Pata

Debuchy close. Glad to see him in the box during a corner.

Colo.

Probably not. Just weird as it jumps to threads where I haven't been in months.

Hads on, where the f*** is the poll?! Totally! Been the thing keeping us in a good league position, too. The poll. It's all about the poll. http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article356323.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/DBE20F5B-D24B-9958-924D8BB172E0CB05-356323.jpg

Forum acting weird at times. Sometimes when I click a thread on chat it jumps to a thread on football. Now I was scrolling down the pre-match thread and it jumped to "Thoughts on our summer...". Weird.

Good team.

I just can't see that Debuchy's form is that related to HBA being on the bench. HBA has put in a decent shifts many times on the right. We have gotten results now but in the long run we can't afford to keep a player like Benny on the bench and Pardew must find a way to get him on the pitch.

I don't think anyone suggests Sissoko is better with the ball then Ben Arfa, but what he does do off the ball has allowed Debuchy to show how class he is going forward. While we have Debuchy at RB, there really isn't a place for HBA on the right. Needs to be in the middle up top or just behind. On form Debuchy shouldn't need Sissoko ahead of him to perform. IMO it's ridiculous to say there's no way for Debuchy and HBA to play on the same wing. I agree - it's just our shape with and without the ball, along with everything else, that makes it a weakness for us while Pardew is at the helm. More competent managers would cover up that side with Tiote whilst we were in possession if that's where we have ball - rather than having Tiote playing the (often) final ball through the middle as a punt. That's just rewriting history and doesn't happen enough to be mentioned.

I don't think anyone suggests Sissoko is better with the ball then Ben Arfa, but what he does do off the ball has allowed Debuchy to show how class he is going forward. While we have Debuchy at RB, there really isn't a place for HBA on the right. Needs to be in the middle up top or just behind. On form Debuchy shouldn't need Sissoko ahead of him to perform. IMO it's ridiculous to say there's no way for Debuchy and HBA to play on the same wing.

He's magical.

Really surprised, thought they would give him time.

I think Santon has been solid defensively this season and is now being made the scapegoat for the mistake, understandably. The real problem is that his offensive game has almost regressed and he offers absolutely nothing going forward. He seemed to play better with Jonas and actually looked like a threat back then. Don't know what to do with him, Haidara has looked promising but it's way too early to give up on Santon.

Cabaye has more than one Newcastle go to his name and is a much more complete player than Tiote though. A move towards a more possession orientated style would suite Anita more than it would Tiote hence why I'd personally drop Tiote Wild generalisations are wild generalisations. I also haven't seen much wrong in Tiote keeping possession lately. Those potshots aren't example possession based I just think Anita in a busquets role is more beneficial than Tiote I don't think Anita is active enough to play the Busquets role alone in this league. When Tiote is playing well he's everywhere while Anita can sometimes be a passenger. It's a cliche but Tiote's physical presence is something that Anita can never offer for us. I also don't see the massive gulf in their passing ability that many clearly do. Like said above, we should play Tiote, Anita and Cabaye all as they really complement each other well.

Cabaye has more than one Newcastle go to his name and is a much more complete player than Tiote though. A move towards a more possession orientated style would suite Anita more than it would Tiote hence why I'd personally drop Tiote Wild generalisations are wild generalisations. I also haven't seen much wrong in Tiote keeping possession lately.

depending on the reasons why for the red (ie a "professional foul" vs hacking down the opponent violently) its a 1 game ban not 3. I don't like the rule but I'd wonder how many more incidents like Suarez in the world cup you'd get if it was just a pen, I'm cynical enough to believe some players would take their chances and blatantly try to stop the goal and take their chances with a pen. I would keep the rule the same in blatant player-being-a-goalie incidents. Last man taking down a man outside the box, red and a freekick. Inside the box a yellow and a penalty.

Like all Tiote does is tackling. As for unnecessary fouls and wild potshots, you may as well drop YoCabs from there too.

Months? Cabaye has been better than him in any case and while he does the role totally differently Anita never has let us down and we won't lose much from playing him. He's been great since the start of October. Maybe not the best but certainly in the top 3 for me. In my opinion we should play all three of them and Tiote's form has been one of the biggest factors in our good run.

It's hard to feel sorry for him when he hasn't looked like a footballer in a year and half now regardless of the service.

Tiote is undroppable right now, probably been our best player in recent months.

Rather no one than Ashley Young. The biggest cunt in the football for me, don't know what to think if we signed him after all the hate through the years.

I don't remember who it was but he timed and executed the pass perfectly. They would've lost the chance if he didn't get it through Colo's legs as the pass from Rodriguez was poor and Colo was positioned perfectly. One of those goals where you just have to give the opposition credit, the mistakes for that goal were made earlier.

It went through his legs, how could he position himself better? It was a great pass and he got very lucky to get it through Colo's legs as there was no other way to play that pass.

I said more or less the same thing in the Pardew thread without even seeing this post. We were 1-0 up at home against a weakened S'ton team and regardless of the result we should have been able to impose ourselves more in that second half. It is weird we can do it at Old Trafford, yet bottle it against Southampton. I know Cabaye was missing but Pardew's attitude that we needed to keep the ball last week but not so much this (hence Krul going long a lot today), well i hate that. We should always want to keep the ball. No, at Manu the onus was on them to play and us to stop them. We were the underdog, players know it and they went out there to prove themselves. Today, we're favourites, we have to impose ourselves against a team of lesser players. Unfortunately they had most of the ball, we had a couple of decent spells but we seemed to rely on mistakes or breaks to get good opportunities at goal. We don't a particularly effective system of attack. But at Old Trafford we played with 3 in the middle and controlled the ball, today he goes with Shola against a team many of us noted he wouldn't be suited to. Because Southampton keep it and Shola is passed around (think Swansea). Southampton are a possession side and we needed to put numbers in the middle to stop that happening, we didn't. Tbf we played well first half (Shola didn't and was awful for the reasons i stated imo). With Southampton bringing on Lallana and tweaking their system we were crying out for that body, we didn't do it and paid the price giving them the initiative. Something we do time after time when ahead. Except at Man Utd, weirdly. We started the second half with 5 midfielders but Sissoko was no help as he almost played as a second striker which was ridiculous as Remy was playing at LM at that point. I feel like we really missed Cabaye the most in the first 20 minutes of the second half. His pressing and ability to keep possession would have been important.

Hope so. The double punishment kills so many games.

I said more or less the same thing in the Pardew thread without even seeing this post. We were 1-0 up at home against a weakened S'ton team and regardless of the result we should have been able to impose ourselves more in that second half. He tried to move Sissoko there but for some reason it had no effect. Sissoko almost seemed to play too high as a second striker.