CKRAS. Although untested and unproven in competition there's little doubt that these guys have the potential to do some serious damage, and i'm just excited about seeing it happen in future. The other new addition is Swedish side 30P Gaming who are in a similar position to Epsilon. The next month will be another quiet one but in March the scene is set to explode with a number of high profile events, who will walk out on top? My bet is still VeryGames but they have a tough task on their hands. "

Ben "ben0" Balcombe

The veteran CS:S player joins the panel this month with a view to a long term move.

Having captained the former Zboard line-up Ben is no stranger to punditry having been the creator of Source Junky's UK top ten, including a strange mathematical system that only he knows and now subsequently can't remember due to brain cell loss.

Having been around since 2004 Ben did take a break from the scene but has returned with great interest.

"I keep threatening to leave for the Marines but that got put on hold after I drunkenly smashed my ankle until it was the size of Gandofini's head. Richard was straight on at me telling me to swot up on the CS:S results so this month's voting will be a bit better informed. When I'm not watching the six nations.

Anyway, being biased towards the UK I'm still shocked that Epsilon haven't been mentioned yet. They have players who can be the best in the world, let alone the UK, and they've been absent from the top ten for too long. Who cares if they don't play? Pedigree is something to be respected.

VeryGames are still disgustingly good but the good news is the rest of the French scene seems to be content to throw together mix teams, none of which I see making an impact at European events. The French EPS season might be interesting but there's now room to throw the French off their lofty perch. mTw are leading the way in how to do that. Nothing lasts forever Frenchies. The same goes for the rugby."

The Top 10 will continue at the start of February with the next installment.