Kanji

Mapou came to the league at age 22 and Colo signed at 26. Both came at different stages of their respective careers. Both have shown shakiness and real top talent in their first appearances. Let Mapou settle the fuck in man; awful team and environment he's joined in. He's every tool and mentality and resume to show he can develop into a top player for us.

Fucking love Eto'o man.

He generally shines after a run of games no? Would love to see him in the team with HBA.

Must start Anita for me. If that means Gouff out and Marv wide and Cabs more advanced so be it. Or you drop Marv and place Yohan there. But canny line up and would love that too.

I read this thread title like that Drake song, "No New Friends"

Totally agree in that he looked targeted to get wound up and get sent off -- I feared it. Pleased he kept his head, battled and fought for everything.

Not sure how he will do in the league for us but one thing can be said is that he looks far better right now for us this campaign vs. the lat. He looks stronger and more confident to be honest. Not sure I'd start him, but I would be OK if he did this weekend.

Had the match been at home, we would have won more comfortably, and I'm not giving anyone undue credit here -- once we settled the fuck in we always looked the one capable of winning, albeit very late. We've got a team CLEARLY still not confident and still feeling last season's hangover. The only way we recover is victories and strong performances on top of each other. If we go out and play good football and win vs. Fulham that will lift everyone heading into a little break. We need to build positive momentum within the players, that means getting a signing in, winning a few matches in a row and getting some well-needed luck in a match or 2 (or 3, or 4..)

Dummett played well, really like his pace, crossing, and has a good shot on him. I'm perfectly happy seeing him develop into our 2nd choice LB and push Santon. Good too, played very well and really like how calm he is on the ball and made some timely interceptions and such. Really pleased with him. As far as the other 2 - Debuchy & MYM -- both shaky at times, but thought they got a good lesson in cup football for us and will be better for it. They battled well and we won, no point analyzing it any further.

HBA's ability to pass the ball deep into Shola was marvelous.

Seems mad to think he'd come back, whether its genuine or tactic to get OM to sell Gomis to us, I applaud it- as long as we land one of them.

With chance creation our problem, lets get rid of someone who can create chances then.

Years if he's taking 10-20M out and he's just started doing so.

Back line should honestly be un-changed -- Colo and MYM need to continue to build that understanding together. he should bring in Dummett in and having either Santon or Debuchy playing RB. Midfield should still be Anita and Sissoko central to further build their partnership, with Marv/Gosling or Vuc playing ACM. I'd also consider starting Cisse and Gouffran with Sammy out wide.

You need to show them you should be here more like the f***ing cretin. I wonder if he'll pick a balanced side to give them half a chance this time? Usually he just chucks them all in together to sink or swim with even less regard given to shape or players natural strengths. Didn't most of them show they didn't have it last year?

Honestly wish Monaco or PSG had come for him earlier in the summer, threw some outlandish cash out and he left so I'd have a better feeling about him - was a player who was one of my favorites for us and now that positive feeling is dwindling by the day/week. Shame.

It'll be nice to see Remy runs at defenders with the ball - something very few of our players do, successfully - esp our strikers.

bein sport play (their online site) has it but you'd have to have a provider who actually carries...AT&T does not.

I think it's a trust problem. When Ashley has left people to their own devices it's come back to bite him in the arse in some way. - Allows Allardyce to sign players he wants, ends up stuck with utter rubbish on high wages - Lets Chris Mort set up a "system", ends up with the manager quitting (rightly) with the others in the system completely despised by the fans and s*** at their jobs - Gets Llambias to run the club, despised by the fans, extremely hesitant in the transfer market to the point that Ashley apparently has to step in to push through purchases in January, fails completely to increase non-football revenues & signs a sponsorship contract that pisses off everyone I don't know if Pardew was Ashley's mate before getting the job or Llambias' mate. If it was the latter then it's another reason that Ashley might not trust people to do their jobs, if it's the former then it's probably why he's still here despite being demonstrably out of his depth. For some bizarre reason it looks like he trusts JFK hence why he keeps turning to him despite him being a lunatic. Ultimately Ashley's either going to have to bite the bullet and find someone to run the club that he doesn't know and initially trust but who can actually do the job and who knows how football works or he's going to have to be a lot more hands-on in running the club. I think you're very close to the mark. Generally in his business dealings he works with people who he has known from the very start, or has known over time and promoted. It's clearly a fkn nightmare getting people in he feels comfortable with, and then when he does they turn out to have gained his trust by basically bullshitting just how good they are in a field he knows practically sod all about. I saw Sir John Hall on TV the other day for the unveiling of the gates & thought he's exactly what the club needs at this point, Ashley should beg him to come in and run things, then I realised that Ashley hates him and Shepherd for not disclosing some of the debts that needed to be repaid when the club was sold, etc. Sir John is 80 now and has Prostate cancer - there is NO way he could run the club now and after he stepped down as Chairman for health reasons in 1997, there were plenty of people who were prepared to rubbish his contribution by saying he only did it for the money..... Would YOU want all that again at 80....?? He was, and remains, the best Chairman/owner that NUFC have ever had and we will be lucky to get anyone similar in the foreseeable future. Remind me, who was it that sold the club to Ashley, and told us he was the best man for the job He like many (all) of us saw a great business opportunity coupled with what he thought was an ambitious owner man. Give the fuck over if you think Sir John would ever have OK' selling the club to Mike Ashley if he was able to forsee how its gone on since then.

The worst part of this summer is the fact we had some renewed optimism at end of season that we'd possibly have a new manager. That didn't happen, we hired Kinnear and all hopes of fixing the errors all but left us. At least last summer we were off bat of 5th place, hopefull of signings, and beat Spurs. This is nightmarish man.

Is he within contention for Fulham? Desperately need him out there.

Oh God, devastating. Then the exact same thing in Euro 2004.

WC 98 was fucking class too man. Brilliant cup. Maybe nostalgia but haven't thought a cup was as good as 94 and 98. I'll mix in 96 Euros and say that was a brilliant era football and my favorite time.

What a cup man. Madness how Enland didn't make it. That Baggio penalty still kills me for some reason. My USA team had those ridiculous uniforms too

Maldini, Shearer, Baggio. Not sure which was the truly first- but I obviously followed Shearer to Newcastle and the rest is history.