Sifu

By his standards, he had a s**** game aye but he's still an important player for us. When deployed in the correct system, he is a massive threat. He's clearly still not up to speed and I guess you could put that down to the management and even Cabaye himself but the fact remains, he is a key component for us in midfield.

All in all, we were basically outclassed by Villa imo (urgh). They pretty much did all the simple things right whilst we kept getting them wrong. Our set pieces were atrocious, our movement off the ball was basically non-existent and our general all round play was shocking. Again, we did have a better second half compared to the first but ultimately we just didn't have enough about ourselves to really dominate the game. A draw is probably a fair result but Villa will probably wonder how they didn't win. The only bright spot for me was again Ben Arfa - when we needed something special to ignite the game and to pull ourselves up from the dumps, Hatem was there again to oblige yet again The formation issue has been talked about a lot and it is the same argument over and over again so I won't go into it in too much detail. 4-3-3, enough said. Btw, people have to remember that we're only 3 PL games into the season, it's been a stuttering start but it's still too early to judge on how our season will pan out. Of course, we are faced with a fair few worrying issues atm but in time, I'm sure things will be fine. I'm not too worried yet - we'll hit our stride eventually.

It's actually happened!

Thank fuck for Ben Arfa eh? When we needed something special, he came up with the goods yet again.

Looks like we've found our short-term contingency plan. Anita at RB for the time being (or in Simpson's absence) will do nicely, played well there today and his deliveries were decent.

No wonder Pardew looked angry on Thursday evening

Time to bring back the Williamson tactic.

Well played Bigi.

We can always count on a Ben Arfa special!

You really don't like Cabaye do you? On his day he looks quality. Unfortunately that's about once every five or six games. Still doesn't look like his normal self to me. I know you'll dismiss the whole fitness argument but I really think that is still actually the case. Another thing is the formation, it really restricts Cabaye's influence (btw, this isn't the first time people have mentioned Cabaye in a 4-4-2 being a bad idea).

You really don't like Cabaye do you?

He was onside, fucks sake.

Fucking hell, was basically a free header.

http://i.imgur.com/0f9tN.jpg Awesome

And look who's doing it too... Edit: ah now it makes sense.

Lolerpool. Long may this run of form continue.

It was never going to be on TV.

You could say that his departure from NUFC broke him.

No.

Really like Al Habsi.

Great save.

That dance

Typical Motty like.

Arry's comments about this game should be interesting...