toontownman

Risky, but I think we have to go full strength and go for this one. Then if we get through hope for a home draw in the next round.

Pretty sure we will start seeing Best phased out and Barfa in before too long. I think Pardews plans were always playing Ben Arfa up front of Ba. We saw that today. Ba Ben Arfa Marveaux Guti / Guti Obertan (more likely for now) Cabaye Tiote Tough call on whether to move Guti away from the left as he is playing very well there. Like to see Marveaux getting some pitch time on the right, looks class although quite different to Guti. Obertan had an off day again today, he has the skills but prefers to get rid of the bad with short passes rather than attack and take players on. I know people were complaining about him losing possession but the former annoyed me much more generally I dont think his possession was any more sloppy than many of our team today. He is involved so much he needs to grab this chance. I hope Pardew gives Marveaux a go just to motivate Obertan. Going back to Ben Arfa, Best has done nothing to get dropped, despite being a little out of sorts today. I think Pardew will perservere with Ba/Best until one or the other hits a sticky patch/bad form.

Tough one, Best didnt have a great game but works ten times harder than Ameboi. Ba is undroppable at the moment. Think Shola is better on the bench, if we want something different do the same as today and bring him on. I cant see Ameobi being motivated for 90mins.

Think we will still be in for Cissokho/Pieters.. Santon will push Simmo/Taylor until then. We really still need 5/6 players.. Blindly hoping we will get 2/3 in January though, Striker, LB and CB cover. Barton replacement and DM cover (Barnetta could do both), then someone to replace Lovenkrands.

Be Beauty and the beast that's belting, how come no one has photo shopped that yet? You know the club shop is going to make up t-shirts.

Disagree, thought we were immense in defence, penalty came from nowhere and was against the run of play. Had a few shocking moments in the second half positioning wise, but overall I thought we were at least as good as we were in the first couple of games if not better, raylor actually seems to be growing into LB, still needs replacing ASAP. Can see us signing cissokho or pieters in January and santon playing rb.

Raylor was pretty good today, within his limitations of course. But his set pieces seem to be twice as good as they were before somehow. Raylor got raped by defoe but I think any of our back four would have done. Thought he had a great game otherwise. Hilarious Gutierrez still refuses to pass to hin on the overlap even though raylor makes the runs and gets into space everytine. Simpson was woeful coming forward and disappointing but not shocking in defense.

Great game. Fucking penalty at the end. Ameobi was the bomb when he came on, shame he can't be araed to perform like that every game, like him or not he adds more physical presence in the air than anyone else. Obertan needs binning for marveaux. Ben Arfa needs more match time, looks rusty.

Shola, lovenkrands or both will come on, I will lose it. Blatant penalty cant see what the fuss is, it's still a penalty if he made a big deal of it anyway. Tiote is fantasic, silly decision from Taylor but he was through without. Sucks because it's so far againt the run of play. Obertan will not run at people, cross or shoot which is doing my nut in.

He's out of contract next summer? According to Wikipedia he signed a 3-year deal in July 2009. Surely looking at two strikers anyway. One for Jan (Maiga), one for the summer whenhopefully Lovelypants (and Shola - never going to happen) is on his way (De Jong/Roux).

Souness' Sourpusses would have wiped the floor with the lot of em.

What's the deal? An football agent giving sound advice, not engineering a move away to fill his pockets? What has the world come to?

Before of after he got rid of them?

knock, knock, knocking on Pardews door...

nice.

Well we need another striker in January and we will be needing at least another one to replace Lovenkrands next year. Hopefully another to replace Shola, although that seems unlikely.

Stunned by those comments like. He should come watch ameobi and lovenkrands. Best has been one of our hardest working players IMO. Would be interesting to see the stats about ground covered.I could see that He doesn't really track back beyond the halfway line, but that's more about the role we have him in with Ba playing deep. Best runs the channels well as we saw when he almost set Gutierrez up with a great cross. Their loss, our gain and this will just spur him on.

Things going better than expected? --> Bring Lovenkrands on. What the hell.

Agent Bruce is cutting it a bit fine here, he did read the mandate right,can he read? He wasn't supposed to make them implode and get relegated until after January when he clearly couldnt get adequately replaced. Cometh the hour cometh the Souness. Mark Hughes will be there in a shot I reckon, if his ego will let him.

Barton is playing to his strengths, he is clever player and does what is necessary. He is no-where near as knacked as Nolan but Ronaldo's right that he is on the downward curve. Thats not a problem if you manage a team around that e.g. Shearer. But I don't think the board thought he was worth the value/wages Barton and Mckay had demanded. Given his mental fragility and age he wasn't worth the outlay and possible risk when they thought they could easily replace him with someone younger that would play to the teams strengths not vice versa. Still madness to let him go for nothing and thats the boards pride and ego that has lost us at least 3m that Q.P.R. would have bust our door down with.

Aye, was going to mention, but I didnt want to stir a hornets nest.

The mere footprint of his boot on hallowed St.James Park turf @ Sports Directs turf is an insult to all things sacred. That man is the Devil.

Wow, wasn't expecting that, more the full four years than anything else. Puts a new light on the Barton/Nolan antics as there was clearly way more than age taken into consideration. Almost looks like a middle finger from the club to our departed. Jonas must have been asking for considerably less than both Nolan and Barton and causes less headaches for the guys upstairs. Overall fantastic news, tie Colo down immediately and I will be over the moon.

Like I said I'm not trying to discredit the hard work we have put in, we have clearly had a good solid start. What I resent is the way the press were hyping us up when clearly the hardest fixtures are yet to come. I'm not complaining about the decently written deserved praise, but the trash designed to build up expectations, so they can gleefully stick the knife in later when we go on our inevitable hard spell and loss of form. My other basic point was that the fixtures have helped the positive feeling towards Pardew. When the inevitable harder games come and we pick up a run of losses Pardew will be given alot more sympathy. Had we played Manure or Man City and lost one or twice within the first few games people would have been straight on his back, straight on the players backs and general mayhem and negativity would rule. As it stands we have had a relatively nice set of fixtures that have afforded the team time to Gel, which will hopefully set us up nicely for the rest of the season. Just a general buzzkill post from a "could be worse" standpoint.. when I should be enjoying a hard earned start, apologies.

I'm not trying to discredit the hard work we have put in, but we could have had a more difficult start, Arsenal were at their weakest, at Sunderland we came away with a great result but as you seem to be going of previous form we have recently always done well there. Fulham were there for the taking, the hardest game we have had this year was against QPR. We did well at villa but they were also there for the taking especially in the second half, same goes for Blackburn. Yes, every game in the premiership is a hard one, so by that logic you are right. I stick by my original post though, that we could have had harder fixtures. Luck in the form of the opposition has helped and in the case of QPR hindered too. Both factors have put us in good stead by giving us time for the new players and team to gel.