madras

come off it..he should be judged by his actions on the pitch ? no...but after doing his time he should be judged on what he then does...on and off the pitch. so far no problems to report apart from playing exceptionally well in the second half in our win against villa.

keep martins playing off the centre halves,stop him dropping so deep (including when the oppo have corners) and teach him to aim fro gaps between the centre half and full backs....sounds basic but it works and with his pace and strength will be difficuilt to stop. it's also a great blind "get-out" ball.

True. The gutierrez one failed so many times Scuds hooter is doing my head in aswell haha, squeeeeeek gutierrez needs his own song and tune. joans gutierrez can be fitted into the oba..obafem tune but he deserves his own song.

in the second half he took control. semed to be first to everything in the middle. loads of little prompting touches that we've missed since rob lee/gary speed. however i still wish he'd be a bit more expansive and try and join the forwards now and again. in the first half nicky butt was left trying to get forward as barton sat too far back, even taylor at one point had to get in front of them as neither took the chance.

think so ? got rid of the ball chaeply an awful lot, getting rid of it for getting rids sake and allowed himself to be burned inside too many times at the start of the 2nd half. loads of tidier games last season but an improvment on west brom.

more than just a good result, a good performance, very confident with the ball but still a bit jittery defensivly. martins is much better when not dropping back 40yds and gutierrez can create chaos with an effective player on the other side who can switch and have movement. ameobi lives up to his reputation (aas given by me) as the player who can be pebalised for fouls by standing still or being assaulted.....also MOTM for me and a slight concern about his injury (didn't think i'd see my self ever type that)

I really don't think a team in 20th place with over a quarter of the season gone who don't have a real manager or any money can dismiss relegation talk as being 'mental'. true but at the same time a win tomorrow would lift us up a few places and our first 15 is as good as most out there.

what do you think of coloccini and gutierrez ?

dunno...duffs workrate against n'zogs headless chicken defending ?.....midfielders have to defend aswell unless theya are sooo good we can afford to carry them. also the possibility of joans and duff switching wings which couldn't happen with n'zog. n'zog from the bench is a bteer weapon imo. I dont rate N'Zogbia, i just think Duff lacks cutting edge. If Charlie gets a bit of time on the ball you never know what might happen. I'd rather bring duff's workrate on later in a game, its about all he offers at the minute. i like the switching wings idea aswell as jonas seems stronger on the left. duff can give a bit on the right.

dunno...duffs workrate against n'zogs headless chicken defending ?.....midfielders have to defend aswell unless theya are sooo good we can afford to carry them. also the possibility of joans and duff switching wings which couldn't happen with n'zog. n'zog from the bench is a bteer weapon imo.

is owen starting ? reports are that villa have been winning well without playing well (is this good or bad?) tomorrow could be interesting

he has played poorly. but poorly is a dramatic upturn in form from his previous form.

valencia

i personally think that is down to the player himself.

martins has to get his head together tactically and play off the centre halves and try to hit the gaps between centre half and full back as they like to push up but laursen and cuellar aren't the quickest.

Spanish & German Leagues are normally where I get my joy. Italian, French, and even the Dutch now is too hit and miss! norwegian has always been quite kind to me. belgian too until liege last night. as for the french i have more joy betting against teams at the foot of the table rather than betting on those at the top.

Did you not reckon much to the Owen of last season, Bob? Ie - playing off two strikers. I thought he linked the forward line to the rest of the team very, very well. Played some corking key passes aswell at times, i'd never realised he actually had that sort of passing ability. Oh the 4-3-3. What KK could have done with it this season. Owen was neat & tidy but i'd hardly say he was creative. his biggest strength in that role was timing and positioning, being able to ghost into the box later on in the build up to finish off chances. i actually think Viduka fits bobyule's description somewhat, but for his awful movement (and the fact he's finished) he'd be what we need. in terms of a 4-4-2 i still think Martins - Viduka is the best partnership at the club. owen's strength was very rarely losing possession of the ball and then after laying it off his movement into a threatening position. simple pass and move stuff which is the basis of all the better teams.

last season i had him as the pick of our defenders (defensivly...beye was the pick all round). i was always confident that no-one would get past him but i think he only crossed the half way 3 times in all that time.

thats not quite how i see it joe.

all subjective really isn't it ?

Aye well done genius that was said on the first page I'll be honest I read your post and just got bored. As for booing players, I don't boo them but I will complain if for example Mr Dyer who is a general c*** on 80k a week and treats us like arseholes will stroll around without a care in the f***ing world. If I am in part paying there wages and they are damn good wages I expect some effort, notice how Jonas is never boo'd? i also notice how other players are never booed no matter how ineffectual they are.

Are other clubs as bad as us though? It gets stupid sometimes IMO. Maybe it's the price we pay for having passionate fans, I mean you don't see it happening at Fulham but then they don't have any atmosphere anyway. Our fans are like Obafemi Martins...you have to take the good with the bad. most fans in most grounds are fickle,have little understanding of the basic rules and are blindly prejudiced. a fair representative of the society from which they've spawned unfortunatly.

Not directly but he's giving away penalties and free kicks which lead to goals. the free kick on saturday was,in my opinion, the right thing to do. i'll address the others tomorrow as,right now,i'm fucked and need to listen to some kate bush

Butt must be giving away a goal every other game. directly ? i'll disagree with that

i don't even think he has a past.