Wullie

What's top four got to do with it? How many top four defenders did we replace him with since selling him was such a necessity? We were far from that when Souness sold him and we haven't been anywhere near since (until now obviously).

I can absolutely guarantee it'll be the same knackers who were on last week having a whinge about Jonas having no end product btw.

Don't know why some people bother getting excited about good players playing for Newcastle, all they do is moan about work rate, as if Robin van Persie is charging around in his own box. Do these people think Man City's team is all graft for 500 million pound? I'd find it funny if it wasn't fucking frustrating.

Why did he always need replacing? I don't understand that at all. He went on to play consistently well at centre half in the Premier League for years afterwards. Who did we replace him with? Craig Moore? Rozehnal? Perch? A Premier League standard centre back, happy at the club, to sell him for basically nothing and for years afterwards feature inferior players in that position was something that needed doing? Bizarre conclusion to arrive at if you ask me.

Aye - as soon as the ref has called the foul in that position he has to send him off. Made up his own rules on the day based entirely on who we were playing. The strange thing is that the two penalties that we've been given vs Stoke and Man U is that both of them were a bit dubious. If the ref had rightly not given either then 5 months into the season then we would have had zero penalties given. He only gave the Stoke one because he'd given them the exact same soft penalty five minutes earlier.

What's tired is the same old tedious straw man of arguing that anyone who'd criticize Ben Arfa in the slightest is somebody who'd like to see us start with Shola and Obertan every game. He's obviously a good player but he had abysmally bad games against Brighton and Blackburn that highlighted his weaknesses. I don't think that's an unreasonable statement to make. How is it a straw man when they're the alternatives and the Villa match thread is chock full of people saying they'd play Obertan? I never mentioned Shola in relation to starting in front of him. And he was no more "abysmally bad" against Brighton or Blackburn than any of our other attacking players were. He created our best chance against Brighton for a start, in a dismal performance from every player and I really fail to see what he did against Blackburn that "highlighted his weaknesses", can you tell me? The game I saw, we spent the entire first half defending on our 18 yard line, clearing it when we had the chance, rinse and repeat. He had one moment where he dummied the full back and his touch was too heavy and it went out for a goal kick... is that it? Ironically that was probably our best chance of the half, and I include the goal in that. I'd also say that I had absolutely no problem with him being withdrawn against Blackburn as a tactical change, though most people seem to have taken this event and run with it to a point where his withdrawal suggests he was disgracefully bad - he wasn't, he hardly touched the ball, we didn't have it for long enough.

It's all about movement with him. That reverse pass he plays is absolutely fantastic and very hard to defend against because the defender basically has to be looking at two things at once, one in front of him and one behind him, but it depends very much on the movement and subsequent ability of the player you're playing it to as well. Best and Simpson have both wasted being slid in on goal recently and Shola's never going to give a player enough options to do that in a month of Sundays. Look at the subtle pass for Ba against West Brom - if Shola was playing, that would have ended up looking like a ridiculous ball into nowhere, where Ba was quick to spot it coming in behind him and even quicker to belt it past the goalkeeper.

Must admit, I was concerned Forest were going to come in for Ba in January. Just hope we can hold them off in the summer.

Which Lua Lua? Lomana should get plenty of stick given the way he celebrated in front of our fans whilst an NUFC player.

The two penalties we have won have probably been our two weakest claims.

Of course we can. I any case he needs time on the pitch to get back to his best (,and some decent attacking players around him...). If he starts v Villa he'll be off at HT or before. We need our strongest midfield to allow the luxury of HBA. Unless he starts up front in a 4-4-2 As opposed to Obertan? Who mentioned Obertan? Obertans shit. HBA can't play the system. What system? Who plays on the right hand side?

He's got more "end product" than any midfield player we've had since Laurent Robert, and it's the same tired old arguments that we saw all those years ago about him, boring guff about workrate and giving the ball away. These are the players that you build your team to support, to make sure that if they do lose the ball, you get it back and give it back to them for them to have another go at a perfect pass, or a 30 yard rocket, or an undefendable cross. If he's not working hard enough, and he works harder than my idol Robert ever did btw, it's the manager's job in training over the course of a season to get him to work harder, not bin him if he has a shit 45 minutes with Shola alone to aim at where the entire team hardly touched the ball anyway, and certainly not bin him for a player with half the workrate and a millionth of the talent. Honestly cannot get my head round the amount of people saying Obertan should play. What has Ben Arfa done this season that's been worthy of mention in barely any gametime, shunted around different formations and positions? Hit the post at Man City (and made a fantastic chance for Ba with a trademark reverse pass) Won the penalty at Man Utd Set up Ba vs WBA Scored the opener at Bolton Scored the goal of the season vs Blackburn Played a staggering pass for Best vs QPR (having completely changed the game when he came on) Ditto for Simpson at Brighton Scored at Fulham but we should drop him for Obertan because he scored a (very well taken) goal by running into empty space when the opposition were in our penalty area. Honestly man.

Of course we can. I any case he needs time on the pitch to get back to his best (,and some decent attacking players around him...). If he starts v Villa he'll be off at HT or before. We need our strongest midfield to allow the luxury of HBA. Unless he starts up front in a 4-4-2 As opposed to Obertan?

I honestly thought the Chelsea one was a dive. Human beings do not fall up when tripped. Sturridge is a horrible cheat. For balance, we got very lucky when Taylor chopped down O'Hara five yards inside the box and the ref only gave a free kick.

When was the last time the FA issued a retrospective ban for diving? They went through a spate a few years ago in response to Robert Pires winning a penalty with a dive but then just stopped, possibly when they realised their golden boy Steven Gerrard was the worst of the lot. If they want any credibility at all, they must issue a punishment for that but of course they haven't and won't. As I said elsewhere, it wasn't even on MOTD so nobody will have even seen it and there lies the problem with the whole ridiculous system. After the Cabaye farce, someone from NUFC should have been outside FA headquarters at 9 this morning clutching a tape of that dive and demanding sanctions.

Pedersen and Gallagher both scored with their hands at SJP, both in 1-0 wins too iirc. Derbyshire's was a very similar goal to Obertan's.

The problem isn't really that he does predictions and gets them wrong, it's the fact he basically just tells us who the bookies favourites are week on week. I bet you could count on one hand the amount of times this season that he's predicted Man United or Man City to drop points. What's the point? His Wolves obsession is a bit weird mind, that much is true. I can't believe he picked Swansea to lose against Chelsea, I thought that had home win written all over it and still can't believe they fluked a point.

The entire team was atrocious in that first half and we didn't even have the ball enough to be criticizing what one of our flair players was doing. I missed the first ten mins but if you'd told me at half time that Guthrie had gone off after five, I wouldn't have questioned it.

He's the perfect squad player. Very versatile and, like Obertan, isn't good enough to be starting but has one outstanding attribute which makes him a dangerous option from the bench.

He was certainly no worse than anyone else in the first half.

Amazing result.

No MOTD tonight so nobody at the FA will even see it.

Gareth Bale's celebration.

QPR have a Senegal player, is he going to play? If the rule applies across the board, there's nothing we can do.

Perch wouldn't get a game at centre half at any other team in the country, right down the divisions. That's not saying that he's not capable of a particular position at a particular level, i'm sure he is but he's simply not tall enough or strong enough to play at centre half. Picking us off in the air is embarrassingly easy when he features. People seem to forget he was bought as a full back, comparisons to Mariappa are just ridiculous.