Sifu

Only just seen that Howard Webb is refereeing this. Déjà vu.

It was his best game for us. That's the Obertan I would like to see more of. A decent theory and one which actually makes sense imo. Obertan does like cutting inside and doing his stepovers and all that - he can put that to of more good use on the left rather than the right.

Quite optimistic about this one. Going to go for a 2-0 win to us. Perch and Williamson will be the force that destroyed/nulled Liverpool in March and Ba and Cabaye will score class goals.

Touché.

Michael Chopra's been charged with race-fixing. The lad really needs help.

It was a shame that he left like but if you think about it, there was no way he was going to sit on the bench here so a transfer was probably the right move for him. Good luck with the England gloves Fraser.

Really enjoyed that. Bordeaux were shocking, they were an absolute shadow to the side that won the league 4 years ago - oh how the mighty have fallen (which I guess was expected with Blanc's departure and with key players leaving one by one). Shola absolutely bossed it - was my MOTM tbh with Obertan a close second - how often does that happen like?! It's certainly the best we've played this season and I hope we continue to see the system we implemented tonight in future games (though I suspect we might change our approach on Sunday).

Williamson goal coming up.

Totally bossing it tonight.

If you stick your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and shout "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" over and over, then perhaps it'll all go away. Perhaps. That's the plan. Seriously though, I don't need stats to tell me how we're doing on the pitch. It's pretty obvious to everyone that we've been well below par and some issues really need to be addressed (set pieces, formations and all that). But I'm not convinced for one second that Pardew's long term plan is the long ball game (it's the same argument over and over again really).

That team would do very nicely. Hope Pardew follows through with his "strong starting 11" talk.

It seems to me that referees only account for the timewasting at their own discretion. Some refs will do it, others will just stick to what's on the board regardless of what happens.

Keep it the way it is. I'm scared of change. In all seriousness though, the officials need to sort out what is blatant time wasting (the substitution "tactic" for example). They all need to grow some balls.

Heskey completed that final leg of the course like a boss. Amazing video, it's blatantly going to be shown at Soccer AM at some point

Stats don't necessarily mean a lot... Going to ignore that table like.

For chinese visas we were told to use IPS, FCO or UKPA. http://narwhaler.com/img/wh/f/chinese-cool-story-bro-WHFkrH.jpg (sorry) Haha, wheyyyy.

Would anyone else be surprised to see Shola start this one? I'm actually expecting it...

Just seen this. I'm scared.

Shearer's blatantly going to say no. If he has any common sense (which he obviously does), he'll know that working for the Venkys will be a very bad idea.

urgh, that is really horrible, did you have to share that with us Dave?

I have a soft spot for Bordeaux. Lived there for a year and it was one of the best years of my life. Got a lot of time for their football team too.

Quite looking forward to this game like. I've been waiting/hoping to see us play Bordeaux for quite a while now.

Ba's the PL Top Goalscorer atm. (Fletcher's second...)

Motson time: as much as the game tbh.

Carroll-esque dive.