TRon

Seeing Smith and Guthrie in midfield again actually makes me feel ill. Not that we have many other options. Think Best should start though, get another couple of goals to get a run going. I think Smith is injured but I'm sure Guthrie is more than capable of making anyone feel ill by himself.

That was nice and crafty. I think it's easy to gloss over the goals as well but in truth they were pretty tidy finishes. The first one especially where he took the ball from a high bounce and slotted it in first time.

I really liked the way he directed his headers at Lovenkrands. Shola's headers can go anywhere, and even Carroll who wins everything doesn't have the best control. While I'd need to see Best against better centre halves he showed a lot of intelligence and nous and Lovenkrands was "loven" it. Thought they worked really well together.

Like Venkman said in another thread, he sits too deep when he plays centrally, but it is his natural position. I wonder how he would do if he played there now alongside Cheick? Might be pretty tasty, although we obviously need him on the right at the moment.

Pardew would have been hung from the Gallowgate if we'd had bad results so he has to take some credit for the wins. He hasn't done a lot wrong tbh, but he's been well served by a bunch of players with the best team spirit I've seen in a long time. How much of that is down to Hughton or even the likes of Nolan and Smith I don't know, but the difference to the over-paid big heads who took us down is chalk and cheese. This is a team I can feel proud of. Very proud.

If they haven't scored by now they never will.

The way he was skipping down the stairs I reckon he'll be reet. Got a week and a half until he's needed again anyway. Hopefully it was just tight and hasn't actually gone.

Harper's just probably ensured we do.

Bah! That's just took the shine off today.

The high pressure game at home is down to Pardew's direction. Fair play that's what management is all about.

Fuck off Keane you 31 yr old bastard. We've got Best.

Get the "Simply the Best" anthem rolling lads!

Another Loven/Best combo special!

Fuckin get in!!!

Wasn't that a volley against Plymouth (a)? I'm sure he headed one against the bar as well, but it wouldn't be the first time I'm wrong so I wouldn't put money on it.

Shola won a surprising amount of headers in the air on Sunday. I'd be surprised if Best does the same as he's not exactly huge.

If he gets a chance at his feet he'll fluff it. If he scores it's going to be a stonking header IMO. I'm sure he powered a header against the bar in one of his previous matches so it won't just be any old header it will be a humdinger.

You'd have to be batshit insane to believe such a daft rumour more like.

It's not his fault he's a clown?

Shola has a lot of failings, but a lack of heart isn't one of them. Lack of fitness is definitely one of them.

It would be funny if Birmingham still went down.

His career here is pretty much riding on it.

It's probably closing because not enough people buy stuff there.

The majority of our better performances this season have come with Nolan in that role. Well maybe, but that doesn't mean it's the reason, or it's working. It does like. Nolan was totally absent from the Wigan game, for example, even though we played well as a team. It's a bit of a pointless discussion as we don't have anyone else decent for that position, but I don't think our good performances have much to do with Nolan - except maybe for his motivating influence. As has been said, we have nobody better in his position, it frees up Barton to play wide-right, he's scored as many goals from the center of midfield as any other player in the country, and other players seem to improve just for him being in the side. He might not boss the center of the pitch, but at the same time we've never been overran with him and Tiote in there. The advantages of Nolan far outweigh the negatives. This is true to some extent. Nolan doesn't have the engine to boss the midfield, you only have to look at how Tiote is everywhere to see the difference having a midfielder with legs makes. But what Nolan does bring to the table is good awareness, defensive responsibility, ability to get goals from set pieces and leadership. Ideally you'd want all that in a player who was an athlete but the alternatives are Smith and Guthrie at the moment and neither is up to it.