TRon

I think he'd do his groin tbh.

Always looking for the negative. Perhaps it said something about how Fergie saw his tenacity and leadership qualities, these being very good attributes for that area of the pitch. That's not looking for the negative, it's just saying it as it is. You yourself have said that he isn't a midfielder despite having those qualities. He's at his best up front but forwards of his type do need to contribute some goals. Around 10 would do, but if he was scoring double figures in a season I doubt Fergie would have wanted to part with him.

Milner reminds me of Neil Mcdonald, another hard-working, right-sided midfielder who floated the ball high towards the penalty area. Milner is the perennial under-achiever. Always hitting the bar or just missing important chances. With such a good right foot he should be scoing a lot more from both open play and dead balls really.

Keane scored a few goals playing as a defensive midfielder. if I was asked how many goals Keane would score in a season I'd probably go for at least 6. All match-winners more than likely.

He's a decent footballer but the fact Fergie eventually saw him as a defensive midfielder says quite a lot about Smith's lack of goal-scoring instinct.

Well we could always play 4-4-2 successfully if we had Man U's players i'd boldly wager...

2 or maybe 1...or 3. or 0.

I think Allardyce had an ideal player for this formation in Anelka. You are right. Except he plays for Bolton. Another ideal player for this formation would be Drogba. But then he plays for Chelsea.

Along with plenty others, I've said exactly the same thing. I am pretty sure we have dropped a lot of points against poor teams by trying to play certain formations instead of just twanking them with far superior players.

Pigs are often portrayed as stupid, greedy fat animals with no standards, which I feel is unfair. There is good scientific evidence which proves pigs are cleverer than many other animals. My view is that Shepherd, like the pig, isn't as stupid as many other animals so perhaps he doesn't deserve all the flak he gets.

If Smith, Viduka and Owen were the front three, the defenders would have time for a cuppa and a quick snooze and still catch up with the play before any real damage was done.

You are right, 4-3-3 is really 4-5-1 the way Big Sam plays it. I don't have a problem with it if it's effective and it the personnel is suited to it. Mourinho did it pretty well.

too right...to be the only team to lose to Derby is bad enough. To repeat the catastrophe would test the patience of the Gods tbh.

No we didn't play well, but at least we defended relatively competently even if it was against Fulham. It might not be anything to shout about but we've dfended badly against plenty of similarly shit teams this season so I wouldn't take it as a given. And an away win is an away win so personally I'll save any carping till the next Deby/Reading/Sunderland type fiasco and be thankful for small mercies with this one.

Thank God he's off the coaching staff.

If we go at them with any sort of serious intent we should win comfortably like everyone else does. That means hitting them hard and fast for 90 minutes not worrying ourselves shitless at what they might do.

Show me just a couple of these many people please, I'd like to laugh at what else they say. I've seen it said on this(and other)fans' Websites several times over the past few years... Many times obviously as you said. You won't have any trouble finding a few examples then will you. Seriously, everyone on this forum would rather win an ugly 1 - 0 game and take three points. The media would like to portray us all as simple folk who love their football and don't mind winning or losing, load of bollocks - I'll take the win every time. I can accept a defeat if the team has given 100% on the field though. I think this is one of the few games this season where the term "winning ugly" actually applies. We played dire from an attack point of view but we defended well enough against admittedly poor opposition. But I'll take an away win built on a solid defence any day of the week.

to be fair, this season Arsenal have played a lot of route 1 football. Comfortably more than say Man u There's a difference between crossing a ball accurately towards a big centre forward with plenty of attack in support and hoofing it long towards a single CF from the back.

Owen and Viduka are far more intelligent footballers than Martins, but Owen is usually injured and Viduka has been unfit. They are both pretty slow these days as well, and if they are going to play instead of Martins, we'd have to play a different type of football away from home as there would be no chance of hitting teams on the break if we sat back.

Or if Jenas hadn't missed an open goal at Boro about two minutes before they equalised. Or if the officials had been halfway competent and seen that equaliser was scored with a hand. Or if Shay hadn't made a totally uncharacteristic error to let Norwich back into the game at SJP. Or if we'd put away one of the shedful of chances we had against Spurs. That's without mentioning the Dyer shit. We had an incredible amount of bad luck in those four games, which was what made it even more sickening when the fat mong started mashing the panic button. Maybe Shearer didn't like the idea he might get dropped and let Fat Fred know in no uncertain terms? Big Al was certainly good mates with Souness who subsequently came in, and Bellamy was soon on his way out.

The word was generally put about that Robson was going a bit senile, which may have been true, but he still had the balls to be prepared to drop Shearer and use Bellamy and Kluivert when needed. I don't think this went down too well with Big Al who seemed to have Shepherd mesmerised with his 'Geordie legend' status. Robson did have a problem controlling his younger players like Dyer and Bellamy - but then he also got the best out of them as opposed to Souness's cack handed attempts at being a disciplinarian. Robson should have been given the rest of the season and then replaced. I would have liked to see how he'd have handled Shearer and Kluivert vying for the main CF role.

That's it in a nutshell really. I would be the first to say Martins is not as good a striker as Anelka who would be the ideal prototype for Allardyce's 4-3-3 formation. Landing strikers of that calibre is not easy at all though, so I get fed up of listening to people whingeing about Martins being a headless chicken, or having a gash first touch etc. We are actually quite fortunate to have a striker with: a) pace b) good skill c) decent aeriel threat d) good shooting ability e) ability to play wide f) a good fitness record g) goals! it could be a lot worse.

Shame we only have Owen to make do with then eh. Banking on Owen being fit for this month and next might be tempting fate a wee bit...

So he misses a few. Would we rather he went hiding?

Chrissy Waddle was fast, as Pie has said. He was also far better in front of goal. Milner is sort of like a poor man's Waddle, but in his defence, he does work far harder than Waddle did. he did well yesterday as part of a team, and it is a team game after all.