Beren

They rested Pilkington, Holt, Hoolahan, Bassong today but agree - bad run. They've got good spirit though, and their poor run has included some very tough fixtures against Chelsea/Man City/Liverpool to be fair. Need to bounce back soon or they'll get sucked into the end of season scrap.

Is a right crock that lad it seems. Not sure what Moyes was told but starting him so soon after the biggest injury lay-off of his career, seems bizarre. Incredibly frustrating, he's our most creative player. Did it look like a serious injury? Or just a precautionary withdrawal?

Vicarious

As someone who hasn't seen him play a great deal - do you consider him more attacking or defence-minded?

How long will Pardew be given to turn the ship around now the squad has been bolstered, I wonder? Got a great opportunity to give himself some breathing space against Villa, and people will be lenient about the following two fixtures (no doubt with lots of Wullie-infuriating positives to take from the matches) I think. If he were to go, I think the squad would certainly require a sophisticated(, possibly continental) manager - which would at least rule out a Joe Kinnear type from Ashley's thinking, you would think

Williamson I'd label competent to a point rather than good Think he is referring to our starting back four? I'm not sold on Santon's defensive abilities just yet. Has a lot of development left in him IMO, particularly in respect of his starting positions. Debuchy, I haven't seen enough of, and same for M'Biwa probably. I'm a gloomy misery guts lately though. Could be though

Right, I'm at 10. Keeping Colo + new signings, I'll go to 8/9. I must be interpreting this thing differently to everyone else. If it's a scale of 1-10, surely 10, 'doomed' means 95-100%, definite. If the rest of the season was played out 10 times, on every occasion we'd be relegated. In a best case scenario, it would be played out 20 times and once we wouldn't. Voting anything like 9 now is ridiculous. Apart from maybe Derby and those two mackem record breakers, probably no team has warranted a 9 in january. Sorry for derailing and taking the relegationometer too seriously, but I'm just a bit baffled. I'm on a 3 after the signings. From me at least. I don't take 10 to mean relegation is a mathematical/statistical certainty (or near to that). I take it to mean that without intervention, I'm strongly convinced we would go down. For me, at least, the relegationometer does not take into account managerial changes/new signings/player exits/en masse injuries (other than those already known to us)/en masse recoveries or other similar events. It's how I see the season playing out if such elements don't change. Things have changed so much this past week. Haven't had time to really think about the implications of it all. Still very worried about relegation and I don't think any such fears will be assuaged until I start to see points on the board or the team demonstrate the capacity to put points on the board. So many unknowns atm. It's a very interesting time.

Crazy to watch this. From only 6 days ago :lol:

i like him even more now.

6.5 years? Wow.

Ludicrous that Villa can't compete with Southampton financially. The last big deals they did were Bent and CNZ, right?

Magnifique!

!

Decent value as a DNB, JS

The forum has not yet had an opportunity to flex its shitty pun/anagram skills because the signings have come in too thick and fast. It feels like every time we GouFrrance we come back with a new player. Without them the ForuM'biwa a little more glum though, I suppose. SISS-OK-thO, hopefully there is time left. Not everyone will be happy, once it does, but HaidarAre gon' hate.

Do you mean better finishing? Bellamy's end product was superb. In 02-03 in particular he seemed to have a hand in more than half the goals we scored when he was on the pitch. I know Bellamy was a great player for us, no doubts about it. But i can't remember him scoring many goals apart from one or two seasons? He did contribute massively though. I don't mean that he's going to be as good as Bellamy, no way. Just interested to know if he could be that type of player, being direct and all that. Me mentioning the end product bit maybe was off the map, such a long time ago. His end product wasn't up to scratch when he first arrived if that's what you mean (I seem to recall him always ramming it straight at the keepers' legs), but that soon changed and he was an accomplished finisher for the most part. Great player for us.

Why do Sunderland feature in our introductory blurb?

True. Especially with a measure of pressure back on Benitez (as there seems to be every other game ) after the Swansea game. Has to play the Mata. Otherwise people will question what the Mata is with his brain. I so rarely captain RvP. Such a solid, safe return but seldom ever spectacular. Scored twice or more in a PL game only twice this season.

Oh, alright, at the risk of getting carried away and making myself look a right berk: Krul Debuchy Mbiwa Colo Santon Tiote Sissoko Anita* Cabaye HBA Cisse I still believe * - possibly Guffrie?

I like your avatars. I'm hopeful but uncertain about things atm.

Better than Danny Simpson at getting the ball back in play from a throw-in too. Can't believe they didn't hoof it from the set play.

Aston Villa 1-3 Newcastle QPR 0-2 Man City Stoke City 2-0 Wigan Sunderland 2-0 Swansea Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool Everton 1-1 West Brom Norwich 0-1 Tottenham Fulham 0-0 West Ham Man Utd 4-1 Southampton Reading 1-6 Chelsea

Fourth choice for half a day, potentially? See, this is what you have to love about him. His resolve, his spirit, his determination to break into our first eleven...

Didn't see it myself, but did Demba1 dive earlier in the game?

http://web.mst.edu/~price/cs53/ws12/dr-nick.gif