Wullie

Fair point but do we have any other option? Lovenkrands has disappeared in every game he's played this season and Ranger is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I'd give Ranger another shot personally. Can't knock his enthusiasm and work rate but from what I've seen her offers very little in and around the box. Everyone to a man used to say the same about Carroll at Ranger's age. Very raw but the only way he'll improve is experience. He gives us something we don't have up front too, some pace. Didn't take long for everyone to forget the way he turned whats-his-name on Sunday and got himself in on goal.

Fair point but do we have any other option? Lovenkrands has disappeared in every game he's played this season and Ranger is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I'd give Ranger another shot personally.

I never understand how people can ask questions like this. It happened, they missed it. It happens all the time, so how is it in any way surprising? It's like we're judging referees against a non-existent ideal standard that has never ever been met. True, it happens all the time, and that's the annoying thing. You could understand if the ref misses something, but we have so called "assistant referees" who simply bottle out of getting involved and don't assist the referee. Someone on 5 Live the other night, can't remember who, was saying that a lot of referees tell their linesmen to do what they tell them (rather than bottling it), hence the reason why linesmen will wait for the ref's arm to go up before indicating a throw in.

Haven't we learned that Nolan is only really effective popping up from central midfield? When he's essentially playing up front with a centre half assigned to mark him, he disappears. There's no way I'd play him up front.

Hope Rio's not on his.

They've both scored a handball against us at SJP, both at the Leazes End, both in 1-0 wins for them. Footballers wearing scarves.

Aye exactly. I don't care about him being a role model or "woe is me" ranting about consistency. All I care about is getting points in our next three games and he's severely dented our chances purely out of stupidity.

Nope.

I think they would. He's thrown a punch man, howay. If someone throws a punch in a game, the MOTD editors don't just go "oh it's only player X, don't show it".

Suggesting Pedersen's done anything worthy even of comment is absolutely ludicrous imo.

To be fair I agree with them to an extent. We certainly time wasted a fair bit, not to mention although we kept the ball in perhaps a nicer way, we didn't offer that much going forward other than a very direct style. I certainly think our performance v Arsenal is comparable with Blackburn's last night. I don't think they're anything alike. We had equal if not more possession than Arsenal and played with two strikers, which not many will do at the Emirates.

I can't understand for the life of me why some randomly-selected incidents get looked at after the event, and others don't. Totally unfair and inconsistent. it's only matters of violent conduct i believe. I still don't know how the FA managed to wiggle themselves out of not doing something about De Jong just because the ref "saw it". When the ref was so clearly wrong, the FA should correct him. It's f***ing stupid, seeing how it's one of the worst tackles of the season, if not the worst. agreed, especially as i'm sure a precedent had been set elsewhere when the ref seen it and got it wrong. Ben Thatcher/Pedro Mendes.

I'd rather he missed Chelsea, we're going to get tonked regardless Like Arsenal ? Chelsea are miles better than Arsenal. And i rather have him in the team against matches we're supposed to win! Chelsea won't fancy playing against Andy Carroll any more than anyone else does. No reason whatsoever that we can't give them a good game and get something.

to be fair his delivery isn't even all that good, it's more we have a forward who can make the best of them. You still have to give him something to work with though, Barton has been doing that perfectly the last 4 games on the right. Indeed. Barton has 4 assists this season, that's before you count the two good corners against the mackems which fell to Nolan, the cross that Carroll nodded down to Nolan at West Ham and the corner against Villa that also fell for Carroll's first. I'm not a huge fan of Barton, especially not in the middle but there's no denying that his delivery this season has been superb. Following on from madras's point about playing through the middle, I think the sixth goal against Villa is the only one we've scored from a passing move or a through ball, it's nearly all been headers or knock-downs. I wouldn't say we're a long ball team but our main (only?) offensive strength is in getting the ball into the box from wide and taking advantage of Carroll's incredible aerial ability but if this is nullified we definitely look one dimensional. We're not particularly good at putting together short passing moves and we're a very slow side too in general.

Ian i'm interested to know when you think we've looked good with the two wingers? I think considering the way we finished last season, that system's been desperately disappointing, mainly due to the form of Routledge. Our good results have been all about Barton's delivery from wide areas, being without him is going to hurt us big time unless someone else can replace it.

Very bad news imo. Means we're almost certain to lose him for either an important away trip to Bolton or West Brom or a tough home game against Chelsea or Liverpool. Fulham stood out like a sore thumb as the best for him to miss.

Hughes' Blackburn team wasn't much different to Allardyce's. They'll cheat, foul and waste time. He coaches his players in his mould - cunt.

in previous games we've mixed it up, tonight we were far too much long diagonal. i'm not sure if this was down to blackburn. Would have worked mind if it wasn't for those two terrible errors. I agree with you though, the Barton --> Carroll ball is a good weapon but if it's our actual gameplan, we're going to struggle. We looked clueless from the off, it was a very flat showing from the team and the crowd. A little bit "after the Lord Mayor's show" I guess but just not doing what we've been good at recently. Very reminiscent of many home games in the Souness/Roeder/Allardyce era, the crowd and the team are very very rarely up for these games. Maybe it's because we expect to beat them, years of being spoiled at home under Keegan/Robson maybe.

It was the right thing to do to go with the same XI but in hindsight, Blackburn were the worst side for us to play. We certainly didn't play long ball stuff in the last three games but what we did do was bully the opposition in each game and put fear into their centre halves. Never going to manage that against Fat Sam's ogres.

In a nutshell. When there's no space, we have absolutely no cutting edge. though we score first against stoke who had a similar gameplan ? Wouldn't say a penalty shows we broke them down tbh. not that we broke them down but that after going a goal behind they'd open up giving us space to play. it doesn't happen like some think it does. Not sure Stoke would open up against anyone, they've only got one gameplan and it involves throw ins, as many of them as possible. They've no will to play football.

Reformed character my arse, bloke's an utter tit. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb though, wish he'd chinned Pedersen, the fucking soft cheating shitbag.

The Tiote suspension is a good thing, we'll have him back for the games we'll need him for. He was never going to last more than another game without a card and I wouldn't fancy going up against Chelsea or to the Reebok without him.

In a nutshell. When there's no space, we have absolutely no cutting edge. though we score first against stoke who had a similar gameplan ? Wouldn't say a penalty shows we broke them down tbh.

It's been the same for years - Villa, Everton, Spurs, even Arsenal, regularly come up here and go away with a point at best. Stoke, Blackburn, Hull, Sheff Utd come up and set up camp in their own penalty area and we just can't break them down.

In a nutshell. When there's no space, we have absolutely no cutting edge.