Shak

Most people are perfectly capable of having a reasonable debate about it as far as I've seen like, no reason to put silly little disclaimers at the end of your posts. The Wolves game will be definitive for Ben Arfa's future, I think. If he doesn't start I reckon he's gone in the summer. I honestly don't have a clue how Pardew feels about him. On the surface his treatment of HBA has been pretty shabby, to say the least. However he did change the formation of the team to 4-5-1 to fit him in, and I do think Ben Arfa has worked harder and harder defensively with each passing game so if it's a motivational thing it may be working. Ben Arfa has also been very quiet in the press, which at least isn't bad news. I can't honestly say I have a good feeling about it though.

I don't think anyone is crowning him to be fair. There's still work to do and plenty for him to prove, I don't think anyone would argue otherwise.

And I thought your NFL related postings were bad.

He was a liability at right back for Argentina in the WC as far as I recall. They were a mess in general though. Physically he has the attributes to play there but I don't think it'd suit him at all tbh. Now probably isn't the time to try it out in any case.

There's no way I'll be able to not cheer for Cardiff on the day, seeing Liverpool blow it after all their guff this year would be fantastic.

http://media.steampowered.com/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/ff/fff42edcbf301998b19edb45b38e024be37bf7b6_full.jpg Pardew just needs to sack up and give Ben Arfa a shot on the wing in a 4-4-2 for this. I know we'll probably concede 15 goals due to his horrific inability to defend (despite the fact that we managed to keep a clean sheet away at Everton last year and in the second half at home to Blackburn in the cup, the only two times I recall HBA playing as part of a midfield 4) but he deserves a chance IMO.

Aye, it's miserable that they've charged him. Could the club not have stepped in? Create some sort of positive image for a change, just make it clear that the next person wouldn't be let off so easily.

Aye, love it when teams I don't like get tuberculosis, fucking result!

I do agree that calling them the best ever is a bit daft, there's pretty much nobody on the planet qualified to give an opinion on that. Best I've seen though, and no other teams since the turn of the century can realistically compare. The last three years they've won two Champions League titles and three domestic titles playing some wonderful technical football and scoring marvelous goal after marvelous goal. Madrid are the only other team to win the CL twice in three years since the turn of the century, and they were nowhere near as good in the league in that period as Barca have been.

I can't get as interested in them as I was when Bruce was there. Honestly think I hated that guy more than I've ever hated Sunderland themselves as a club. O'Neill has always come across as a decent bloke, and as a non Geordie I don't really have to deal with any real life Mackems so it's not the same for me. Hope they don't win the cup though, obviously. This place would turn nasty. As for O'Neill moving on, after his tenure at Villa it'll take more than 6 good months at Sunderland to earn him a shot at a place like Liverpool, Spurs or Arsenal. The only way he'll leave is if Harry doesn't take the England job after the Euros. Actually think O'Neill's style would be perfect for England. Always been a great motivator, his weaknesses as a manager are in the transfer market and his inability to rotate his squad over a season and keep people fresh. Neither of those are an issue at international level. Think he'd be good in the role.

http://www.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Xzibit-On-Planking.jpg

Paul Scholes is actually an extra terrestrial being from the planet Jinjah and is considered the single most dangerous lifeform in the universe. However, he is very sensitive about this and anyone who brings any attention to it is effectively sealing their own demise. In the course of his career he has crippled over 4,000 footballers on the field with awful tackles, however these are all repaired on the spot using space age technology and extra terrestrial doctors. 'Men in Black' style technology is then used to wipe clear the memories of all those who have witnessed the act and the game goes on as if nothing at all has happened. The Premier League and UEFA have paid a combined 14.6 billion pounds over the last twenty years covering up and rectifying his various misdeeds. This is the reason why when over the years you've watched Man U games and seen Scholes commit dangerous, terrible fouls only to have the referee take no action whatsoever and have the commentators chuckle and casually make jokes about how he "never did learn how to tackle, did he?"

I seem to remember Shak dismantling the anti Souness agenda not too long before Souness was sacked. In my defense, I was off my face on drugs pretty much all the time back then.

He sounds like a wrestling bad guy.

What does he say about Guardiola? Still reckon if he could have been an absolute animal at Barca if his attitude had been right.

FWIW I share those doubts, the Ben Arfa issue is a big one for me. If he can't find a way to at least try to accommodate a talent like that in his team then it'll be real cause for concern.

VI, any rumours on who Barca will go after in the summer? Looks like Madrid are going to win La Liga, would you expect Barca to try and make a splash?

Of course there'd be more people expressing similar concerns if we were 10th. But we're not, we're significantly better off. Yes, we've been lucky at times this year and have probably overachieved a little, but you can't tell me we don't deserve to be in the top seven. Most people would consider that a massive success, look at the first few pages of the 'Battle for 7th' thread. Yes we have some good players at our disposal but so do most teams in the Premiership, before we signed Cisse we had exactly one striker who was Premiership standard, namely Ba. To say we're 6th due to the quality of our players alone is silly, we have some quality yes but we've also been starting rubbish/not good enough players like Williamson, Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Obertan, Shola and Best a lot this year, and our squad depth is desperate. The football is nowhere near as long ball orientated as we were under Allardyce btw, and it doesn't even compare to how disorganized we were under Souness. I agree that he needs to change some things, the Ben Arfa issue is very worrying for example. But to give him no credit for what we've done this year, which seems to be your viewpoint, is absurd. We were very up and down under Hughton. Some good performances yes but we also had some clueless performances. Remember Blackpool and Stoke at home? Awful stuff, the latter in particular was a game we lost due to Hughton being completely tactically naive and handing the game to our opponents. There was some nice bits of football thrown in there too, sure, but no more so than we do now IMO, you make it sound like we're completely route one under Pardew which is nonsense. We won at Arsenal due to the most route one goal of all time, great defending and our goalposts btw. Anyway, all this aside what would you propose doing? Send Pardew on his way and find someone else? Then if after a year we aren't getting good results and playing quality football we send that guy packing too? No manager would go near us. After the last few years under Ashley I doubt we're an attractive proposition as it is. Firing a manager who has massively overachieved because his football isn't pretty enough would be about the worst thing we could do right now.

I don't know why it would be better if a handsome man had done this, but somehow it would be.

Replacing Pardew. If we're still playing football like this in a couple of years then yes, by all means. But give the man a chance to build his own squad and then see what style of football we're playing. The midfield and attack of our strongest eleven when he took over was probably Barton Nolan Tiote Jonas Carroll Shola Can you honestly see that lot playing any sort of slick pass and move football? We were built to be a long ball team when he took over, you can't change that overnight, especially not if you want to have the kind of results we've managed this season. Let's give him some real time before we decide exactly what 'Alan Pardew Football' is, eh?

Ben Arfa can't get a game for us FFS. That France team is nowt to fear in any case.

I'm guessing Stu is somehow behind all of this.

I guess the theory is that it reflects badly on the FA if a player does things like this?

There's only one Zlatan!

Don't listen to them MW, go along and enjoy the game.