Rich

And Guthrie

End of this season.

I was just too giddy.

The bit when he skinned Hoilett and won the free-kick was immense. Such a good footballer.

The first sentence is pretty much exactly how he described the situation on NUFC TV.

I really liked our team of last season/season before and felt proud of them as well, to be honest. The attitude is nothing we've gained, it's just great that we haven't lost it with the turnover of players. Pardew does deserve a lot of credit for that, and for striving to play good football/bringing in players who seem to have a hell of a lot of promise in this style. His predecessor also spent a lot of time in the "little box thingy" too like, nothing has changed there either. One of my major concerns with NUFC over the months preceding this season was that we'd lost the core of people that had helped me to "like" the club again, including Hughton, Calderwood and Baron, but thankfully all of the players/staff brought in since seem like good eggs so far. It's very, very promising. The style will be the key difference, hopefully that was just the start this past week or so.

Very true. One time, he made some space and should have played it to Simpson to whip it in, but he turned back and tried to take on two blokes. Think he really wanted to impress today, sure he wont be as eager as time goes on. Noticed he was down the tunnel pretty sharp after the final whistle?? ? Aye, I chuckled at that though was disappointed he lost the ball. He just didn't want to give it to Simpson. Not even kidding. It happens a fair bit.

Have to say I was as happy for Jon as I was for Demba today like, lovely to see a bit of positivity rewarded and hopefully there's more to come. Just watched his interviews with BBC/NUFC TV and I was impressed by his honesty/modesty. Downright states he put in some "bad performances" in the early part of the season, but was promised by Pardew that he would get a chance when he was fully fit and now just wants to take it. Also said the header for the third goal was intended as a knock-back for Best as he spotted him in a good position. Really nice touch that he had his family over from Paris today to watch the game, must be class when it all comes together like that.

I think Spurs will be our next big hurdle, they are starting to look the part after a slow start. For the first time though I'm starting to believe we can do them. Eh? Spurs hate it up here, they've consistently struggled against us no matter what quality of team we have. Never a team I've had any fear of playing at SJP. Cue 0-5 slaughter... I usually just go on the quality of the team rather than past form tbh. Spurs looked canny against Liverpool last week so I expect a tough game. Think that's fair enough, was just "for the first time though I'm starting to believe we can do them" that surprised me. Giving them far too much respect, IMO. It looks a cracking game on paper.

Same team again after today, difficult to change it unless anybody gets an injury. Would be pleased enough with a draw given that Wolves look a lot better this season than they did last, don't want to get greedy.

Watched the Watford second-half. Good old Championship football, as bad as I remembered it being. I honestly like to see Watford do well simply because GG is a good egg, but they look shot to pieces on ability and confidence.

I think Spurs will be our next big hurdle, they are starting to look the part after a slow start. For the first time though I'm starting to believe we can do them. Eh? Spurs hate it up here, they've consistently struggled against us no matter what quality of team we have. Never a team I've had any fear of playing at SJP. Cue 0-5 slaughter...

This is rife for a pun, surely? Most of the forum comedians must have mist it...

Nah, he's been getting plenty of praise for his general performance. If he'd tucked one of the chances away people would be rightly raving about him again. Good to see that the two players people pinpointed as our two best strikers are actually playing like our two best strikers.

Always amazes me how differently people see the performances. I thought Obertan's short passing was very strong today along with his ball-carrying, he was let down moreso by his crossing/shooting when the opportunities arose. Some of his decision-making was frustrating at times, of course, but I think that's something we're going to have to overlook if he keeps on improving the way he has been.

Keep this sort of run going until we go to Manchester and we'll still be set, would take a lot of the pressure off us for those two games. Man Utd have Benfica (h) midweek before us (and possibly a CC Quarter Final midweek after), while City travel to Napoli the Tuesday after our game. Might not be a particularly bad time to play them both... Chelsea might also have CC Quarter Final leading in to their visit to SJP and have a CL game against Valencia straight after our game too, which might be important for winning the group. Plus I always fancy us at home against anybody anyway, even when we're relatively crap. /clutching PS: We might even have a Carling Cup Quarter Final around this time ourselves, diminishing a lot of this, but even if we did I wouldn't exactly be complaining...

Yeah I think as good as we were, they were really shit. I'd be dishing out a 9 or two though, personally.

WAYHEY!!!

Very conservative marks Nixon, I'm not sure we'll see too many individuals play much better than that throughout the season.

We're a decent team, but we'd be so much better with two fullbacks who could contribute a bit more. Hopefully Santon sorts one of the roles, but come January I'm still clinging to the hope one of our previous targets could be snapped-up as well (Cissokho/Pieters). It's why I wouldn't have minded missing a striker and signing another full-back on deadline day to compensate, would have still improved the team a large amount.

He was alright, I thought. Usual frustrations.

Thanks to this result we're still 1 point better off at this stage of the season than we were under Big Sam, so it's still our best start since 95/96. His next game was that 3-1 loss away to City when Elano spanked the free-kick in, but that was followed by two home wins on the bounce before the wheels completely fell off and he became a dead man walking. We're also still keeping up the 4 points every 2 games ratio I was talking about a few weeks ago, which is excellent going really. All of these neglects the fact that we are playing far, far better football now (well over the last two games) than we did under Allardyce, of course.

Don't think the depth is too bad at all when you consider Santon should be starting at left-back relatively soon and when you look at the bench we had today.

Class again Best. The confidence we're showing here is stirring my loins.

Cheers Pards