morpeth mag

Well I agree with you but I've been impressed with how effective Best is in the air and I think his hold up play is good too. A bit more movement and stay onside please.

Bet he's telling Ryan that the left side is actually the right too! Seriously, whatever works and this is some funny stuff. Imagine if Saylor had come out with what Pardew had said Eh? We were playing downhill. Better win the toss on Saturday as I'd hate to play up that hill in the second half.

If Santon can't nail down one position he's got no future at this club. Get Pieters in.

Good tactic from the club using Tim to tap him up and show him around the ground.

I'd settle for a point BUT imagine the noise and the belief if we can turn them over.

There was alot of room for improvement with the sloppy passing, the lack of marking for their goal after the give away, the lack of the killer touch infront of goal. BUT the movement was good, especially the top two, the ball was on the deck, we threatened both left and right and we won easy without leaving third gear. For me the highlight was the move when Benny cam on and swopped passes with Cabaye and Jonas before almost setting up Best - more please. But credit to Best and Ba who were a handful throughout against a decent centre back pairing. Credit also to the ever improving Oba. Also thought Raylor was decent apart from THE mistake.

He and Best have been quality the last two games as we finally start to play. Glad he's found his feet. Absolute quality first goal yesterday, control, turn and shot.

Same team, same subs. Santon for 5 mins if we get a two goal lead - instead of Oba!

NEW East Stand please!

Same again

Improving every game - not surprising given how little he has played for two years. Keep it up.

fear Samba in the air - just hope we can dominate play in their half

Tweny years ago when I used to play we had a couple of seasons playing 3-4-3 with great success on the same principle that teams struggle to cope with unusual formations. Started because we only had 3 players willing to play defence!

We've been resting our most creative player, HBA, for a while now and then we've decided to give DS amonth off. I think that's quite enough resting for us for now.

Let's face it we've got Santon because despite a very promising start to his career he's low on confidence. Playing full back requires you to have an defensive understanding both with your other defenders and your winger. With the internationals he clearly hasn't had enough time to acclimatise in AP's opinion. The defence has now conceded just one goal in four games so however poorly Raylor played last night something is working. It wasn't an unreasonable decision to start Raylor. Clearly AP could have changed players at HT but instead chose to narrow the gap between the defence and midfield which partially worked. I think AP played it safe with the long term in mind for Santon. I expect to see Santon start at Villa Park mind.

I agree that as an attacking force a full back pairing of Santon and Ferguson makes sense. It's never a formation that has worked well for us but I wonder about: Krul Saylor Colo Williamson (Pieters!) Santon Ferguson Tiote Cabaye HBA Marveaux (Jonas) Ba

Just think the 442 formation is looking very dated - especially the way we play it on tramlines. I think it has to be ONE of Ba / Best / Shola together with HBA. In the interim take your pick from Obertan / Marveaux or Sammi. Last season tramlines worked on the left (but never the right) due to the interplay between Jonas and Enrique. Hopefully Santon can fill that gap in time but if we are going to play two holding players in Tiote and Cabaye then the full backs need to get forward and one of the strikers has to come short to link play. My only explanation for the team last night is that QPR struggled against the size of Bolton and maybe AP thought two big strikers would work. Agree with all the posts that things should have been changed at HT but we were more compact in the second half and looked after Taarabt better.

I thought Ba showed some promise when he came on. Kept a clean sheet. Next.

Think he'll go: Krul Simpson Saylor Colo Raylor Marveaux Tiote Cabaye Jonas Obertan Best

I think he's doing a good job in difficult circumstances. I think the mindset needs to be we signed our £10m striker but he got injured in his first training session and will be out for four months. Get on with it. I don't mind what MA is trying to do to turn around the clubs finances and up to yesterday thought we'd had quite a good transfer window. But in the last week we could have shown a bit of latitude with the spending plans and bought Pieters and Cisse with the Andy Carroll windfall and all enjoyed the feel good factor, the fuller stands and the increased merchandising revenue.

Wouldn't surprise me if Fulham, and a lot of other clubs, are paying higher wages than NUFC. It feels like the higher the transfer fee we have to pay the less money for wages that are on offer. We'll probably have to wait until next Summer for some more out of contract players.

we'll be back at Xmas

yes

Berbatov and Ruiz up top against QPR obviously

the longer this goes on the more hopeful I get. Surely if he just decided to stick with Fulham the deal would be done?