Pata

What happened?

HBA _is_ our Messi though, so what if he does lose the ball?

 

List of "most balls lost" in La Liga:

 

http://www.superdeporte.es/deportes/futbol/primera-division/estadisticas/balonesperdidos.html

 

Man, Pep should bench that Argie fella.

 

And VI wins the discussion[/end thread]

 

Again, the issue is not how much he loses the ball but where he has lost it & the situation that puts us in following that.

At what point did he lose it dangerously today?

I didn't say he never loses it. But people only mention it when he loses it. For example Tiote lost it many times in far more dangerous positions today. And today HBA didn't lose it in dangerous positions.

Does lose the ball far too much but totally offset by the fact he does more with in than all our players combined bar Ba.

 

He doesn't lose it any more often than the other fuckers, it just gets noticed more because of the expectancy when he has the ball, and because Pardew's drawn attention to it.

 

He lost it countless times today, but like said totally outweighed by what he does when he doesn't miss control it, pass it to an opposing player, fall over or run into a cul-de-sac.

 

 

It's a myth created by Pardew that he loses it so often. Seriously everybody loses the ball but people only pay attention when it's HBA thinking 'Hmm, Pardew has a point I guess'.

Known more about the derby?! It's still football.

Absolutely. Ridiculous.

Think some are going overboard a bit with this. The single most important thing in this fixture for me is to avoid defeat, almost no matter how that is acheived. Winning is just a fantastic bonus. We were f***ing woeful for nearly all the first half, but second half we pretty much battered them (including before the red card) and got a deserved point. By the skin of our teeth perhaps, but we still got it.

 

In the bigger picture the style of play etc needs to be sorted out ASAP and is a worry. But you can separate this almost entirely from Sunderland at home.

 

 

Yep, hoofing the ball to the front 2 whilst the midfield is sitting deep is s***.

Once we started using Jonas and Benny on the wings and stopped hoofing, we were all over the tramps.

 

 

First half was the worst we've played all season and shouldn't be forgotten. Real test for Pardew to get us play well for the rest of the season.

Pardew got the substitutions wrong again, should have taken off Simpson, switched Santon onto the right. Well it obvious O'Neill is a better manager, got his tactics right even though they were down to ten men.

 

Were you even watching the same game?

 

Santon did bugger all. The two wide players on each side, HBA/Simpson and Taylor/Jonas, all linked up really well and were the source of just about every one of our chances from there on.

 

The subs were perfect.

You can't have Simpson and linking well at the same sentence. It was all HBA and Simpson had no part in it. I was shocked when Santon was taken off, Simpson was booked and Santon did well first half. Should've been Raylor or Simpson coming off.

Ba looks gutted.

 

and so he should he's been useless since he came back from Acon

You've been useless half a year already FFS.

Overreaction by Tioté is a huge shame. Don't want to see that, especially given that it was a red anyway.

It was a proper punch, not a slap so I don't mind the reaction.

David fucking Pleat, shut up FFS!!!

WTF Santon off?

What a morning! Noticed this thread and celebrated like crazy, then someone mentions Krul in this thread, I check the Krul thread and celebrate again.

How did he hit that so hard? Own goal?

Or with shoulder, couldn't really tell.

Weird bounce.

How can Castro get yellow card???

Busquets was trying to tackle him.

1-1 Leverkusen scores!!

if i did this again after a certain sample of games, what would you say would be fair sample?

 

He's made 9 starts and 8 sub so far btw. Ill do them again at some point though if you think :-)

There's too many things affecting the results. It's bit different to start at home against Blackburn compared to Man City away for starters.

The problem here is people seem to be reading "Starting Ben Arfa wouldn't have made a difference" as "Obertan should have definitely played. He's a better choice than Ben Arfa"

IMO it doesn't matter if it wouldn't have made a difference. Sure we lose today 99% of times even if HBA would have started but it's a concern that even today when it was clear choice between Obertan and HBA he goes with Obertan who's done nothing all season. It sends the wrong message from the start.

Afterwards it's easy to say we should have gone 4-5-1 with HBA and Abeid starting in places of Cisse and Obertan. But it shouldn't have been so hard to see Obertan shouldn't have started regardless the formation even pre-match.

The game was lost within 15 minutes. Replacing Obertan with Ben Arfa wouldn't have made the slightest f***ing difference imo.

 

100% agree with this, not sure starting him would have made a difference either, without Tiote & Cabaye in the starting  Benny is a luxury we cannot afford.

How the fuck can we afford Obertan then? HBA has something to give offensively, Obertan has something to give to fucking UFO hunters. I wouldn't be critisicing Pardew for starting Taylor, but I'll sure criticise him for starting Obertan.

If he was French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, German, etc. he would never have played football professionally. Says a lot about the state of football in this country when he's getting game time at the highest club level.

 

As a player, he epitomises everything that's wrong with football in this country.

 

I think to say he would never have played professionally is overstating it but he's an incredibly poor footballer in terms of what he can do with the ball at his feet, which is surprising when you consider which academy he came up through, and right to the top of it too.

 

I honestly don't think it is. Like I said in my last post, had he been born in any other decent footballing nation he wouldn't have made it, he'd have been laughed at for his ability on the ball. You can get away with lack of pace, size, whatever you want to name, if you're good on the ball. If you're not, there's nowhere to hide and not a lot you can fall back on.

 

I was at a coaching event a few weeks back with the England U17 manager who gave a presentation on how they are trying to change the footballing philosophy in this country. Whilst listening to him speak, the first player that came into my head that would be redundant if the FA can implement the change in philosophy was Simpson. They want every player on the pitch to be capable of actually playing football. They want the fullbacks to become more attack minded but still be able to defend. They're the two things that related most to Simpson. If he was coming through the ranks in 10-15 years time, again if the FA can get everything into place and develop their ideas properly, he wouldn't stand a chance.

 

On the ball, he's woefully inept. He's s*** scared of the ball being anywhere near him and his distribution is embarrassing. He adds nothing going forward and his crossing is farcical. His control and first touch are poor. It genuinely makes you feel like there's a bomb in the ball when he has it at his feet. You can actually see the panic appear across his face when he's placed under the tiniest bit of pressure.

 

Off the ball he isn't much better either. Everyone knows his backing off is terrible. His positional awareness for someone who's played in that position all of his life is awful. His lack of nous and footballing brain doesn't help his cause either. He just generally doesn't seem to think about what he's doing.

 

Then to top it all off, his attitude stinks. If you make an error or are out of position, fine, it happens, but work your bollocks off to get back into position and make up for it. The amount of time I've seen Simpson just jogging back to get back into position this season has been embarrassing. That's before the constant whinging on the pitch and the pointing and blaming of team mates, even when it's quite clearly his own fault. To fit right in with the current national set up, he's got a massive ego and an overinflated opinion of himself too. Rather than bleating about players who are better than him and for an England call up that is a million miles away, why not try and improve as a player to then actually have a right to clamour for that call up.

 

He does for me sum up what's wrong with football in this country and I'm glad that with a bit of work, a player with his limited ability should become a thing of the past over the next decade or so. I don't think it's that bad wanting a professional footballer to be capable of actually playing football, do you?

Superb post, exactly my thoughts.

Ben Arfa is as good as gone, he'll be off in the summer. The fact Obertan started and Ferguson replaced him tells you all you need to know. How many games has he even started under Pardew?

 

I have the gut feeling he'll go somewhere else and do well. Something has obviously happened behind the scenes. It's a shame the transfer window has closed because we don't have the wingers to put teams on the back foot, Marveaux is crocked and our most creative player can't get on the field.

 

Whatever has happened Pardew needs to do what is good for the team and the club. Ben Arfa has shown more in his few chances than Obertan has all season, so there's no excuses.

It's clear he's going. My frustration of him not even getting a chance is slowly turning to sadness. It's rare for us to get someone as talented as he is and then he isn't even being given a chance and at the same time we watch Obertan, Shola and co. f*** up game after game.

Can you imagine someone telling us last season that he won't get a game and then list all the players that have been picked ahead of him?

Did he even go to the Blackburn FA Cup game?

 

Abeid and Ben Arfa were absolutely outstanding and to keep faith in the likes of Obertan and Gosling defies all logic. Yes the squad is weak in places but it doesn't help when players that should be guaranteed starters are sat on the bench - then you're creating the problem yourself.

 

Obertan over HBA, as far as I'm concerned is Perch over Coloccini, Elliott over Krul, Shola over Ba, that's the gap between the abilities of those two players. It's insanity.

Great post.

f*** sake when everyone is back, raylor back at leftback?  Santon is not a bad shout for right wing.  his defensive positioning is not going to improve playing at rightback.

That leaves Simpson on the pitch so no.

Spurs taking the piss really now, bringing in some grey-haired coach.