Beren

Don't think Carroll should be part of the England set-up personally for a few reasons: 1) I'm greedy. I want him scoring goals for Newcastle/not injured! 2) To use such a great physical threat in a striker well, you need diagonal balls and crosses - not long balls. There simply isn't enough training/playing time for the England squads to build a rapport that Arsenal - or to a lesser extent even Newcastle, have! You may mock, but the understanding of our players (yes, even the much-maligned Nolan!) is really effective at creating space so players like Barton can put decent balls in - he doesn't have the pace/trickery to create much for himself, after all. Without the Coloccinis of this world, the Carraghers will smash the ball long instead of playing it out. Carroll is great for a decent system, but in a poor system he encourages bad habits which are easily snuffed/dealt with. In a similar vein, while I feel Lampard is a highly effective player for Chelsea, I think he is far weaker as a central midfielder in the England set-up than even the inexperienced Wilshere would be.

Ah. Cool. Not injured, is he?

Just got home, only know the scoreline - I'm going to make a guess: England were shite. The game was really boring despite three goals. The temptation of having a big man up-front was too much for the England team and they hoofed it to Carroll - and he looked shite as a consequence?

Don't like either team really. Funny to see Chelsea capitulate with no steel in their team though.

Haircut reminds me of Jermaine Jackson.

Chelsea could do with Nolan, like. Wellbeck having his best game against Manure's rivals.

Drogba taking freekicks.

BFD, we've already won at the Bridge this season

Definite red.

Why? He's not particularly good. He's very effective/clinical though.

Surprised at Kalou's omission today.

Sunderland moving it about quite well.

I want to see a midfield of: Johnson Gerrard Wilshere Walcott Attacking/entertaining as owt.

Milner over Jarvis

Plus are goal difference is much improved, may count as an extra point come the end of the season. Good posts

Some of Fulham's best spells was more or less as a direct consequence of our reluctance to push out with the ball at our feet.

I was talking hypothetically, hence if. I wasn't saying 'we'll struggle because our home form could continue to be bad'. I can, because like I said last week, I believe we're playing above ourselves away from home at the moment. I don't believe this team is that good and that's why we can only play like that away from home for so long. Whereas we're not going to suddenly be able to break teams down at home. Fair enough. Out of interest, do you think we're playing at a level indicative of our "real" level at home right now?

Reread what I wrote in the context of the post. You've missed something.

Another strong performance IMO

Not quite sure I follow the logic of that first paragraph - if the home form continues as it is, we'll struggle - but then you renounce using that as a marker for why you're not elated to be fifth in the table? You have no more reason to think our away form will dissipate any more than our home form will improve. We still have "easy" away games at Blackpool, Wigan et al. Team/club under pressure inevitably means Hughton under pressure tbh, just look what thread we're posting in.

Given that you'd take 17th, you should be elated with the league table. Over a third of the season gone, top half, 5 points clear of relegation, two teams being cut adrift at the bottom...where exactly did you expect us to be at this point btw? f***ing ridiculous to even suggest he's under pressure imo. I'm not getting back into this fucking debate again. Of course I'm not elated, we've failed to win 5 very winnable home games and if we don't start winning home games soon, we'll be in the relegation fight which is where I certainly don't want us to be. Anything higher than 17th is a bonus, yes, I said that, but a third of the season is not exactly a marker for what the table will look like after 38 games. And if we continue this poor run of home form, we won't get 17th. How is it less of a marker than an even smaller sample of the games played though Jonny? You may very well point to the fixture list and quality of teams played and to come, but we clearly show no deference for what should be 'easy' or 'hard' games so what can you base your viewpoint on? I think this is a question of degrees, yes Hughton is under pressure as a relatively inexperienced and unproven manager and he's bound to be under a certain amount of pressure as any Newcastle manager is, but I don't think it's being cranked up especially high right now.