captainhaircut

I like this 11 but not quite that system! Ben Arfa, Ba and Cisse as a three with Perch and Tiote holding and Cabaye playing further forward. Santon and Jonas bombing forward from full back with the added protection of Perch and Tiote.

Just for a laugh. Shola dominated it obviously. I assume Jonas and Colo just sat there doing fuck all.

What do you all think the negative implications of abusing Simpson are? He's an ego maniac who thinks he's international class. He's too busy developing apps and being a muppet on twitter to work on his game. I'd be delighted if the abuse took him down a peg or two. What should those fans do? Massage his ego some more and tell him he should be playing for England? Some of them did it earlier in the season. It didn't work. He was still shit.

Yeah, fans will always abuse players. That's the way it is. Professionals should never criticise other players in a public forum. Maybe he'll think twice now before he opens his rent a quote mouth. On another note, I'm not a fan of criticising players. However, we would never have finished 4th if the fans hadn't started to abuse Barton after the Troyes game.

Simpson deserves the abuse for no other reason than he him abusing fellow professionals via the same medium earlier in the season. What goes around comes around and his ego obviously couldn't cope with nothing more than he dished out himself.

No chance. Ben Arfa is our best RB and LB.

Any rangers players given frees won't able to play for another club this season anyway will they? Only players who are unregistered when the window closes can move. The window is in place for player registrations transfers not contract transfers IIRC.

One of the things that was really promising against Villa was that Ba was dropping off while Cisse played on the last man. Ba didn't seem to drop off at all today which was a bit disappointing. If teams go 5 against us in midfield, then Ba needs to come off to link.

He didn't train all week either to be fair.

No one passed the ball to him. Is the right answer. There was a number of times when people didn't pass to him despite him being the best option. Ben Arfa will pretty much only pass it to him as a last resort.

Sensational. After Bolton and Blackburn, hopefully this is the game where he gets himself in the team for a good run of games.

Unreal to leave Simpson on- even more so because he's booked.

Protected as fuck by the local media because he's a gray rent a quote. Douglas in the Journal this morning having a go at Santon but saying nothing on Simpson.

Didn't you say all of this before the Man U game?

Sounds like a Guthrie replacement to me.

It's not possible to play good football with Simpson and Williamson at the back. They're both scared of the ball and just punt it away. Teams are playing 5 in midfield against us and leaving us slightly free at the back. Decent players would take advantage of that, those 2 do not.

Is the correct answer. And we'd get the bonus of Santon on the right side.

I pray for him to be injured every day. I know that's terrible but he's so bad.

Fucking hell this guy is wasted at left back. Imagine if he was at right back in place of Mr. Talentless Danny Simpson.

Danny Dimpson is genius. Wish that would catch on.

I hate all of the Ryan Taylor hatred in this thread. Jonas has been woeful for months. Hatem should be on for him on the left with Taylor on the right for me.

Hopefully it'll be vandalised in no time.

Revisionist history at it's greatest. Our first few seasons under Bobby included plenty of shit performances, ridiculous decisions and poor signings. I remember seeing Bassedas, Jenas and Brian Kerr play wide, people begging for Lua Lua to be picked and Bernard being stuck behind Elliott for an age to name a few. Pardew is doing considerably better than Bobby did in his first full season and he lost four of his best performers in Barton, Enrique, Nolan and Carroll. Bobby didn't have to deal with that at all. The equivalent would have been similar to him losing Shearer, Solano and Speed and having to replace him. I'm not saying that Pardew is a better manager but you can hardly compare Bobby's team that took 3/4 years to build to Pardew's team of a year.

Agree with 99% of that (could never use the word excellent, even hypothetically!). Squad player at best. He didn't look good earlier in the season. He was utter shit and everyone made excuses for him by saying it was because his kid was ill. As upsetting as that will have been, his recent form shows that had no bearing at all.

There's no way he's to blame for the first. It's not his job to mark the opposition left back. The second is a joint fault between him and Williamson. Williamson picked up a poor position, Simpson showed no energy to properly track Saha. In general, he's just a terrible player. A couple of clearances of the line aside, he's not a strong defender. Positionally, 1-on-1, decision making and taking responsibility are all weaknesses. Santon has similar weaknesses but he isn't scared of the ball, is 21, has just moved to a new country, is recently converted to full back and despite what anyone says is playing on the wrong side. One of the issues must be that the rest of the players know Simpson is useless. Villa's goal last week being a prime example. Colo charged out to N'Zogbia because he knew Simpson wouldn't deal with him.