Shak

Guthrie and Lovenkrands in for Nolan and Smith, hopefully. Think we'll do well to get a point though.

This. Midfielder. Badly Striker is a massively bigger need. We've got one striker that offers any real threat whatsoever in our whole squad, we need someone else.

With the current squad we'd go down, no doubt IMO. Sign Ben Arfa and we'll have a fighting chance of staying up, though we'll still be up against it. Ben Arfa and a quality striker and we'd stay up comfortably, I reckon.

Frustrating to see him go to Cardiff when he's exactly the kind of player we need and he could more or less be had for nothing. Hope we've got other irons in the fire.

What is a real pisser is that I don't think we're all that far away from being a pretty decent side, we just desperately lack any sort of quality up front. Carroll is the only striker we have that you can make any real case for as a genuine Premiership quality player. Shola has had plenty of chances, it's obvious at this point he'll never be a consistent player in this or probably any league. He's a passable back-up to Carroll, not much more. Lovenkrands is easy to like and he's handy to have in the squad because he'll give you a bit of movement up top, but he hasn't got much in the way of quality. Best I don't think is good enough, Xisco does have ability but I'll be utterly shocked if he ever achieves anything for us. Ranger isn't ready. One striker, and even then Carroll is hardly proven at this level. Have a feeling he'll do alright though, gave Man United a few problems today even though he was essentially playing up front on his own. Having such poor players up front doesn't just make it hard to score goals, it makes everything else much tougher as well. Man U played the entire game in our half of the field, there was just no threat of anything from us on a counter attack whatsoever so why wouldn't they? Even when we did get the ball back we didn't have much chance of keeping the thing, there was just nowhere for us to play. Their first goal was terrible from Jonas, but we'd been pinned so far back by Man U that when Jonas gets the ball not far outside his own box he's actually our furthest player forward. There's nowhere to go, and you lose the ball. Keep giving Man United the ball in the final third and they'll score eventually. The rest of the side is actually not that bad at all. Harper's alright in goal, does more or less everything in a slightly above average fashion. Enrique is a good young full-back who should keep getting better. Perch looked very nervous out there but I think there's hope for him. Between him Simpson and Taylor we should find someone who can at least be passable back there. Colo and Williamson looked alright tonight, and we've Campbell and Taylor to hopefully come back to add competition. We've an OK gang of CM's. Barton was poor tonight but if he stays clear of injury and himself he'll do OK this year. I like Guthrie, hope he's back for the Villa game, given a run of games together I think he and Barton would do well. Smith is alright for depth, hopefully Gosling can show something and push him down to pecking order though. Ideally we want more quality in CM long term, but it's not our biggest concern right now. We also seem well organised and the players do play for each other, but there's just no quality in the final third. Jonas and Routledge are useful players, but neither will strike fear into teams. Routledge is a bit flakey, while Jonas has more or less no end product at all. Hopefully we sign Ben Arfa, sounds like he'd a big addition. He could fill in on either wing as well as potentially playing just off the striker, in the role that Nolan parodied tonight. Really think we need another striker on top of that though, someone with a bit of pace and mobility who can threaten teams over the top. It'd be really fucking frustrating to see a player like Bellamy go on loan somewhere else when he'd do wonders for our team. We don't get players like that and we could very easily go back down again though. It's no real harm losing to Man United, but if we send that same group of players back out there against Villa next week and I'd be pretty sure we'll lose again, to be honest. I just don't see where our threat is going to come from with the current squad, we need quality recruits or it's going to be a very long, horrible season.

He's meant to be in a free role, in space when we have the ball and assisting the midfield when we don't. Apart from the first few minutes when he did some closing down he's done neither. Hiding. Aye, said before I reckon he'll become a real problem for the team. Offers nothing whatsoever.

To be expected really. You just can't go to teams like Man U and play a pairing of Carroll and Nolan up top and expect anything other than to lose. Man U are playing so high up the pitch because we have absolutely no threat of anything over the top, they're camped in our half and we've not looked like putting five passes together as a result, there's simply no space to play in. It was a matter of when they'd score, and now it's a matter of how many. We need mobility up front soon or this will happen a lot this season. Hopefully the heads don't drop second half, we've given good effort we're just impossibly up against it unfortunately.

Not me, I love a good villain. Bring back evil Yorkie, I say.

More textbook use of the word literally from Redknapp there ten minutes ago. Today's footballs "literally explode off your foot" apparently.

Ah the days when everyone hated Yorkie, what times they were.

Shite game, wish it had gone on longer.

Just ever so slightly OTT there like. He has been s**** to be fair, looked completely off the pace and never got into the game 1st half even when Arsenal were bossing it. Not true, he's had a few decent runs and turned Mascherano inside out nicely. He's still quite young, obviously. Can remember one nice run alright to be fair, but he's been caught in possession a lot and looked a bit lost out there. Gave the ball away for Liverpool's goal and all. As has been said he's still very young and I'm sure he'll be class eventually, but he was definitely rubbish today.

Just ever so slightly OTT there like. He has been shite to be fair, looked completely off the pace and never got into the game 1st half even when Arsenal were bossing it.

Fixed your post, fwap fwap fwap. FYp No you didn't.

Guthrie in the open spot, for me. Where do our captain and vice captain fit in all of that? The bench. Nolan would be a handy enough player to be able to throw on late in games.

As the two "holding" midfielders on a 4-2-3-1? We'd get slaughtered as there is a distinct lack of physical strength there IYAM. It's not perfect admittedly, ideally I'd want a more imposing type in there to replace either Guthrie or Barton long term. But that said I don't think Guthrie and Barton are any pushover in CM either, and as a duo I'd be confident enough they could do a decent job in protecting the back 4.

Guthrie in the open spot, for me.

4-4-1-1 and 4-2-3-1 are more or less the same thing really.

What system do you think our current squad are more suited to? EDIT: Assuming we sign Ben Arfa, that is.

I'd be highly encouraged if Hughton does want Ben Arfa to play in the hole in a 4-2-3-1 system, definitely. Would show that he's not just going to try and play 4-4-2, long ball football with two big guys up front and try and grind out results. Really hope he'll give Barton and Guthrie an extended run together in CM as well, no doubt they're the best duo we have in terms of trying to play through the middle a bit.

What was that exactly? He said something about playing him in a free role or something did he? I started reading the Ben Arfa interview but my eyes began to vomit.

Hopefully we'll get him to sign an extension. Not developed into the player I thought he might by this point, but he's still a decent Premiership player and is still only 24 years old so can still get a lot better.

Andy, I have a question. Do you like the show Arrested Development?

Our depth on the wings is a bit of a question mark if we're going with that system though. Jonas and Routledge is solid enough as a starting pair, but what have we got after that? Lovenkrands is usually awful when he plays on the wing. Would be nice to see Kazenga Lua Lua take a step up this year and look like someone who could be of some use to the first team, his pace alone could make him a useful option from the bench. A lot riding on us getting that lunatic Ben Arfa signed IMO.

He's an easy guy to root for, would be nice to see him make a good job of it after some of the tossers we've had in charge in recent years (has any other club ever had three bigger arseholes than Kinnear, Souness and Fat Sam manage them in the space of a few years?). I'm still unconvinced he's got what it takes, but he's earned a fair crack at it with what he did last year. I'm quite interested to see what sort of formation he's planning to use, the fact that we don't appear to be looking at any strikers at all combined with the fact that Ben Arfa seems to reckon Hughton wants to play him in a free role has me thinking he wants to go with a 4-2-3-1 like Germany and Holland used at the World Cup.