Beren

The reverse ball for Ben Arfa Gutted that Best wasn't able to score from the square ball!

You could have ended the post right there and everyone would be on board with you, tbh. It's quite sad, but I genuinely believe he has a mental illness of some kind. If you watch him when he gets worked up sometimes, often over very trivial things - there's something not quite right with him.

Think that was his best performance in black and white, for me. Showed some real confidence and aggression to take things on, look for the ball and make things happen. Admittedly, it was against Blackburn defenders, but good attitude on show today. Hope he can continue it on and try to release earlier balls. Highly encouraging stuff.

Real -1 Bayern PSV AC Milan

Barcelona? Come at us, bro.

Great match and performance, but greedy bastid that I am, I'm dissatisfied we didn't rack up way more goals!

£200 profit.

Boo ya.

Lump on Chelsea.

Bit disappointed to see Silva diving there. Don't see that too often from one of the more likable characters in Man City.

Such a complete player.

Downside - away draw again. Man Utd get Aldershot Then again, Stoke-Liverpool and Everton-Chelsea is useful.

lost in the cup to arsenal? point stands, am i right in thinking only City did the double over us in the league? that atleast shows we're hard to beat Stoke did the double over us too.

On Soccer Saturday according to http://www.carling.com/carlingcup/draw/

Draw shortly after 12-ish according to Beeb.

All a bit quiet on the Demba Ba front lately - wouldn't be surprised to see him pop up with a goal or two, today.

Leon Best is mint, I hear.

I had the identical issue, KSH! Took out Taylor for someone and whacked in Ben Arfa. Lucky for me, I had a free transfer saved up. Don't take out Cabaye, man. Don't do it. Think about his belting first goal. You'll miss out.

I was really, really impressed by our last game against Villa tbh. It was Villa though. They showed all the frailty and lack of bite in midfield they showed last season (when we knocked six past them). Hope it continues. That aside, I'm struggling.

Yeah, imagine throwing away a one goal lead to a Champions' League club. Or worse, a three goal lead against West Brom at home.

Eh? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/9268294.stm Not gonna get into it with you again about Pardew being in charge for this one. Believe the post-match interview from people within the club more than the BBC report or what the teamsheet said the manager was.

Oh gawd, quote pyramids. My eyes. Hughton had got the group of players playing well, and whether that was actively/passively (for the purposes of this discussion, anyway) isn't really relevant, is it? Incidentally though, was his squad which he had helped developed (actively or passively, as you choose to see things) in eighth place in the Premiership when he left because it was light years ahead also? There were no signs of the memorable performances abating when he left IMO. I can't see how, on the evidence available at the time of the sacking, you can say that Pardew wasn't brought in for reasons other than footballing ones. I linked them (the sales, Enrique's departure) to Pardew in so far as I see him being part of the regime and therefore accepting of them. Remember, I'm talking about Pardew's character here (and essentially - why I don't like him) lest we lose track of what we're actually debating! For the record though, if Hughton was as much of a puppet as you suggest (where's the evidence for that btw?) he would still be here. Edit: Regarding Ashley running the club as a business - your views came across on the forum as being tinged with more than a touch of pride - "I defy you to find..." seems like a proud statement to me! I find it relevant as I see Pardew's initial acceptance of the job as being tantamount to, and evidence of complicity/condoning how Ashley runs the club.

I liked and respected Hughton, he did a really good job in what, to start with, must have been an incredibly difficult situation. His achievement was to got us promoted with the best and most expensive squad the Championship has ever seen. A manager and a side that comes first in its division is easy to fall in love with. Had much more to do with his demeanour, dignity and respect he engendered amongst the place IMO. He had a good squad, but plenty of Premiership squads have sunk without a trace. A pejorative take on things^ Ashley is a business man and I defy you to produce any evidence that he's not running this club as a business. No shit I don't know why you say that with such pride, tbh. I made a lengthy post somewhere on why that's not something to be proud of, so I won't go into it again. Your take on the Hughton sacking is that Pardew would "kowtow" to Ashley and Llambias and let them sell who they like. Utter crap imo - this means that you think Hughton was some sort of iron character who would stand up to Ashley and stop him selling Carroll and Enrique? Or maybe you think that Hughton's sheer charisma would have persuaded them to stay? Hughton is a far less outspoken character than Pardew, when did Hughton ever say anything of any consequence in an interview? I thought everyone knew that managers don't have the final say on decisions like the Carroll and Enrique sales anyway. You seem to be conflating the issues of a manager having decision-making powers (which I didn't mention in my post) and a manager accepting a regime he did not agree with. Hughton would obviously not have been able to stop the sales of any of our players, and I suspect the real reason he isn't here - and the reason Pardew is - is because Hughton wasn't willing to participate fully with Ashley's cost-cutting pissing-in-the-faces-of-fans regime. Ashley appointed Pardew because he thought he would do a better job of protecting his asset, that's why businessmen make decisions like that. Again no arguments from me, but again - not sure why you're proud of this. As long as we're both in agreement it wasn't for footballing reasons in the conventional sense of the phrase. Love the point about our success to date being mainly down to Hughton's signing of Leon Best Apart from the complete dismissal of other players who have played a part (and let's not forget Kinnear's signing Ryan Taylor btw) this the same Leon Best who couldn't hit a barn from the inside until Pardew took over. Fair point, you've got me there (although I would stress my point was somewhat tongue in cheek). A lot of players contributed very well to the second half of our season, but with the exception of Jonas and Colo, none was more invaluable than Best after Carroll's sale (even though Carroll was injured for the rest of it) Hey it's early days, the fixture list so far has helped us get a start and I'm not carried away with what's happened so far But Pardew is one of the things I like about our set up right now. I certainly would rather he was here than plenty of the other managers in the Premiership (as well as the high profile, big ego managers in the Championship).