Beren

He's French, so there must be some substance to it.

3-1 Welbeck

Opening round has been like the opening round of games at the WC 2010 so far.

Yup.

Wonder what odds I can get on a Taylor, Cattermole and Tiote yellow card treble.

Pardew is confident about a great many things.

Edit: Reread that sentence three times to make sure I'd got the meaning of what he was saying correct.

At their best Woodgate was easily better. Woodgate's best didn't last very long admittedly, but he was the best defender I've seen at the club by some distance.

I'm doing shite already. Glad FF was broken though. Was going to swap Ba for Gervinho if it'd given me access to it.

Saunt Augustine Joey Barton is brilliant.

Barnes as an anchor on Five used to be pretty ridiculous. The funniest thing. He's okay-ish as a pundit.

Can you fucking imagine

Shearer's desire to be an impartial pundit has made him into a wally. Re: Gervinho not diving

Hanson

Agree wholeheartedly. Best isn't slow, but be it his acceleration, his reactions or awareness (or a combo of these)... he needs to work on being a bit sharper.

I think you may be extrapolating far too much from one game, personally. Arsenal keep a lot of possession, which meant our midfield were more entrenched than they otherwise would be. Add in lack of pre-season, lack of strategy, lack of full fitness and lack of understanding between Cabaye and Tiote... basically, I still think we can work without Ben Arfa. I bloody well hope so, anyway!

You'll love it It's hilarious. Taylor's mediating intervention is particularly funny, before he starts to getting onlooking officials onside

I distinguish between diving and making a meal of something, personally. Diving is feigning something that hasn't happened. Or faking that there was malice in someone brushing your face accidentally. Being dramatic about something to ensure the right result follows (ie. a sending off) is just "playing the game" so to speak. Not particularly cool or nice to see, but you'd be a doormat/naive not to. It's, sadly, where football is... [/iMO] Again, more generally as you say, it's a reflection of the state of the game. What did he say on Twitter? "I went down to make it clear there was contact"? The whole mentality stinks. Gervinho was in the wrong for diving, Barton was in the wrong for grabbing him like he did, Gervinho was in the wrong for slapping him, Barton was in the wrong for falling to the floor like he'd been shot. Just everything about it stunk and painted a sad picture of the state of our game IMO. You're 100% right. Football is a bit of shitty, disgusting game in some respects. Until there's serious repercussions/deterrents for diving/play-acting... it's a cancer the game will live with. Sadly, it's very controversial and difficult pragmatically to get those measures in... so it'll get worse and worse. I think it's interesting in the context of the game. I understand Barton's view insofar as, what happened when Barton didn't make a meal (immediately) out of Song's stamp? If someone hit me in the face (even if it was a shitty girl slap like Gervinho's), I wouldn't go down personally. Or at least I'd like to think I wouldn't. Maybe if I played the game professionally and played with the Pedersen (the one-inch shove that got Barton banned for three) and Suarezs and Hernandezs who frequently dived and exaggerated gripes to gain an advantage... maybe it'd wear me down, and I would start to "play the game". I see both sides. Admittedly, I only see Barton's from a theoretical standpoint

I distinguish between diving and making a meal of something, personally. Diving is feigning something that hasn't happened. Or faking that there was malice in someone brushing your face accidentally. Being dramatic about something to ensure the right result follows (ie. a sending off) is just "playing the game" so to speak. Not particularly cool or nice to see, but you'd be a doormat/naive not to. It's, sadly, where football is... [/iMO]

Attendance 46,894.

Noticed that too - thought Pardew had asked him to play as RB at certain points in the game.

How fucking good was his cross from the byline btw. He could play anywhere.

Some nice moments. Needs to be utilised better by the manager in a clearer system. Until half-time, I wasn't sure what Pardew's plan was for our midfield. Both Tiote and Cabaye were sitting deep. Even after the break, both were reluctant to advance up the pitch. Still optimistic.