tmonkey

Van Persie stays.

Van Persie has been shit for a few games now. Time to transfer him out in FF me thinks.

Class finish. Impossible to save.

Rooney

Being harsh here, but whilst it's undoubtedly sad to see a talented player suffer such a major injury, imo he has noone to blame but himself. He could and should have just cleared the ball out of play as they were both running at pace and Okore was coming from behind, but I reckon he wanted to bully Remy off the ball as a show of dominance, and hence arrogantly decided to just stick his body in the way and attempt to have Remy bounce off him. He's now paying the price for defending like he thinks he's some sort of tank. Lescott defends like this all the time too.

Was nothing really, they were going over Ben Arfa's goals/assist against Villa and Fulham and basically said the same thing as Hansen, i.e. show him down the outside.

Swansea Liverpool the new Newcastle Liverpool?

It's a fair point, but I personally don't see it - at best it's just one of a number of factors that have led to Tiote's massive slump in performance standards. For example, for the most part he was a great DM during his first 1.5 seasons here, prior to leaving for the ACoN along with Ba. If teams had wanted to figure him out, they'd have done it within a season, because in his first season here there were plenty of nail-biting moments where he was pressured in front of the back four and took major risks, sometimes getting caught out. Just prior to leaving for the ACoN he had a MOTM standard performance against ManU where he bossed the game - when he came back from the ACoN he was absolutely dire and looked (to me) overweight and slow. He hasn't recovered any kind of form since then, and I severely doubt club managers had all gotten together whilst Tiote was in Africa for a month or two and shared dossiers on him, all agreeing that pressuring him was the way to go. No, his form dipped, it has remained at the trough, and it has little to do with opposition teams doing anything different - much like Cisse being unable to do anything right now, it's more about confidence, fitness and mentality. If Tiote today was to play the same ManU side from December 2011, he'd be absolutely atrocious imo, because that's the kind of form he's in and the way he's playing. And that's where I think Pardew needs to accept a big part of the blame, along with the other factors (fitness, confidence, the downwards spiraling standard of football in the team as a whole, and possibly teams pressuring him more). We know for a fact he wanted more from Tiote on the ball because he said so in the media - I specifically remember an interview where he says there's more to come from Cheik because he has the ability to have more of an impact on the ball, and that Cheik needed to take on more responsibility in this department (one that didn't involve an Essien quote, so a different quote but not one that I can easily find). On top of this, he's filled Tiote's head with this notion that he's some kind of warrior tank when the one thing Tiote didn't need was encouragement to be even more reckless. Maybe I'm letting my dislike of Pardew cloud things, but as with the Scott Parker example where an attempt to change the player on the basis of a one-off goal is made, if it's the manager who prompts the change then the manager needs to accept a big chunk of the blame. As a side note (and a relevant analogy to Tiote), I think it's also a fact that players can forget to play the way they should be playing given their abilities. Aan Shearer was a prime example of this - under Gullitt he was absolutely gash by his own standards, and that would have continued under Sir Bobby had Sir Bobby not reminded Shearer to stop playing with his back to goal and start playing on the half-turn again (something both player and manager openly discussed, with a massive turnaround in form being the clear result of that change). If something as simple as that needed to be pointed out to the best Premiership striker of his generation then naturally the same can happen to anyone, and clearly guidance may be needed from the manager to turn things around again. Tiote needs to play a more simple game, to focus entirely on sitting, intercepting, and passing it away to the nearest teammate, in short playing exactly how Anita is playing right now or how he himself was playing in his first season here. The problem is that we have a manager who doesn't want to him play this way - Pardew wants Shearer to play with his back to goal so to speak.

I hope we move him on. Was an excellent defensive midfielder in his first 1.5 seasons here, but Pardew tried to change his game too much following the Arsenal goal, and now we're left with a midfielder who has absolutely no clue what he's meant to be doing or how to do it. Very similar with Scott Parker and Roeder's attempt to change him into the new Steven Gerrard after a wondergoal against Charlton. Given that we have significantly better options now we just can't afford to attempt to stick it out with him and hope he turns the miserable form around. Just have to hope Pardew sees this and that he's not too stubborn/arrogant to realise his experiment has failed and Tiote needs to be dumped.

He's worth making captain just to keep him here. And I suspect he'd be absolutely delighted to be captain, as it's about as big an endorsement a football club can give in terms of singling out a player as being a model professional, i.e. it'd reflect his new-found maturity, which may (or may not) be something that has been overlooked in France (can imagine many folk may still view him as a bad boy as it's a reputation that's not easily shaken, e.g. Anelka and all the bollocks about him being a trouble maker).

Why was he even taken off? Tiote came on and the first thing that happened was the Villa midfielders coasting past Cheik and running into acres of space.

As long as the lineup/system picked today was because he has recognized that it's the best lineup available and the right system that has our best players in their best positions, then kudos to Pardew. If he sticks with this team, we'll do well, and if we can get Cisse back in form (or if one of Gouffran or Remy can play in the number 9 role with the other wide, and Cisse benched) then we'll be a dangerous team more often than not. Everything relies on Ben Arfa remaining fit though. But I can't quite shake the suspicion that his thinking today was along the lines of "we're away from home, Villa are playing 3 in the middle, I'd better stick another CM in there to stop them overrunning us with that extra man". I.e. a continuation of the cowardly "pander to the opposition" mentality. If it's this, then we'll switch back to 4-4-2 as soon as we're up against opposition who e.g. pose a threat down the wings, probably with Jonas back in the side to protect one of the flanks. Or he views this as an away formation, so when we're at home and opposition teams look to hit us on the break, Pardew will try to counter this/outsmart them by sticking two strikers up front, flat 4-4-2, keep the shape, and have the team get the ball forward quicker, which roughly translates to no movement and lots of optimistic hoofs. Would be amazing if he's learnt his lesson from 11/12. I could live with the fact that he doesn't have a clue how to coach/train players into passing and moving with a degree of proficiency if at the very least he sticks with a team and system that picks itself.

Open goal

Needs to be told to stop trying to play like he's Ronaldinho with the ridiculous flicks and "creative" layoffs.

Great performance, great player. Just needs to stay fit and play like this for a longer period. If he does that then for me he'll be head and shoulders the best player we've had in the Premiership era.

Absolutely class today.

Ben Arfa Gouffran

Fuck sake.

Pretty much 100% of Cisse's touches have been shit.

Ben Arfa ghosting past 3 players. Amazing footballer. Agbonlahor

Unfortunately this will always be a key feature of our playing style under Pardew. Doesn't have a clue how to coach/train players into passing/moving in an effective manner.

Zero movement around Ben Arfa when he picked the ball up from Colo. As shocking as ever.

Aye. Don't think Krul did that bad considering. Krul stopped a goal - Benteke was getting on the end of that.

Good recovery from M'Bwia.

Just hurry up and get off the pitch you big fairy!