Cronky

I think the last all-time XI thread morphed into a Robert debate. Our most controversial player.

Villas-Boas has been sounding very rattled and defensive of late. He needs to grow a thicker skin if he's going to survive.

Hardly a revelation, that. No, but an important point. When it comes to the latter stages of an international tournament, a midfield anchorman who can't pass is as much use as a chocolate kettle. Barry lacks pace but IMO he offers the better package.

I'm a bit worried about the Parker bandwagon. At a certain point, a player like that can hold a team back. Barry is being written off too quickly.

There's nothing wrong with his attitude or his reading of the game, but he isn't particularly strong or quick and always looks like a target for the opposition. It's not a matter of just blaming him for the City result, there's a bigger picture.

The original selection falls into the two main traps with this activity - picking players you haven't seen and picking players way out of position. To be extra-pernickity, full backs in the McCracken era were doing the same job as modern day centre backs. And just to show off a bit, I think I'm right in saying that Jackie Milburn began his career as a winger, so if you really wanted to play him, Shearer and Beardsley, you could stick him on the wing. Anyway, my XI - Given Nattrass Woodgate Moncur Kennedy Lee Green Gascoigne Beardsley Bellamy Shearer

Now isn't the time to drop Raylor, but he's looked vulnerable defensively all season. I think the quality of his recent performances has been exaggerated somewhat. Take away his set-pieces and he'd be the new Alan Smith in everyone's eyes.

Plenty of talent when it comes to getting past an opponent, but it looks like he's failed to develop an all-round game. Disappointing, because I thought he was a really good prospect.

Excuse me. I was there. Tony Green's finest hour. Hopefully Hatem will produce a similar performance next week.

I'd keep the same side. The sooner we can get Santon involved the better, but changing a settled back four when you're coming to the second toughest game in the season probably isn't wise. We'd lose more than we'd gain. I'd agree with those who say Shola is the best we have in a holding role up front, but he's unlikely to be fully fit for next week. I'd definitely keep Ben Arfa in that No 10 role, rather than play with two out and out strikers. In a game where we're likely to struggle, a player who can produce something out of nothing can be crucial.

They're a real beast of a side, so strong physically. At times, it was like a giant swatting off flies. They seem to be able to win most games in second gear.

can I know what sammy created yesterday? He was a fret froughout.

Yeah, tbh that's a very good price for a DM. I'd feel more reassured if we had Guthrie on a long-term contract first though.

Watch the highlights. Ben Arfa falls over him because richards collapses in a heap. The myth that english players don't dive is well and truly gone nowadays Just had another look. Richards went over after Ben Arfa shoved him in the back with his arm. With the way Richards is built, he could probably have stayed on his feet, but why bother when you've got a stonewall penalty. Ben Arfa was almost directly behind him, with no chance of getting the ball cleanly. It was very naive.

I'm a bit worried about his lack of pace. I hope it's not anything to do with his injury, because he seems to have bulked up quite a bit.

Scuffed his shot. Dumbass challenge for the penalty.

Man City are so strong. It'd be no surprise if they went through the season unbeaten. Ben Arfa seemed to grow in confidence during the game and his was a promising performance.

Shola on after 60 minutes. I think he'll hold the ball up a bit better than Ba, and may get us one or two free kicks. Looking grim though.

The pen was fair enough. Whilst I don't think he moved his arm towards the ball, if you try to block a shot with your arms that far away from your body, most refs will give it. The second goal just exposed Raylor's limitations as a defender. He wasn't able to adjust his body and footwork quickly enough. On the plus side, Ben Arfa has had his good moments, and Sammy looks like a first team player, no question.

Our best chance looks like Sammy getting round the back of them. Otherwise, we'll have to wait for a set piece.

Did it never occur to Suarez that Evra might interpret the term 'negrito' as an insult? Surely anyone with half a brain would realise the dangers, whatever that term might supposedly mean in Uruguay. It's very hard to protest complete innocence on this one.

The gist of that IMR article seems to be that it'll be okay when Chelsea do it, but not okay when we do it. Well okay, but we're entering into new ground here, and no-one quite knows what the results will be. Just to make two points - I'm not sure why he's saying that the proposed limited period of Sports Direct naming won't work because naming rights are long-term. If I understand it right, the club only saying that they hope to demonstrate how a stadium sponsor's name will achieve a lot of prominence on TV screens and other media outlets all over the world. That can be done within the space of a season. They're not trying to demonstrate how profitable it will be for that company in terms of sales, which would be the long-term consideration. I did a double take at the final paragraph about Chelsea demonstrating commercial competence and vibrancy through the building of the East Stand and the partnership with the CABRA hotel and leisure complex. That's an absolute joke. That deal was a disaster for Chelsea and they were teetering on the verge of bankruptcy through a series of bitter legal disputes with CABRA for many years. Chelsea were on the point of going bust when Abramovich took over. I'm not sure if the author has really done his homework.

When do you think we should have expanded the stadium Cronky? Considering the fact, the ground didn't start getting regularly sold out until '96. I guess the building work should have started in '97 instead of a few years later? I don't remember it at the time, but maybe the club was slow off the mark because wise sages like yourself would have been telling them what a bad idea it was to get the club into a completely unsustainable level of debt (£66m in 2001. I can just see a younger Bobyule warning of inevitably "doing a Charlton/Boro" ). Thank goodness Mike Ashley generously after 4 years of ownership put undersoil heating at the training facilities built under the old board, perhaps in another 4 years if we sell off a few more players we can afford to renovate the showers at the academy facilities built under the old board too. What a generous and forward thinking owner he is, without him developing a youth system at the club we'd never have been able to recruit and bring through the likes of Ameobi, Taylor, Carroll, Krul, and numerous others who filled squad places but didn't quite make it at the top level. If you'd look at my quote again, you'll see that I was talking about the slow development of the club from the sixties onwards. In fact one could go even further back, because the ground had barely changed at all between 1905 and 1970. Various attempts at modernisation had floundered because the club could not come to any agreement with the local council and Freemen of the City, who were the landlords. In fact, the club was earmarked as one of the grounds for the 1966 World Cup but then suffered the ignominy of having the invitation withdrawn and given instead to Ayresome Park, because the club could not institute the necessary ground improvements. Even after 1970, progress was very slow due to disputes with the council, and the financial problems that two relegations brought. You mysteriously omitted the sentence immediately following that quote, in which I acknowledged Sir John Hall as a dynamic figure who had initiated the process of bringing the club up to its potential, although we had not 'quite caught up in every aspect'.

Except that football is all about history, tradition, tribalism and emotion. Without that it's just a game, and IMO very much less worth following. It's not 'all' about that though, is it? You're making it sound like a ritual. It's also a competitive sport, and involves winning and losing. Winning is what this club has found difficult for a long time.

Thanks to all for their comments. The 'age' issue was possibly a dodgy generalisation, and I was a bit nervous about how it would be received. Over the years, you do see lots of things that are regarded as outrageous at one time and then completely accepted at another. That applies to things other than football, but within our game, there was a time when paying players at all was seen as cheating and contrary to the spirit of the game, and money used to get secretly stuck into people's socks. So I don't think this is a 'step too far', though on an emotional issue such as a name, I accept that there's going to be differences of opinion. I get a bit narked about outsiders like Jeff Stelling getting into a public lather about this though. He accepts his salary from Sky Sports - who are more responsible than any organisation for the commercialisation of the modern Premiership. He then talks quite happily about the Barclays Premier League and the Emirates Stadium, but he's outraged at the idea of renaming St James's Park and poses as a man of great principle on that issue. Sorry, no. I can accept HTT's point that supporters in the North East may well be more affected by this. Ashley is often accused of not understanding local feelings and running roughshod over the emotions of supporters. He is, in fact, the first outsider to run the club and though more than once he's tried to get a divorce, it looks like we're lumbered with him and vice versa. However, having an outsider at the reins may just be what the club needs, however painful it seems at times. Over the years, I've felt that the devotion of the fans - which I do think is second to none in this country - has sometimes been a double-edged sword. That's brought a lot of pressure on players, managers and owners and so many have buckled under it. Players have frozen on the big occasion, managers have lost confidence and chairmen have made silly decisions to secure a short term fix rather than build for success in the long-term. One thing you can say about Ashley is he's not afraid of being unpopular, and he's prepared to take a considered risk. To give one example, the decision to replace Hughton with Pardew at a time when the team was doing well and nearly everyone was wanting Chris to get a new contract was very bold and unorthodox. Ashley really put his gonads on the line there. In that kind of situation, it's probably an advantage to be an outsider, a bit detached from the local pressures. The challenge is to harnass that enormous energy that's behind the club, but not be overwhelmed or dictated by it. On other parts of the picture, we're 3rd in the league, the reserve and the youth teams have never been in a better state, we've got state of the art training and medical facilities and virtually no debt other than that carried by the owner. We're looking an increasingly attractive proposition for foreign players and perhaps foreign investment through sponsorship. So if that momentum carries on, I'm not going to get too worked up about how much of the £35m we've spent so far, or whatever the official name of the stadium turns out to be.