James

These ratings are probably influenced by what I would expect from them. Krul - 5 - Had nothing to do Simpson - 2 - Just hack the fucker down. Williamson - 4 - Did well, but own goal was dissapointing. Perch - 6 - Our best player Santon - 5 - Beaten on the inside and outside. Don't see a future for him at left back Ben Arfa - 3 - Turgid, static, sloppy football. Cabaye - 1 - Hypocritical baby. Needs to get his finger out of his arse. He is so much better than this but has suffered a severe drop in performance since November. Guthrie - 5 - Average Jonas - 6 - Runs, offers something, but is better on the left. Best - 3 - Not a left winger. Needed to be a lot closer to shola. Shola - 5 - despite a poor performance and being the easy scapegoat, at least he worried the Brighton defence a little and could have done with players getting closer to him.

Only Perch and Jonas have put in any kind of performance tonight. Despite being poor and a usual scapegoat, several players have actually been worse than Shola.

Another shocking performance. The formation accomodating him isn't working either.

Absolutely terrible performance. Only in a few sporadic games has he met the standard he set in his early games. Only 3rd best central midfielder at the club based on form right now.

Where he tells the truth about everything for the majority of the movie? :lol:

The most recent one is Jonas, Coloccini, Ba, Cabaye, Shola.

Here is a thread for any decent official or unofficial merchandise you have picked up. While in Prague this week my partner bought me a NUFC russian doll painted with a recent Northern Rock strip. jonas is on the outside with a different player for each layer and a vague resemblance. Will post a photo tomorrow. What items have you found on your travels?

HTT's posts were interested. I have lived in 5 different cities and each city seems to have different cultural race issues. In the two smaller cities it was predominantly white, and anyone else was very much an ethnic minority, but at my school we had kids from Iran, China, Philippinnes and these kids just settled in and became part of the school, and the worse that ever happened was the Iranian kid got asked in RE if he had been circumcised. Outside of school I seemed to know a lot of mixed race couples which just made it the norm, generally these people have moved to the region alone and just assimilated themselves into the local culture while maintaining their own routes. Then when I went to Southampton Uni, there was this big Chinese community and a lot of mistrust as the Chinese never talked to the English but then again it was the same the other way, and the Chinese students I spoke too all seemed sound. Then when I moved to Leeds, there was a big community of South Asians who generally seemed isolated from the rest of the city and there were a lot of social tensions and no real mixing. Based on that experience, I thought that Manchester would have the worst issues considering its size, but I have found it to be a very diverse community, with everyone mingling, including myself as I am in a mixed-race relationship. Now when I go home, there are more race tensions than there have ever been due to a large influx of Polish migrants. I think cities are moving at different speeds and at different levels of progress when it comes to integrated communities, all depending on when the migration happened and the size of the city. So in my town, racism will get worse, but in Leeds and Manchester it can only get better (although cases of racism are more extreme)

Sad.

He should be seen in the same light as a player like Kevin Gallagher. Acknowledge that he played for us and contributed and ruffled no feathers and just an all round sound guy.

I like the look. He can hold the ball up and pay deep, interchange well with the midfield, and then bam, straight into the box ready for the follow up pass. Defenders will hate his runs, especially as Ba is up there too. For what it is worth, not expecting much from him this season. I'd imagine that he starts on the bench and will have to displace whoever initially starts next to Ba.

Just get up and get on with it.

He is a very intelligent defender because he knows his weaknesses, avoids putting himself in a situation that shows off his weaknesses and he uses the strengths of his team mates.

Involvement in the goal was key despite the rest though.

For every good thing he does two bad things. I am absolutely sick of his 'on ball in centre, stand, trap ball, i'm about to do something, trap the ball, there are players all around me to pass to, lets stand around, shall i run into that space that is still there? no, trap the ball again. OK, nothing has happenned for 15 seconds, better turn pass the ball one yard backwards to Danny Guthrie' routine. Then Guthrie plays the pass he should have played 12 seconds before.

Very good, but shame he has to keep cutting onto his right foot. Killed some promising moves that after some initial good work.

Exactly Ronaldo. After 21 matches, to be 6th ahead of Livepool, equal on points with Arsenal, and just 4 points behind Chelsea using half a squad that was in the Championship two seasons ago is outstanding. It was always going to be a difficult game given the circumstances. Outsiders were predicting a draw. And for what it is worth, Ben Arfa had some good touches and passes, but for much of the game he was poor, wasteful and selfish. Bringing him on only changed the game because we adapted a more fluid system, but it wasn't because of him.

Meltdown. Reality is that a succession of football managers have thought it best for him to be on the bench.

Do you ever smile SUPERTOON?

There is another reason for Ba needing such a low clause. Because of the insurance bill a buying club would have to pay (currently according to the Chronicle bringing the purchase bill up to 20m). So this represents a high fee for the buyer already. We aren't going to want to sell for that little so without the clause it would prevent him from a big money move if it ever became a possibility.

Insurance, don't forget the multi million insurance bill a transfer would require a buying club to pay.

I must be stupid then, did not understand a shit of that It is really simple. Clubs want insurance to cover wages while a player is injured, and transfer fee in case of premature retirement. Insurance companies set the bill based on how much the player is to be covered for. So the more a player costs the higher the insurance payment. Insurers want to make sure that the payment covers the risk. Therefore when Ba's knee is looked at they ask for a very high proportion of the requested cover to be paid. This was affordable for us, but not for Stoke or Stuttgart. West Ham were desperate and may not have taken full cover. Now for Ba to leave, he would need to be enticed with better pay and we get our fee. This rockets the insurance cost up so that it can only be a deal viable for the rich stupid or desperate.

The issue is quite simple. free transfer plus pay as you play element to the contract means a low insurance bill. If a club wants to pay the 7m and match the terms Ba would ask for, then the insurance fee will rocket presuming that the insurance payments are set to a high percentage of the fee accrued by a club for Ba over the duration of the contract. Say insurance figure for Ba after his poor medical is 20 percent of what we pay. At a 30,000 a week basic pay for three years plus 2m agent fee that is 1.3m insurance fee. Now for Ba to be willing to leave he wants a 4 year contract at 50000 a week basic pay, plus 3m for his agent. We get 7m. That makes an insurance bill of 4m.

I am sure there are lots of things goalkeeper coaches do to improve keepers that are beyond the knowledge of every day fans. I would imagine stuff like footwork, positioning and timing comes up a lot. Woodman is probably like a dancing coach/judge.