The College Dropout

If a pass is not on.. play it simple. He's too gung-ho. You don't want your AM continuously losing the ball.

Of all the new players, i'm sceptical about Moussa the most.

I disagree his passing is too impatient, in fact he's very quick at spotting a pass and is very good at quick one-twos. With our lack of movement though, obviously the options become much more limited and that's when you might get the passes getting over ambitious to compensate. Now I could suggest why there is this lack of movement but then I'll be accused of insulting Pardew, so I'm just going to echo the manager and say it's a mystery. His passing was often under 80% completion. That's lower than any other good player you can think of. It's pretty terrible in fact. 74% at WBA. 79% at S'land. 72% at City. 74% at Wigan. 69%.......SIXTY NINE... against Stoke. 3% more than the lovely Ryan Shotton.

I don't know tbh. He was excellent for a few games and terrible ever since. He's got a good engine. Can dribble well. Strong on the ball. Passing is too impatient. Rarely keeps possession. I'd have him in a midfield 3 flat, with licence to break forward. He would need more patient passing for that. Or tbh.... wide. As a #10 he's shit.

Except Dyer was better on the wing and at AM.

Could you imagine Paddy Vieira playing on the wing or having any success at AM? No. Tall, lanky, black, strong, athletic yes. But they're not the same type of player.

With the current squad, I don't see how we can't replicate the successful 4-3-3 - Sissoko replacing Jonas and Gouffran (Remy, perhaps?) replacing Ba. I know this has been whinged about a million times but it really is frustrating how we completely abandoned the most successful formation in (my) living memory, just cos we got tanked at Wigan on a day where nothing went right. One thing the 4-3-3 did was put everyone in their best position. If we could just do that with at least 4 or 5 of our front six (instead of 0), I could live with a different set-up. We rarely played 4-4-3. It was normally 2 CM's sitting behind an AM. Jonas-Tiote with Cabaye pushed up.

Never. He doesn't have a defensive mindset. I mean in the Viera sense. Not a standard DM but a mobile holding midfielder with license to break. I agree with you that he doesn't seem that defensive. Vieira put a foot in and could play as a DM. Sissoko doesn't look like he can even tackle. Hope i'm wrong. I'd like him deeper to close midfielders down personally anyway. But not in a 4-4-2 with Wor Cabs

Never. He doesn't have a defensive mindset.

He has for France. Dunno about Toulouse though. Personal view that he doesn't belong to the wing. Pardew just said he played to the side for Toulouse.

So he played wide for Tolouse as well as France......

It is a bit worrying that S'hampton/Norwich/Swansea/L'pool are dropping big figures on players to improve their squads. I know a number of ours are on decent wages. But Cisse was the last player we spent 10m+ to sign. I don't want us to waste money but we do need to invest. Everybody else is stepping it up.

They aren't getting rid of Ade

i also think they get the chance to develop in the top divisions as much as they did, even 10 years ago. You need the opportunity. Look at Sturridge - he should have spent the last 3 seasons at least playing for a midtable Premiership club (well he is now). His game would've been a better player than he is today. I don't even think he's particularly talented but James Milner has benefited plenty by being given the opportunity to just play in this division from a young age.

Colo already does that.

Agreed. But we also need a more physical CB to prevent us getting beaten in the first place. Any defence with someone as slow as Colo in the centre is going to have trouble playing a high lline.

The strikers of today are far better athletes; stronger and quicker. It's not about who likes elbowing defenders. If any league should be known for its atheltic forwards it is Ligue 1, and Yanga-Mbiwa is our most athletic centreback by far. I don't think Taylor provides anything more physically than Yanga-Mbiwa offers. He is however, a much more experienced player in this league and a better pure defender. I'm fairly confident in all three of our centrebacks when they are fit. In fact, I quite like the players we have in defence. We really need both of our fullbacks to perform consistently next season though, because neither did last season despite all of their talent. MBiwa has proven nothing thus far that suggests him to be our most athletic centreback in terms of strength and jumping ability. He has really not shown to be very strong and has been outmuscled everytime he has played a physically bigger player than him.

Amazing how that has been forgotten about tbh It was a massive complaint from the majority before we signed Mapou that it was so easy to get in behind the back 4 with Taylor/Williamson and Colo with Mbiwa and Debuchy to some extent we have better recovery pace and positional sense. I understand where people are coming from but i do feel it could work well none the less. Colo's slow as owt himself, he's slower than Taylor. I love Colo but he's not the best with a high line because 1. not great in the air 2. slow

A £20-25m bid would seriously test Villa's resolve.

Defoe doesn't need much service tbh. He's just a greedy player.

S. Sinclair & Remy would be great work.

From the little i've seen, Leroy Fer looks like the kind of B2B midfielder who is good in the air I had hoped Sissoko was. Early days yet for both though.

Needs a year in the Championship. Maybe two. If he hasn't looked a top Championship player in that time, he probably won't make it for us.

25 man you can only have 2 specialists for each place in the team. Man Utd. only have one specialist RB.

What are his strengths? Pace, athleticism, comfortable on the ball, beats a man, loves to get forward. Aye, he's defensive side could improve but he's a young lad and I can't believe anyone isn't ecstatic to have him on our books. Ecstatic is pushing it but there is no reason why he can't become a very good player for us for years to come. A good coach would sort him defensively too. It's predominately the mental side he struggles with IMO, nowt that can't be fixed you'd assume. He'll be better this coming season. Agreed fully.