Teasy

When he went to West Brom I definitely thought we should have been in for him, not quite as sure about him now but he'd still be a useful option up front. With 6 months left on his contract in January we should be able to get him for £2-3m.

Since there's been a lot of talk about our revenue outside of TV money I thought it could be interesting to make a revenue minus TV money league table (all info from 2011/2012 season, which is the newest data available): 1 - Man Utd - £216m 2 - Arsenal - £160m 3 - Chelsea - £148m 4 - Man City - £143m 5 - Liverpool - £106m 6 - Spurs - £74m 7 - Newcastle Utd - £39m 8 - Villa - £34m 9 - Sunderland - £31m 10 - Everton - £28m 11 - Fulham - £28m 12 - Norwich - £25m 13 - Bolton - £22m 14 - QPR - £20m 15 - Stoke - £20m 16 - Swansea - £19m 17 - Wolves - £18m 18 - West Brom - £17m 19 - Blackburn - £13m 20 - Wigan - £7m Got to at Wigan!

Lallana was ok, but I'd prefer to have the likes of Sturridge or Wellbeck playing, also prefer to keep the same group together that had been gaining a bit of a understanding over the last few games.

Hate it when England managers treat games like this as training sessions, 6 changes and the likes of Lalana and Rodriguez.

Well at least thats one of my bets coming off

I wouldn't have made so many changes. Even in a friendly you want to try to make sure you don't lose at home.

Did I say that then? Must have forgotten doing that A Chile player just walked up to Smalling and head butted him in the chest. Smalling just looked at him. You know for a fact almost any other European side and the player goes down holding his face. England have certain cunts like Young who dive (thankfully he doesn't play anymore). But the majority aren't divers at all. Wilshere's been done a couple of times and just tried to stay on his feet and complained when the ref gave a free kick because he wanted to continue.

Chile are some dirty bastards like. If we were any other European side (ready to dive and hold our faces after every tackle) they'd have had a player or two sent off by now

Would help if he ever got off the bench. I do expect it to happen that way against Norwich though. Obviously Pardew will just try the same team as we played against Chelsea and Spurs and it won't work well at all, so he'll very probably need to be rescued. Which inevitably means "we're in trouble, save us Ben Arfa"...

As I said Ben Arfa would still need to do some defending, I'm not advocating no support for Debuchy at all. Just saying I don't believe he'll now need as much as he needed earlier in the season. Its not like Ben Arfa can't provide any support at all for the left back, he's shown in the past he can if he's motivated. We have looked more solid in the last few games, partly due to Debuchy settling in, and partly due to Williamson and Yanga-Mbiwa being a better partnership than Coloccini and Yanga-Mbiwa was previously. I agree on not bringing Coloccini back yet BTW. Love him and its hard to see him on the bench but right now Williamson and Yanga-Mbiwa is working well.

Yes he was poor against Everton on the left, but no more of a liability than anyone else in a terrible first half team performance. Mostly due to the intense pressure Everton put on us in that half. Only game I could agree with the term liability for Ben Arfa was Hull. I agree that the extra protection has helped Debuchy, but only as he was getting used to the game and needed to find his feet. I think that's allowed him to calm down, think about how he needs to adapt and gain some confidence. IMO now he has he won't need it as much. Debuchy's actually changed the way he deals with defenders since earlier in the season and improved his positioning IMO. Its not as if Sissoko is constantly covering for his mistakes like Ben Arfa should have done against Hull (because that Hull goal was as much Debuchy's fault as it was Ben Arfa's). That being said Ben Arfa will still need to concentrate far more and put more effort in defensively than he did against Hull, which was unacceptable obviously. But IMO we will need him in the next two games, we won't have the space in behind against Norwich or West Brom that we got against Chelsea and Spurs.

Man City, West Ham, Fulham, Villa, Hull Those are the games he played before Pardew started to move him around. What are the decent number of games out of those where he was a liability? He was arguably our best player out of four of those 5 (not difficult vs Man City but still) and certainly won us both games against Villa and Fulham. He had one bad game in his preferred position against Hull where he provided little and cost us a goal. Since then he's been moved to the left (where he doesn't play well ever basically) and then up front by himself. So you could say he was a liability in one game out of five before he started getting moved around. As I said against a team where the primary goal is to close down fast and hit on the break its a fair decision to leave him out at the moment (though their's no way in hell bringing Obertan on ahead of him was ever a good idea either against Chelsea or even worse against Spurs). But against a side that'll sit back and challenge us to break them down we need him in the team and in his preferred position. A position where he's won us games basically on his own in the past, against teams that were just sitting back and challenging us to break them down.

That's fine for certain games (away against attacking sides or at home against the really top sides). But if we try to play like that in the next two games at home to Norwich and West Brom we'll struggle badly. Pardew needs to keep reminding Ben Arfa that he has to work hard fair enough, but we also need him in the side for most games, especially at home. Also Ben Arfa earns his place plenty, he's had a couple of bad games and then been dropped and all of a sudden people are talking as if he's the kind of player who does nothing most games then occasionally plays well When he's played in his preferred position he's usually our best player.

For what reason? we won't be in relegation trouble or contending for Europe.... zero reason for Fat Man to spend cash so he won't. Same reasons you might buy a sale item even if you don't think you really need it right at that moment.

honestly like, given the margins the club is run under, we need to start shipping out the likes of obertan & shola* before we're likely to sign new....can't see any way we'll pay money for ince with obertan on the books, for example * Our revenue will be increasing significantly in the next several months so the finances are there to increase the squad size/quality. Its really a key point in Ashley's time here, will he continue to spend what comes in (in which case we'd have a surplus of £25-30m to spend because of new sponsorship and TV money), or will he start to pay back the original debt. But yeah I'd get rid of useless dross like Obertan anyway if possible. I don't think we'll be going out looking to push the squad forward obviously, but I think we'll be keeping our eyes open for bargain deals on players we're interested in such as Gomis and Ince.

Is that the dog version of Samuel L Jackson?

Seemed pretty obvious we'd be back in for him either in January or next summer. As for his goal record, while its 1 in 3 overall its been better than that for the last couple of seasons. 14 from 36 in 2011/12 and 16 from 37 in 2012/13 (close to 1 in 2). Not that 1 in 3 was ever a bad goal return, even in Ligue 1.

Anyone can chase the ball a bit, if they lose it the moment they get it they're no good to anyone. He didn't even put much pressure on Chelsea's midfielders/strikers either. Like I said he had one decent moment with a bit of interplay with Anita and the rest of the time he was absolutely useless. Had the ball in good positions three or four times (none of which he even had to chase down) where you'd want him to push us forward. Fell over the ball once, got tackled almost immediately once or twice and passed it straight to a Chelsea player another time. I've seen enough of Ben Arfa to know he would have made much better use of those moments. I don't dislike Obertan BTW, just believe that the theory of him being a good out ball for us due to being able to run fast is flawed because he's a poor Footballer. Also in no way did he do that job anywhere close to successfully when he came on against Chelsea.

In my opinion he has been awful recently. I've already explained that I think Pardew moved Ben Arfa up front to keep him in the team. He wasn't doing his defensive duties on the right wing so he was moved where he didn't have to do as much defensive work. Some people had been clamouring to see Ben Arfa up front. It didn't work. He needs to be right wing and he needs to pass when it's a better option than running at 3 defenders. He also needs to do his defensive duties. I can understand people defending Ben Arfa but they should also admit when he hasn't played well. This thread is about Ben Arfa. Other players have also had bad games but that's to discuss in their threads. Following two match winning performances on right wing he had one bad game and was immediately removed. Given half a game on left wing during a all round poor performance from the whole side before being dropped entirely. Since than he's been used in a position totally foreign to him and when he hasn't done great their he's dropped again. Think it would have been far better to simply have a word with him after the Hull game to remind him that he can't fall asleep defensively but show faith in him by keeping him in his best position. Ben Arfa does often try to do a bit too much, but I also think he's expected to do more than anyone else. Also think the whole "Ben Arfa often loses the ball" thing is bollocks frankly.

Ben Arfa is liable to lose the ball more than Obertan?, give over. As far as out ball, clearly that was Pardew's thinking but it was quite flawed, as Ben Arfa's a far better out ball than Obertan. Every time he got it in that kind of situation he either got tackled straight away, fell over it or passed it to the opposition. Chelsea hardly had to do much chasing like.. so he was entirely useless as an out ball. Some decent interplay with Anita for the second goal but other than that he was terrible. I'd bet my house that if Ben Arfa had gotten the ball on the break like he did on more than one occasion he'd have made Chelsea do much more chasing and would have given if away less as well.

Just watched it, seems to be looking at Ivanovic the entire time, doesn't even glance behind him where the balls coming from, bizarre

Anyone know roughly when it was in the game so I can look at decent footage of it?

We wouldn't pay the relatively low loan fee then. Ouf course, that's the only possible factor afterall..

Here's a revelatory idea, he could play him right wing where he was winning us games before Pardew had the amazing idea of moving him to left wing and then striker. A few times against Villa and Fulham, just flashes though and I'm not sure its been seen at all since he was moved away from right wing.

You're really trying the blame that side on the squad?.. Does the squad pick the formation, does the squad pick Shola?, no.