Theregulars

Obertan instead of HBA...

Raylor looks completely fucked.

epic from Guthrie

DEMBAAAAAAA

lucky

Hot knife through butter

We also look sure in team defence, not guaranteed when you have HBA.

My word, that ball isn't in the quadrant.

seriously, just to repeat how glad I am Shola didn't come on.

Canny save Tim

Papiss... thank fuck it's not Shola.

Papiss warming up.... and Shola

Loved how we were deriding Warnock, epic tackle.

Tends to happen when both your central midfielders are out. Agree with this - they seem to have players with more guile in midfield with us missing Cabaye and Tiote.

no Zoggy

unlucky Jonas

the joy of yank commentary somewhat tempered by David Pleat

high foot? surely?

It's alllllll about the yank commentary I've got like.

Nee bother stu, Ba can cross it to his self.

Really hope we win 3-0 with Taylor, Guthrie and perch scoring to scout the reactions on here.

Also raylor is an obvious inclusion for dead ball situations. Need someone on free kicks and corners with cabaye out. Makes sense

As I've said a lot recently, pares has us challenging for Europe, so gets the benefit of my doubt. I love hba but last 2 games he was shit like.

If we had one of cabaye or tiote I'd be really confident. It's very tough winning a PL game without your first choice central midfield (we won but didn't deserve to on weds, for instance). I said earlier in the thread, it won't happen, but my preference would be a midfield 2 of Guthrie and jonas, for ball retention purposes. Perch did well on weds but I don't think he's a player you turn to if you want to take the upper hand/initiative. Hope we see team Senegal both start, but I'm sure somehow the unflushable nugget that is shola ameobi will crop up.

I just don't think pardew, Ashley or llambias thought him capable of sustaining that form for even another season, I totally agreed with them. Loved him for what he did but always thought he was just going through a hot streak/our team set up benefitted him massively. Cheers for the goals but I'm so much happier with Cabaye. That said, would we miss him if Demba hadn't proved such a massive success thus far?