The College Dropout

He's not under direct instruction. But if your boss doesn't care about something and rather focus on an incremental increase elsewhere, you will do the same. If my boss doesn't care about something, I don't care about it.

It's a disgusting attitude. Disgusting lack of ambition. Maybe if we can stumble to a QF Pardew will realise he has a chance to make history and focus on a cup. IMO the very definition of a midtable side should be looking to cup runs. 5-6 points can take you from 9th to 14th in the league, such small margins. I understand the money from 9th-14th is significant but I wouldn't want my job depending on such a thing. I'd take lower midtable finishes and real cup attempts over finishing 8th and rolling over to Brighton again.

IMO get over the Arsenal hump this year/qualify for the Champions League. Then next year I can see a real title challenge and maybe winning it. Chelsea/City/Arsenal finished 2nd/2nd/3rd I believe before they won the PL for the first time.

The inferiority complex runs right through the heart of the club. The players, foreign or not can feel it. The Arsenal also have a superiority complex. It's like us and a trophy. We as a club make it much harder than we should to win trophies. That monkey is on our back for real.

Do you think players like Lloris, Lamela, Eriksen, Soldado, Paulinho, etc, give two f***s about the other three having more title experience? Most of their players have competed for titles already, as has Villas Boas. If they're good enough and adapt to the league they'll go close to the title imo, don't think mentality will have a baring. Sorry, this is a bigger stage. Lamela and Erikson are kids. Anita's done everything Erikson has (less caps though) and he would find it difficult in a title run-up. Soldado's not scored from open play yet and hasn't won very much in his career as the main man. Lloris aye, strikes me as a leader. I don't see Spurs winning the league at all. Like the previous 2 seasons they'll tie-up near the finishing line but the difference will be they'll finish in the top 4 most likely. When things get difficult (in atitle challenge) you need goal scorers and people that have been there and done that. Spurs as a club haven't done that. They haven't even gotten over the Arsenal hump yet. I still maintain that Spurs will never finish above Arsenal as long as Wenger is manager. As a club, they get too nervous when they get close to achieving it. They've had the better side on paper for at least 2 seasons now.

How many goals have Spurs scored from open play? A handful. As things get more difficult in March/April/May teams need fire power. The team that scores the most goals in the league win the PL more often than the strongest defence.

Agreed. I reckon Arsenal and Chelsea have an advantage over the rest with their managers experience. City too as most of their players have won the league too. AVB takes the Europa League seriously too which would be a factor. If Arsenal can sign another striker or maybe another CB, they'll come very close to winning it or actually win it. I think Arsene has a huge advantage over everybody else. His team is settled and he's only adding in pockets of class.

I thought we beat Man Utd. after 12 games.

Mainly because the knacker job in charge changed the formation when he did so. Marveaux should've replaced him. Pardew has it in his head that we are more solid when we go 4-4-2. While that was true in the 5th place season for the first 12 games or so. Ever since it's been awful when we play it, we create nothing and concede goals a plenty. We played 4-4-2 when we beat Chelsea. @Mole Atm we play Sissoko Anita Cabaye We should play. Anita Sissoko Cabaye

The Villa result was a very good surprise. Made up for the Wham draw. Put us back on a good par. But this result is a knacker. Now we've only got 1 win at home against some teams we should really look to beating. A team that has to rely on its away form.. will get relegated. Not saying we will but you can rely on home form.

We don't play on the front foot enough to have an attacking RB with HBA loosely infront.

Flamini is very limited and nowhere near as good as Arteta. Sorry but that's a ridiculous post iyam. Flamini fits better into the holding role than Arteta ever did. Different way of playing the holding role..... that's like saying De Jong is better than De Rossi. Just because Arteta isn't flying around like a bull in a china shop doesn't mean what he does isn't effective. I wonder how Arsenal managed to have the 2nd best defence in the league last year and the most points of anyone in 2013 with Arteta, Mertesacker and Koscielny as their defence to midfield triangle Because the way some are talking on here you would think they are crap. The last time Arsenal really challenged for the league they had Flamini in the side. They've been solid without Arteta at the start of the season. They were never top of the league with Arteta so you can bend stats how you like. I don't care what anyone says, Arsenal needed a player like Flamini. He'll keep his place when Arteta is 100% fit.

I never thought Simpson was as bad as others used to make out.

Because we don't have those types? Anita sitting. Sissoko B2B, Cabaye passing and making sum runs

He doesn't even look particularly impressive going forward. I'd rather he stayed at home unless we where chasing a game.

They've been good without him. Flamini is an upgrade imo. I don't rate him highly. Flamini's a better stop gap. Arteta was always a stop-gap signing anyway.

A manager with a clue. Hmmm. They seem to be hard to come by. He's bought a sack load of players with seemingly no first team in mind. He played cameron Jerome on the left of a front 3 on the weekend. He's bought 3-4 wide forward and he's played Jerome there instead. Bought 14 players but no CB's. They play with little tempo or pressing.

A manager with a clue.

I don't see why we can't play with a real DM and two shuttlers.

38 seconds Jol/Holloway next, can't really see it being anyone else. Moyes could be in danger if they were Chelsea. But they're not. Agreed. Outside of Sunderland they've looked like the most useless sides imo. Fulham look heartless and Palace just terrible.

We need him to get a goal and to get his confidence back. Playing against a championship side might do him the world of good. Again, I'm not confident at all that he will get a goal, and it may cost us going to the next round of the cup. To me, this match is possibly even more important than the one at the weekend, as I don't expect us to get anything at Everton, but I do want us to progress in the cup and have an outside shot at some silverware this season. Cisse hasn't looked like scoring for a while, and I can't see that changing anytime soon as he's starting to look frightened of even attempting to shoot or head the ball just in case he misses again, so for me he needs benching asap for his own sake, and that of the team. Agree with this. He went on a little scoring spree at the back end of last season. Got 3 league goals and a few in Europe over a 5 week period but it has dried up again totally. He's been terrible for 13 months. 4 league goals in 2013 despite starting and finishing at least 20 games. I thought he was over-rated before but now... he looks useless.

was at Swansea/Palace at the weekend. Palace looked awful and Holloway is out of his depth at this level. But Swansea looked superb again.

Holloway doesn't have a clue what he's doing/

Jol.

Thank you Mole. We have debated back and forth for months but finally you understand. Holding the ball-up, linking play is a minimum for a player in his position. Otherwise he needs to be fucking lethal. He's not lethal. And he can't do anything else.