The College Dropout

There's plenty of money involved in MoTD but it suffers from the "old boys club" syndrome. Linekar, Hansen & Dixon are pretty good at what they do. Shearer & Keown are particularly terrible.

A keeper that comes out and catches does so much for a defence. Given/Harper's cost teams games because they always stay on their line. Had Given been in goal we would've conceded more. His kicking was bad but his overall performance was good. Colo was amazing. Taylor superb. Guti would make Perch look class at LB. Raylor's a warrior. Ba. Fucking immense.

Agreed.

Looks like the best striker outside the top 6 atm. Even better than Bent.

It's fair to say Guti helps him out a lot but today he was great. Real warrior. As a bloke he's gone up a lot in my estimation...

Well done on him for playing. If i was in his position, especially against a side like Stoke i'd sit it out.

Wouldn't start him against Stoke but he was better than he was against Spurs.

I believe we should play a full strength side in the League Cup as we could really do damage in that tournament and may actually win it. But yeah, Marveaux over Obertan all day and tomorrow. To me, he has looked better than Ben Arfa this season as his game is simpler. Unlike Obertan he has a brain and looks up. I'm not sure he's super quick but his ball control is excellent so he mixes it up, jinx in and out where as Obertan is so one dimensional it's scary.

I'd love a 1-0, really nervous about this one. Typical one for us to lose.

HBA can get minutes off the bench. HBA needs to understand that others have played well, the team is working and that unless there's a dip i form or he comes off the bench and plays better he'll continue to get minutes off the bench. Arfa's been okay when off the bench and has done nothing to displace Best except for reputation. We've moved a long way from those days mate.

Yep. If we play like we did against Spurs, i'm sure Best/Ba will score and we should win. That's the most important thing. HBA will have to wait. I definitely wouldn't drop the strikers and i'm 95% sure Pardew won't either. Only players that deserve to be dropped are Simo and Obertan.

Wouldn't drop Best for Ben Arfa atm. Seen nothing to suggest it would be wise. Either in for Obertan or sitting on the bench for me.

If he was English we'd be in real trouble.

In regards to Rosicky he's done and dusted. Arshavin? I'm not sure.

Would need to stop losing the ball every 5 seconds if he's to play in midfield.

Cabaye's error left him with some defending to do and he made a horrible choice. Unless your 100% you don't dangle your leg like that in the box. Ade was running AWAY from goal onto his left foot, honestly Stevie just panicked and did something stupid. He needed to just shephard him down the line and not be fooled by a faint. If Ade runs away from goal and tucks it away into the corner with his left foot then it's a great goal and Cabaye's/Colo's mistake. Ade invited him to do something silly and Taylor obliged. Excellent offensive play and bad, bad defending. Classic Taylor though.

Cabaye has been lucky to avoid Tiote levels of bookings.

Bale was really poor. Rarely troubled either fullback. Cabaye invisible for periods. Played some excellent stuff for small periods. Average/decent overall. Obertan - positive in the first half with no end product. Poor in 2nd with no end product. Needed subbing really. Ran out of ideas (not that he had many to begin with).

Think Spurs line-up didn't help today. He was wide a lot today and he's better in the middle. Much better.

I agree with the last point although i'm unsure if he's any better than Sandro. He works hard. Gets stuck in. Passes and moves. Good role player but nowt special. That's all anyone's saying against him. He's no Makelele at his role (reactive instead of proactive), he's not even as good as Tiote imo. I don't rate him highly.

What I like most about this side (including Marveaux & Santon removing Simpson/Obertan) is that the vast majority of our starting XI are all very good at the basics. Touch, technique, passing. For a British defender Taylor has always been impressive with the ball at his feet. He's not shy to bring it out and generally looks for a pass. Colo is a Rolls Royce of a player and seemingly was raised in a football sense as a Libero. We all know that. Santon looked so much better on the ball than Simpson. Don't really know about defending or anything but touch, control and general composure he was miles better. Marveaux, Tiote, Cabaye & Jonas are real footballers. Cabaye was a little quiet but he provided several quality balls to Obertan especially in the 1st half. Most of them are real Bobby Robson type players and imo the best footballers we've had in a long time. We are not the most fancy but we can definitely play.

He wasn't bad but he didn't stand out. Worked pretty hard. Passed and moved.

Spurs best periods came when Modric started pulling the strings that Tiote had cut off earlier and would eventually cuff again. He's no luxury player. He was Spurs best midfielder today but he didn't dominate. There's a lot of talent in that Spurs side, so even if a few have a bad day there's someone ready to step up. VDV & Bale where poor. Yet they had Ade, Defoe & to a lesser extent Modric to inject them with quality. Parker was decent but no more than Livermore. Cabaye & Tiote controlled them largely. Thought it was quite difficult for our players to win the ball back when the ball was at Modric's feet as he keeps position so well.... thankfully he didn't do too much damage with it today.

Spurs best periods came when Modric started pulling the strings that Tiote had cut off earlier and would eventually cuff again. He's no luxury player. He was Spurs best midfielder today but he didn't dominate. There's a lot of talent in that Spurs side, so even if a few have a bad day there's someone ready to step up. VDV & Bale where poor. Yet they had Ade, Defoe & to a lesser extent Modric to inject them with quality. Parker was decent but no more than Livermore. Cabaye & Tiote controlled them largely. Thought it was quite difficult for our players to win the ball back when the ball was at Modric's feet as he keeps position so well.... thankfully he didn't do too much damage with it today.

Drogba-esque at times. Had the measure of Bassong.