madras

if true he wouldn't be here now.

that's that sorted mike, back in the copter.

We're doomed with that ars*hole refereeing. His dreadful performance v Man Yoo, where he SHOULD have been wearing a red shirt, will be the mark of the prat By the way - hope the fans don't boo Ba. (Boo Ba ?) He did well for us, and sparked last season's great run. Hope one of our new Frenchies breaks his leg though..... no problem with booing ba. he's an opposition player and the crowd should do whatever it can, short of the nasty type abuse, to put him off. i'm all for booing, catcalls and whistles whenever the opposition have the ball.

being martian, which side was he on ?

yes and no, if we argue attendances then that comes in to play, at all other times they have more areas, you'll also find that whatever school they went to, where they work etc even if massivly outnumbered by a stifler billion to one, it was only the mackems that actually went to matches.

howey ?

august 7th, 1999, etched on my memory.

won't be long before some mackem proves graham was a sunderland fan all along based on something he once said to a mates sons window cleaners girl friends aunties hairdresser, whey DG even stands for dirty geordies.

don't think it's took the club 2yrs to realise, just 2yrs to get the right deal to replace him. similar to spurs, i don't think they suddenly realised they were short of forwards when adebayor waved at them from the plane to south africa.

Wages is the most important thing for him. He's been in the lower leagues or on youth contracts for most of his career despite being 27. This is probably the one big contract that he'll sign in his career. good point.

there was a rumour last summer man utd came sniffing, we wanted 21mill plus cleverly. they backed off.

Not any mention of him, but the thought of him being one of the main players to 'save' us? I'm obviously just reading too much into what Pardew's said, the way I read it was that he sees him as a key player in the fight to get away from relegation, which frankly scares the s*** out of me. yeah and no. i'd be surprised if he wasn't one of the main influences in the dressing room.

could just be putting things together, he does come up regular to meet players so do it on deadline day and to be here incase of a carroll type bid or if we get offered a good value deal. pretty sure he'd be getting slated if he wasn't here today.

If I was as rich as him I would travel everywhere by helicopter or submarine if i was as wealthy as him i'd have paid someone to invent a helimarine.

That's a good shout Skirge, especially as it was a hamstring injury too. m'biwa should start because he is better suited to the way chelsea play.

i'd like to think it's more of a dressing room influence. wasn't it cabaye last season saying it was shola and taylor who left no-one in any doubt what the derby meant.

not at the reported 5mill.

5 points for a win ? as for the odds, betfair have us at 2.5 and them at 1.3

aye, he tries to get a foot round, bimby's right in that it isn't a foul but only when you watch in slo-mo. every time i watch it in real time it's a pen and clumsy with no need to even be trying to get there, just shephered him out the box, which was where he was going.

People always say that Taylor makes some good last ditch tackles and blocks, without considering why he's having to make those kind of interventions. Quite a large part of the reason is because of the way he plays, he invites pressure by continually backing off and lets the opposition get forward into a dangerous position before doing anything about it. If he was more composed a la Coloccini then he would either intervene earlier in a position where even if he got it wrong and gave away either the ball or a foul it wouldn't matter much, or shepherd the opposition player away from danger, rather than letting them advance towards goal which is what he does normally. When we're on top of a game or it's pretty even it's not a huge deal because Colo's calming influence can win out, but when we're under concerted pressure in a game, like we were last night, his style of play doesn't alleviate that it amplifies it. I'm not blaming him for what happened last night, the whole team was panicking throughout the second half, not just him, what I'm saying is that I think Yanga-Mbiwa might have been able to calm the rest of them down, whereas Taylor's never going to be able to do that. Don't get me wrong, he's not bad, but now that we have two good centre backs at the club, why would you play a not bad one ahead of them? I'm more than happy with his position at the club if as it seems is likely he's going to provide willing and able cover for Colo and Mapou, but if Colo goes in the summer then we absolutely must get someone else in to play in front of him and Williamson. I think the fact he started last night had much more to do with things outside of pure footballing reasons than it did with putting out the best team available to us. most of the reason for the last ditch tackles are when someone breaks off someone else and taylor has had to cover. it's rarely the man he was marking that he has had to last ditch tackle and for what it's worth colo done little last night to alleviate any pressure, for all his composed nature he wasn't any better than taylor. Yeah, like I said, they were all s*** in the second half, including Colo, but he's not usually like that, is he, and I haven't just come to this conclusion after watching last night's game, you know. As for the last ditch tackles, well that may be so, but notice how often it's Taylor standing a metre or two behind the rest who's playing them onside in the first place. More often than not that's exactly what happens. and taylor isn't usually s*** either. the last ditch tackles bit is getting silly now. someone's mentioned he makes decent last ditch tackles and you can't deny it so you are trying to find ways to make it negative. Care to point out where I said he is usually s***? What I'm actually trying to do is state my opinion and then respond to the points made by those who have argued against it, that's kinda supposed to be the whole point of a forum, at least I thought it was. Must remember for next time someone disagrees with me to simply call him a c*** and have done with it, this is not the right place for discussion, I see. I never even tried to deny it, you would know that if you'd actually read what I said. i took it when you said they were all s*** but colo isn't usually like that thet you were inferring that taylor is. Can see how you thought that, but it's not what I meant. I said that they were all s*** in the second half including Colo, so surely if I was implying something the implication would have been that the were all s*** except for Colo. Just for the record, I am not saying the the whole team is s***. What I am saying about Taylor is that he is an average/above average Premiership centre back. He is good at some things, but has a number of faults, the most significant of which would in my opinion be that he backs off way too much and is panicky under pressure. I'm more than happy with him as a back up, but there are now two significantly better centre backs at the club and they should therefore be the one's starting each match. i see what you mean and largely agree, however there are some occasions in which i'd be tempted to play taylor alongside, probably m'biwa now (west ham, stoke spring to mind). someone earlier said colo hasn't been what he was last season and i agree with that. i'm hoping it is due to playing in a team thats not doing well, though he is as much part of that as anyone, and it's not like habib beye where we actually got the last decent year out of him.

didn't danny graham say that if he returned to the north east to play he'd be dragged into just going out on the piss with his mates all the time ?

Come on Sunderland, unfortunately. draw with lots of injuries and sendings off please.

People always say that Taylor makes some good last ditch tackles and blocks, without considering why he's having to make those kind of interventions. Quite a large part of the reason is because of the way he plays, he invites pressure by continually backing off and lets the opposition get forward into a dangerous position before doing anything about it. If he was more composed a la Coloccini then he would either intervene earlier in a position where even if he got it wrong and gave away either the ball or a foul it wouldn't matter much, or shepherd the opposition player away from danger, rather than letting them advance towards goal which is what he does normally. When we're on top of a game or it's pretty even it's not a huge deal because Colo's calming influence can win out, but when we're under concerted pressure in a game, like we were last night, his style of play doesn't alleviate that it amplifies it. I'm not blaming him for what happened last night, the whole team was panicking throughout the second half, not just him, what I'm saying is that I think Yanga-Mbiwa might have been able to calm the rest of them down, whereas Taylor's never going to be able to do that. Don't get me wrong, he's not bad, but now that we have two good centre backs at the club, why would you play a not bad one ahead of them? I'm more than happy with his position at the club if as it seems is likely he's going to provide willing and able cover for Colo and Mapou, but if Colo goes in the summer then we absolutely must get someone else in to play in front of him and Williamson. I think the fact he started last night had much more to do with things outside of pure footballing reasons than it did with putting out the best team available to us. most of the reason for the last ditch tackles are when someone breaks off someone else and taylor has had to cover. it's rarely the man he was marking that he has had to last ditch tackle and for what it's worth colo done little last night to alleviate any pressure, for all his composed nature he wasn't any better than taylor. Yeah, like I said, they were all s*** in the second half, including Colo, but he's not usually like that, is he, and I haven't just come to this conclusion after watching last night's game, you know. As for the last ditch tackles, well that may be so, but notice how often it's Taylor standing a metre or two behind the rest who's playing them onside in the first place. More often than not that's exactly what happens. and taylor isn't usually s*** either. the last ditch tackles bit is getting silly now. someone's mentioned he makes decent last ditch tackles and you can't deny it so you are trying to find ways to make it negative. Care to point out where I said he is usually s***? What I'm actually trying to do is state my opinion and then respond to the points made by those who have argued against it, that's kinda supposed to be the whole point of a forum, at least I thought it was. Must remember for next time someone disagrees with me to simply call him a c*** and have done with it, this is not the right place for discussion, I see. I never even tried to deny it, you would know that if you'd actually read what I said. i took it when you said they were all shit but colo isn't usually like that thet you were inferring that taylor is.

think it'll be the summer though. i'd like to see him behind sissoko/cabaye and just doing what he done well in his first season.

he needs to start against chelsea because he is much more fitting to that style. if we were playing stoke i'd still be tempted to play taylor, maybe even instead of colo. You'd be tempted to drop Colo? yes.