James

Struggling in warmup. Fitness test.

Ba might not start!

Wasn't he sacked from his job as our failure defensive coach?

Forget about competition for the first team. Whereas before the NUFC Calendar was about a few stars plus a few others who happen to be in the first team, this year some seriously top players are going to miss out on being in the NUFC Calendar. So who are your twelve? For me: January - Alan Pardew February - Hatem Ben Arfa March - Yohan Cabaye April - Cheick Tiote May - Tim Krul June - Fabricio Coloccini July - Jonas Gutierrez August - Sylvain Marveaux September - Leon Best October - Steven Taylor (in face mask) November - Demba Ba December - Shola and Sammy

Probably cut his toenails too short. Did you know that Android spell checker tries to swap Obertan with Ineffable

I anticipate a French meltdown on here when Marveaux replaces Obertan.

we won't find a better experienced fifth choice striker for the wage and fee we pay. So it is a choice between him and a kid or just buying a top class striker and putting the other strikers down the order.

For those who missed Gary Birtles against Fulham, he just spent the whole first half advocating long ball and getting balls in the box and moaning about NUFC not playing long ball, and the only thing he would say about Fulham is that the strip is shit. Then we scored, and he said it was because we put the ball in the box.

Pardew said during the phone-in that they are having difficulties because the agent is based in Argentina, hard to track down, and doesn't speak English.

The way the fair play table is scored. Right now we have less yellows and less fouls than most teams and no players sent off, and yet we are bottom of the table based on nothing other than subjective opinions. Should be based on fouls, red, yellows and nothing else, or the whole fair play table should be scrapped.

Here is my take on Smith and Perch being on the bench yesterday: Both are starting against Blackburn. Although he couldn't change the team, he could rotate the bench, and the purpose of this could be to dangle a carrot under the nose of Smith and Perch (e.g. you were on the bench last game, therefore here is your chance to show what you are worth), while similarly to Lovenkrands, Gosling, Guthrie, you lost your place on the bench last game, show me you deserve to win it back. Elliott Santon Taylor Perch Taylor Gosling Abeid Smith Marveaux Ben Arfa Shola

We are good, but it is also the fact that we have built an XI who are not only slightly better than those in half the league, but also have the right attitude and application. Shame the top teams are so much better today. This team is a Shearer short of being as good as the league winning Blackburn.

Still active.

Ah! Thanks for clearing that one up. I see pl 20 years Ah! Thanks for clearing that one up. Beckham 1 because he is in MLS. Beckham plays in L1 with PSG he is old PL goalkeeper is overrated Krul is top for PL You are Harry-Norway and Ethi-Geordie's lovechild. Taken away as a baby and raised in France by GHoeberX on a diet of Ben Arfa videos.

Ah! Thanks for clearing that one up. Beckham 1 because he is in MLS.

Not only is he our most improved player, but he is the player of the season so far.

Think he should have stayed on instead of Ba today to be honest, based on Ben Arfa taking Ba's deeper position, and Ba inevitably going off at 60 minutes.

I like.

9. Can't believe Barfa only got a 6 tbh. He blatantly didn't see the game. Just read a couple of match reports then deliberately gave Ben Arfa a low score to show that he isn't biaised.

Is he the best quarter-Vietnamese player ever?

The shot was so perfect the way it just travelled upwards at uniform speed towards the one part of the goal no-one could reach/block.

I think he was running away from Taylor to stop getting blood on his immaculate shirt.

Why not put Marveaux on instead of Shola, then hold out with the Ba/Shola change if he had to do that? I think Taylor was alright after a few minutes anyway, if anything he had to worry about Simpson getting sent off. It has been very clear that with Ba up front, we have no movement up front after about 55 minutes. Perhaps Ben Arfa should have come on for Ba instead, but we didn't know about Taylor then.

Did you really expect us to piss all over them? Wigan are already fighting for their lives, they had reason to be a lot more motivated than us. Grinding out a result in a game like this is pretty encouraging if you ask me. I expected us, not unreasonably, to play much better than that. You're not going to play well every week. That's the worst we've played over a full 90 (mainly down to complacency) and yet we still dug out a win and kept a clean sheet - speaks volumes. To be honest we did OK in the second half. I think the problem for much of the match is that Cabaye was getting marked out by a 5 man midfield, but as wer brought other faces on he found a lot more space and it was just a case of us passing it about and staying tight at the back until the space presented itself.

There was a real patience to our game today, we were like an Italian side. We just waited and waited and waited until it was time to score that perfect goal.