tmonkey

Fuck sake. Colo needed to get closer earlier and then get a tackle in, backed off too much and waited too late to close down.

What a ball from Marveaux. Again. Good try from Shola.

Tiote clothesline :lol:

Williamson

Woah. Kudos to Baines, amazing goal.

Peter SchmeiKrul saves!

Should be 1-1. Really lucky.

Everton are absolutely dominating this.

Too much long ball.

And there's classic Ameobi with a needless foul.

Pardew needs to drill the players into all pushing up at the same time ffs. Every game someone is lagging behind in the box whilst everyone else pushes up.

Absolute peach of a cross by Shola.

Class finish.

Have to say, I think you've gotten them mixed up here. IIRC Allardyce gave Smith something like 28 starts up front (mostly Premiership games) before Keegan joined and dropped him straight away - Smith was probably one of the main reasons for Allardyce's undoing here, as he did absolutely sod all up front (bar one OK'ish game against Arsenal) and was essentially dragging the entire team down. The guy had plenty of chances for us, both up front and in midfield, but couldn't hide the fact that he was just a talentless footballer who had fooled his way into a lucrative career at the top levels after one small purple spell early on with Leeds. Luque was the one who wasn't given a chance, and although in hindsight it was the right decision, at the time there were plenty on these forums pretty annoyed at how overlooked he was whilst he wasted away on the bench (and this was during Shola's absolute worst form for us).

Medical tomorrow morning. Will be sweating over this - Ba just needs to go all Gattaca on the treadmill and pretend the knee is fine.

Kinda feel sorry for Chelsea. They're signing a CL striking equivalent of Danny Simpson. No doubt Ba will be pointing and mouthing off at Hazard and Mata when they pass the ball into his feet and it bounces away from his big clown feet.

Ba out, noone in. Yes. Ba out, a competent right back in. Hell yes.

Nowt to do with his release clause then? I'm hopeful that the board and management would want to sell Ba with or without the release clause, as they've recognised the guy is an overrated donkey. Certainly would explain why Pardew has mentioned it to the media at every possible opportunity. And when Ba signs for Chelsea, I hope Llambias holds an Academy Awards style ceremony where he thanks Fernando Torres for making all of this possible.

It's really a good sign that the club has management who can look beyond the stats and sell players to better the team. We did it with Carroll (supposedly our new talisman), we did it with Nolan (who's goals we supposedly wouldn't be able to replace), we're doing it with Simpson (well, everyone knows he's s***), and hopefully we'll be doing it with Ba (again, supposedly our only goalscorer). It's undoubtedly a risk to sell a leading goalscorer, but fact is with the exact same team last year we looked our best with Ba on the left - when he didn't score a single goal. So it's not like we can't live without his goals. We can. Pardew just needs to make sure he gets the best ouf of Cisse, Ben Arfa, Cabaye and Marveaux.

Good riddance.

Cannot wait until this cunt leaves. Horrendous footballer, and a con artist of a defender.

Rhetorical question: What was the formation/system after all of Pardew's substitutions?

Should've just kung fu kicked the motherfucker in the face. http://gifs.gifbin.com/082009/1251386381_soccer-face-kick.gif

Santon