Sifu

Yeah, fuck that.

Gouffran?

We're still laughing at you Brendan

If he does end up at Marseille then fair play to him. From the shitness of QPR to the decent l'OM would be some feat. Some decent blagging there.

I had 20 odd pages to catch up on...

It's got to the point where I don't really check the news outlets anymore. This forum is where I get all my football news really.

Had to be fucking FOX who commissioned that

The more times this thread gets bumped, the more I think he's coming back. Booo. In which case, it's time for the healing process to begin.

I would say the only time this partnership has been close to working was Cisse's debut against Villa. My gut feeling though is that the Ba-Cisse partnership will work in time... They don't appear to try and play as a pair which doesn't help matters... Always too far apart imo... If Pardew's intention is to play a 4-4-2 then I'm sure he is actively working on them to click as a pairing in training. 4-3-3 makes more logical sense though as it utilises all of our players to good effect. The good news is that the 4-3-3 is still very much in our plans so I'm not worried as such.

Johnson signed already and they are going to challenge for top 6 now.. Oh so it did happen? They've got a good player there tbf...

I'm on a night out on transfer deadline day. If anything were to happen in terms of outgoings, I may just go on a rampage in Manchester.

Haven't been in this thread for a while, am I right to assume the following has happened: - They've finally signed Fletcher for an over-inflated price. - Their game got postponed yesterday because the SoL is shite. Have they signed McGeady yet? Is Johnson signing? So many questions...

I would say the only time this partnership has been close to working was Cisse's debut against Villa. My gut feeling though is that the Ba-Cisse partnership will work in time...

Accrington Stanley tbh.

To put it simply, we were beaten by the better team on the day. A deserving win for Chelsea tbh - Hazard, in particular, caused us quite a lot of problems through the middle/wings. I hate Torres though. We looked off the pace again this week IMO. We do have a few fitness issues, namely with Cabaye who looked properly knackered by the hour mark. He's definitely not match fit yet. I'm sure he (and the team) will be fine, fitness-wise, as the weeks go by. It's just rather annoying how behind we are atm in comparison to other teams in the division. Our first half performance was pretty much forgettable. We did play better in the second half (with Ben Arfa providing most of our attacking threat once again) but ultimately it wasn't enough to really trouble Chelsea. All in all, we were outdone and we just have to move on now. Oh and about the 4-4-2/4-3-3 business btw... We did beat Chelsea last season with a 4-4-2 so I can somewhat understand Pardew going with that system again but the problem with using that today was that Chelsea had new personnel who have actually improved their team so a new approach would have been better way to counter the Chelsea threat. 4-3-3 makes more sense because it actually utilizes all of our players to good effect - the good news is that Pardew does recognise it to be a good formation to switch to if need be. Having said all of the above, we have to remember that this was our second game of the PL this season and considering that I would have been content with 2 points from our first two games (after the fixtures were released), I'd say I am pretty satisfied so far.

Post-pub/drinks session posting never goes well tbf. Still an idiotic post like.

S'il vous plait! £6 million would be a reasonable offer imo so I sincerely hope something finally materialises. Ben Arfa lacked support today and Debuchy would link up with Hatem well (if their games in the French team are anything to go by...)

A harsh lesson for him today. He really shouldn't have stuck a leg out in the penalty area - it gives a striker a reason to go to ground. I'm sure he'll learn from this mistake like. We have got a good player on our hands so I'm already looking forward to seeing him in action again

We're going to see a Ben Arfa special on Saturday. Definitely.

Haven't caught up with the thread as such but I assume Luke Edwards is talking bollocks as always?

You know the Brazil team of 1970? Well we were f*** all like them. Ah well, we better smash them at St. James' next week.

So I completely missed this, couldn't leave work early enough. How did we play then?

One thing I do find rather amusing though is how the Daily Fail gets some of their transfer stories spot on with regards to us.

Don't really pay that much attention to what's written in The Times these days. To me, it has really lost quite a lot of credibility these past few years.