Shak

Hopefully he can build on this, nice to see us give someone a proper thumping.

This is what happens when we actually start with a positive line-up.

Just offside. Shak will love that. Logged on to see it was 2-0 and was sure he would have scored em both.

Reckon we'll win 3-1. Just go out and take it to them, we'll score more than we concede.

Bit Norwichy for my liking.

"Good football" is a bullshit term. I want "effective football". Do you think Stoke play that brand of "bad football" that you think will fail in the premiership? I can confirm to you that they don't, FFS they even use throw ins to lump it long! I'm not saying i want us to use this style of football, i'm saying that it can work and it's nonsense to think it can't. We don't play effective football though, not when we have the ball anyway. We've conceded 16 goals in 27 games, that's why we're top. In attack we are pretty much directionless, and get by mostly on capitalising on mistakes from our opponents, the type of mistakes that aren't going to be as easy to come by in the Premiership. Stoke at least have a good collection of players for the style of football they want to play (a bunch of big fuckers + a guy who can throw the ball miles). We have a bunch of tall strikers who, barring Carroll, are pretty much shite in the air. And yes, eventually that brand of crap football will be found out and I expect Stoke to be gone from the Premiership in a few years.

What it boils down to is basically that this kind of approach will get us killed next year if we do go up. We're top of the league because our defense is too good for this league, the opposition at this level simply doesn't possess enough quality to take advantage of the few chances they get per game. Anyone really think that the same defense is going to be so watertight against Premiership opposition next year if we do go up? You simply can't just hoof long balls at your strikers all day long in the Premiership and expect to get any sort of consistent success. Teams will find a way to score if you insist on giving the ball back to them immediately with hopeful long balls all day long. People have a problem with Hughton because he doesn't even try and get our lads playing anything resembling good football. If he won't do it in this league, against inferior opposition, what chance he'll manage it against better opponents in the Premiership?

It'll only hurt more when they beat you again. Glutton for punishment, Shak. All the top seeds would beat us, of the ones there France are among the weaker sides, IMO. At least with France we get a game with a guaranteed bit of buzz about it and the lads can go in and break some legs and such.

Are you in the squad at the moment or hoping to play your way in? My real name is Stephen Kelly, to be fair.

Hope Ireland get France. Can't wait until they expand the tournament to 24 teams, be nice to go to one of these things while I'm still at a good age for it.

He's Irish, yeah? No, but he does have a number of caps for them nonetheless.

Thought Best did pretty well for a guy who'd obviously never been involved in a game of football before. Ah yes now I remember this guy. Seriously, fans are going to hate this guy. He's probably quicker than Ameobi and Carroll, but being fast is no use if you don't have a clue how to use that speed. What we desperately need is a guy who is quick, but who also is comfortable on the ball and has some sort of intelligence to his play.

I can only assume that although we have plenty of big target men, Hughton doesn't actually rate them that highly at doing that job. Ameobi and Carroll are big, but neither of them really hold the ball up well. Probably the best in this regard is Ranger, but he's not fantastic in the air and is still very inexperienced. But yeah, I wish we had got in a Moses or Beckford rather than go the target man route. If we get promotion though, there's nothing to stop us from having another go for Beckford. More likely he'd rather stick two targetmen up front and launch balls at them all day, IMO.

Ah well, another body in I guess. He'll fit in well with our long ball style as well, which is a plus. Most frustrating part of this signing, for me. We have plenty of big, target men types in the squad, no need whatsoever for another one. Lovenkrands isn't actually that good, but he's absolutely crucial to us if we're going to even attempt to play anything other than route 1, bullshit, Sam Allardyce football. We're crying out for someone who can play off the CF, a player who can pick up the ball in front of the defense and go at the defenders, someone who'll give them something different to worry about with their pace. Moses would have been great, but he's not the only player in the country who could have filled that need. Instead we go out and get this guy. It's depressing.

Seriously man, I can only assume this guy has fortuitously wandered onto the end of 5 or 6 unmissable chances this season, hence his decent record this year. A three and a half year contract seems insane, because he'll basically be a waste of a squad number if we do go up barring some sort of miracle.

Maybe the guy who comes on for Ireland and stands there trying to get used to the offside rule for 60 minutes before being mercifully taken off is an imposter?

He's absolutely shite. Just a terrible, terrible signing if this is true. I'd easily rate every one of our current strikers above him.

I'm not sure it's fitness with Guthrie, he doesn't seem to run out of steam from what I've seen. He's just a very poor natural athlete, no burst to him whatsoever. Which makes it all the more ridiculous having him on the wing.

Four games, mid-Feb. Indeed.

Sure that's miles away.

When's he actually supposed to be back, like?

Needs to be some exclamation marks in the thread title tbh.

Arshavin channeling the spirit of Andy Carroll today.

OG from the keeper that tbh.

Wahey.