Flip

They have some good strikers there Senegal. Niang, Cisse. Sow and Ba are all very good strikers.

I know, I wrote I do not agree with that.

Pardew : “My view is that he can’t play out wide. He has not got the relish for it and his best football comes through the middle." How is that in anyway relevant to my post if I may ask? I wrote what I think should be done. Not what Pardew thinks. I've read that quote 50times before so it isn't something new, and even if his best football comes through the middle, him on the right given a free role a bit like Freddie Ljungberg was given at Arsenal will be better than playing Sammy on the left or right. Sammy has done well when brought on tbf, but it doesn't mean he deserves to be ahead of ben Arfa.

Fucking hell, agreeing with you too? Not possible...

I'm somewhere in between all of this. I feel in the longrun Ben Arfa is going to be crucial, as I don't believe Best and Ba will bring success over the course of a whole season. However, changing it right now would be harsh, I'd rather stick him on the wing since Best and Ba are getting us goals and causing defenders problems. However, I do not agree for a slight second that Ben Arfa should be behind Sammy Ameobi in the pecking order on the wing. Ridiculous.

What about the time when Ba was in space and only needed to be slipped through to have a clear run on goal, instead of doing that Ben Arfa heheld on to it too long and tried to beat the fullback again before losing possession. What he'll find is if he doesn't start releasing the ball at the right time soon then our players will stop making those runs, we've seen that with unpredictable players here in the past. I explained this in my post earlier. When he came on, our objective was to hold on to the lead not score another goal. This was what he was told to do by Pardew and this was what he did. Sure we could have done with a 3rd goal but it is not as simple as that. An attempted through pass could easily resulted in loss of possession if i) the pass went wrong, ii) was intercepted or iii) the striker (Ba) did not get to the ball on time. This would have been awful because our midfield was not only inferior but outnumbered and being overran and our defenders clearly knackered. His performance should be evaluated based on what he was told to do and our need in that particular game at that given point of time not just based on what we think is generally awesome. For once I agree with alpal. Weird day . Anyways, Baggio is clueless

I don't really understand why people go on about that he might not fit into Pardews tactics and so on. Is it only me or wasn't the plan that he would play behind the striker from the beginning? He got injured in the US and Best and Ba took their chances. As soon as one starts performing badly or HBA takes his chance he'll be starting upfront with one of the two. He'll fit into the tactic as the one we're playing now is from the beginning probably plan B. Wouldn't mind seeing him on the right against Shitty if Oby, Marv are out.

kingdawson. We deserved 3 points from our game. Seriously, for except 15 minutes of the 1st half we were the better team throughout, just like Fulham were today. However, big teams graft out wins and draws even on bad days just like you had today and that's why I think you'll probably finish in the top 4 (right behind us )

QPR stands out as a fixture we didn't deserve anything from (though I didn't catch the whole game, I should add). Which was more than evened out by Villa, which we deserved three points from. A draw wasn't an unfair result from the Spurs game, but I was disappointed to leave the game with only 1 after Tiote bossed your midfield so convincingly. Villa and Spurs were game we deserved to come out on top. But we only deserved draws against Wolves and Wigan and also didn't deserve anything from the QPR match. Anyways, who gives a shit, we're 3rd and we're staying there till the season ends.

Ah right

I can't, personally. Eh? Wolves and QPR we were lucky to get away with 4 points, should've been 1. Then I'd argue that we only deserved a draw from the Wigan match too. We really shouldn't be in the position to say to other team fans they have gotten lucky with getting points.

Downing I'd have. Better than Obertan.

Agreed, it was a penalty no doubt about it. But still think that the ref somehow justified it by not giving Sammy a penalty, as I was of the opinion that Hibbert pushed him in the air just like Ba did Crouch monday night.

I'm more worried about Tiote being missing, Guthrie has been better in his last 3 games than Cabaye has since he got injured for France. Jesus Christ. Guthrie was worse than Cabaye today, until Cabaye went off he then raised the level of his game. Against Stoke I think they were both equally good, but Cabaye was distributing the ball better. Cabaye is more than twice the player Guthrie is, and if he doesn't play against City we'll have more problems than we already should have. Guthrie was one of our best players today, in fact for me he was the best player on the pitch. He was also better than Cabaye against Stoke and Blackburn according to the people who watched the cup game, in fact I think Cabaye has been below par since he got injured against France so I'm not sure what the problem is with me saying that Tiote will be a bigger miss? Or are you one of these posters with the "If Guthrie starts we will lose" attitudes? If you look on the Guthrie thread, I said he was my MoTM, but I thought Cabaye was the better player until his injury. Guthrie got better as the more open the game got. Anyways, I agree that Tiote will be the bigger miss, but I was just reacting as I read your post as it really doesn't matter if Cabaye misses the match since Guthrie's been better. Might have interpreted it all wrong, apologies Baggio.

As I can't see us winning, we should definitely have that if we beat the mackems at SJP later on this season. megusta face is class.

Don't really agree. Guthrie had more energy in the 2nd half, but Cabaye ran his socks off in the 1st half and was although, the game passing the midfield by with the ball hoofing to the forwards, trying to get involved. He pressed smartly and even had two or three good balls to our strikers. Ran out of energy in the 2nd half, but considering he's been playing the whole season and 120minutes at Blackburn 4-5 days earlier its not to weird. He's a clever player who works his socks off everytime he's on field.

City is the next match, might be therefore.

We were 2-0 up with Cabaye on the pitch and were considerably worse after he went off. WTF are you on? Some people are out of their minds, that's just the way it goes. Cabaye is like an invisible wall to some, they can't see him, yet he's there winning tons of possesion in midfield and spreading the ball around wisely.

I'm more worried about Tiote being missing, Guthrie has been better in his last 3 games than Cabaye has since he got injured for France. Jesus Christ. Guthrie was worse than Cabaye today, until Cabaye went off he then raised the level of his game. Against Stoke I think they were both equally good, but Cabaye was distributing the ball better. Cabaye is more than twice the player Guthrie is, and if he doesn't play against City we'll have more problems than we already should have.

Worked his socks off in the 1st half. But once again he has a bit of a mixed performance. Good at times, and frustrating at other. Was still by far not our worst player this evening, had a decent game, but the amount of offsides were ridiculous.

He made up for it as he gave us a goal earlier. Great game from Heitinga for us. Should make him captain.