tmonkey

Wow. Just wow.

VDV dreaming of a Laurent Robert moment.

Thicker than a plank of wood.

Colo Tiote Barton Nolan Enrique Jonas in that order.

Nice elbow from Carroll there.

Not a pen.

Lescott's agent should find out if there are any Hollywood movies coming up featuring stoneage cavemen in it.

Lescott is such a clumsy defender.

Muntari with a good free kick by his standards.

Bit of a typical touch from Carroll.

Awful.

"Verging on a red that".

That shirt is a few sizes too small. Poor kid.

Model pro.

Firstly, alot has been made in this thread about Nolan's influence off the pitch. How does anyone know exactly what effect Nolan has on those around him off the pitch? Surely only the other players will know that, and that'll be a private matter that will only be discussed between themselves and their close friends/family. For all we know they might hate him or laugh at him behind his back. It feels to me like some people like the player's contribution on the pitch, like his interviews, and therefore assume that this carries over into areas like leadership, presence, influence, etc etc. Furthermore, why is Nolan being singled out for this praise? Why not Smith, or Barton, or whoever else is in this senior-player powergroup or whatever it's called? Should we extend Smith's contract because he's also a great influence on the [insert whatever term you want as there's no way to substantiate it - I'll choose world]? Secondly, how important is it having figureheads like Speed, Nolan, etc at the club in the first place? Remember the lost and out-of-control dressing room Sir Bobby supposedly had towards the end of his reign here? That was when Shearer and Speed were at the club. Fat load of good it did having them around to teach these naughty youngsters how to be professionals. We didn't really have a leader on or off the pitch during the peak of the Keegan era (Beardsley/Lee were just good footballers), yet we were still a cracking team. IMO too much is made of the influence of players off the pitch - at the end of the day it's talent that wins games, so that needs to take priority. We had supposed leaders and model pro's in the dressing room when we were relegated last time round (Owen, Butt, Nolan, Smith), didn't do anything to help. As long as Nolan keeps scoring, he should keep his place in the first team for now. The aim beyond this season and maybe the next should be to replace him in the first team with someone more mobile to reduce our severe reliance on Tiote for having an effective Premiership central midfield, and more creativity to then supply the additional forwards/attackers we should be looking to bring in. "Leadership", whatever that means, should could from the manager and, assuming the armband means anything, the captain (which should really be Coloccini next season). IMO that's all that's needed, with talent/ability/fitness being the defining factors behind whether the team is good or not. There's no need for, nor room for, sentimentality in the game, and certainly there will always be good teams who play good football without having this mystical off-pitch-father-figure cuddling the bad boys during training sessions (e.g. ManU certainly didn't fall apart when Keane left, though I realise this statement will be picked on because ManU still had good players when he left. Which is kind of the point...).

Lovenkrands was also a free transfer and is almost certainly on very low wages given his situation when we picked him up (same as Kuqi). Whereas Smith cost us £6m and is a high earner who we haven't been able to do anything with other than handsomely reward for sitting on our bench for the entire duration of his contract. I'd also add that whilst Lovenkrands either hides or misses sitters, Smith in midfield either hides or actually helps the opposition out. He probably has more than 10 assists during his time here, and by that I mean 10 goals he's set up for the opposition through either a misplaced pass, dogshit clearance or utterly daft and needless foul in a ridiculous area. On top of this, Smith has to be the worst striker we've had in modern times up front for us. I can't recall ever seeing a striker looking less likely to score a goal against the opposition than our own goalkeeper. There were times when he played up front for us (bad times they were) where he refused to shoot even though that was the only option. Smith wins by a country mile.

Worst recent player over his tenure with us: Alan Smith. Worst player in any one season: Nicky Butt during our relegation campaign. Worst youngster to be fielded in the first team: Matty Pattison Pound for pound worst signing: toss up between Michael Owen, Albert Luque, Xisco and Jean Alain Boumsong.

They need a keeper, a big/fast centreback, a strong ball winner, and a goalscorer. In other words, a whole new spine. Ideal targets for those positions: Krul, Coloccini, Tiote and Leon Best.

Can he be as good as Kaka? Potential Ability of 187 in FM 2011. So yes.

2-0 loss. Frustrating side to play against, they'll expose our weaknesses and will win the aerial battle comfortably.

I'd stick him in alongside Tiote for certain games. Just let him dift from central midfield and attack if he wants to. In the two games he played for us he constantly dropped deep in a central position to get on the ball, so he sort of plays there naturally irrespective of what his position on paper is. Also, if he has lost any of his pace due to the leg break then he'd probably have to develop into a natural CM anyway, and exploit his ability to pick good passes.

Pardew is benefitting from the team Hughton has put together. Personally think Hughton is a mediocre manager at best with his overly cautious approach, and that he sort of stumbled into a good thing with the midfield of Jonas/Nolan/Tiote/Barton somehow gelling into a quality unit for a newly promoted side, but even so we shouldn't overlook how fortunate we've been to again start the season on paper looking like we'd struggle immensely for goals/creativity/etc with limited transfers in, but finding things to be alot better than anticipated - all thanks to Hughton. He also had the balls to stick with something that worked after temporarily stumbling upon it, which in the past previous managers have failed to do. E.g. one time when we had Zog, Emre and Solano playing directly behind a lone striker (Martins?) with two midfielders in behind holding, we looked a pretty slick team because they kept the ball well and the team was forced to pass it on the deck - it only lasted 2 games because whoever our manager was at the time (Roeder?) decided to change things as soon as a second striker was fit again and we went back to pumping long balls and bypassing the midfield. Similarly, don't think Kinnear ever tried the system that Keegan found some joy with (Owen in midifled). At least with Hughton this didn't seem to be a problem, and once he did make a change for the better he usually stuck with it. Would Pardew have put this team together if it wasn't already in place? Would he have thought about trying Barton out wide, or stuck with him there if he hadn't already established himself as an excellent deep-winger of sorts? Would he have signed Tiote, or would he have gone for a reject from his West Ham days? What will Pardew do if we have to sell a few players and he has to rebuild the team? On the one hand, I don't think there's much to criticise about Pardew at present, given our lack of squad depth. On the other, I don't think there's much to praise him for either as he's just putting a team that Hughton built/discovered out on the pitch. But given his track record, I'm certainly a bit worried that when he starts shaping this team into his own we're going to be worse off for it.

The famous 300% pay rise which sounds a lot until you realise it was a rise from £5000 per week to £15000 - £10000 per week less than we ended up paying Babayaro. This.

Disagree? Splashing the cash for a nutcase struggling with injuries and playing s*** for Villa for quite some time is wrong/ too big of a big risk imo. I he had shown he still had it here - why not - but obviously he hasn't. I was laughing because that was the ultimate statement of the blatently obvious. As if anyone would think Ashley is going to sanction signing him if he doesnt even get fit while here now. Ben Arfa was signed for £5m despite having a broken leg (after playing 2 games) and without the club having any reasonable idea of what he'll be like when he returns. Could say the same about Gosling, who no doubt would have been given a decent signing-on fee as a Bosman. So Ireland being signed irrespective of fitness is not all that unlikely tbf. Gosling was a free. HBA was already here and was going to overcome his broken leg. We are talking about signing a bloke who has shown nothing either in fitness or form over a long period and has suffered niggling injuries in the whole time he has been on loan here. Its a different thing alltogether tbh Free is never "free" though, as far as we know. We'll have paid Gosling a hefty signing-on fee because of there being no transfer fee, as is the known standard for Bosmans. This despite him being out for at least 6 months at the time we made the signing. And Gosling, with the greatest of respect, isn't anything more than a future "decent" player, so if you go up a few levels to the type of player that Ireland when fit/in form is, then logically Ashley might be willing to take the same gamble but for say £5m (i.e. you pay more for someone who is considerably better, even if the same level of risk remains). Ireland is already here, same as Ben Arfa was. He's been here for about a month and a half, hardly worthwhile writing him off as injury-prone just yet. His form hasn't been great in the past 1.5 seasons, no, but neither was Kevin Nolan's when we signed him for however many millions (£4m? - and his fitness when we signed him was terrible at the time). The point I'm making is that it's not out of the question that Ashley will see Ireland as a worthy gamble because if he turns things around then he'll be worth alot more than what Villa will probably ask for him in the summer. Ashley has already proven that he'll take a risk on unfit players - if you think they were one-offs, then that is entirely your opinion (just like it's your opinion that Ashley won't see Ireland as yet another "one-off").

But you could say the same about Ireland to an extent. When fit and on form and starring for a City side with a decent number of £20m+ players, he was undoubtedly a good player. And his injury (in theory) isn't a serious one that'll damage him physically. Not saying I believe this is the case, but I don't think it's too stretched to imagine Ashley looking at Ireland as a worthy gamble. Good age, of good calibre/talent, was performing well a few years ago, but is cheap now due to a drop in form in recent seasons (bit like Nolan when we signed him). If he turns things around then we get a valuable player who normally wouldn't be an option for us in for a low price.