tmonkey

Seems so obvious doesn't it. Makes me wonder what the f*** he's being coached to do. That's what's puzzling me. Players don't suddenly change their style of play just like that. It's Pardew (imo). He has openly talked about wanting to see more from Tiote on the ball, especially after that Arsenal goal, so he has tried to change Tiote from a pure destroyer into an all-round central midfielder. Glenn Roeder did the exact same thing with Scott Parker. Basically managers trying to be too smart for their own good.

They should have finished the game in the first 20 minutes, like ManU did. The fact that they didn't was entirely down to them. And this has been a regular theme under Pardew - we're just very lucky that most teams aren't genuinely clinical on a consistent basis.

Yaya Toure is like the new Gustavo Poyet to us. Another 5+ years of this bastard scoring against us every game.

Peleccini dummying the ball there.

Look at the cunt Nasri chewing gum with his mouth open.

Unlucky Ba.

So frustrating. Him and Cisse do it frequently too, ridiculously heavy when there's absolutely no reason for it. Turned from a genuine goalscoring opportunity into being lucky to get a corner.

Unlucky Cisse.

Corner was cleared

Ba trying to dribble. FFS.

The fuck was Colo doing backing off Silva like that and completely leaving Tevez free for a through ball?

Santon

Nasri

Haha. Class.

The Argentinian Carlos Alberto.

Off Off Off.

Crab Toure a bit unlucky there.

Referee

Want someone to lunge in two footed, the crowd to go nuts, a mass brawl between both teams, the referee taking 5 minutes to resume some form of control, and 2-3 red cards dished out with multiple suspensions after video reviews. Not asking for much.

This is why "offisde" or "goal-line" technology should piss off. Controversy = fun.

Love this type of controversy. Young was clearly onside.

Aguero would have scored that in FIFA.

Nasri is such an overrated twat.

But conversely, if one believes that Ba isn't the best striker we've had since Shearer (in their opinion), does it then become reasonable to advocate selling him? Ba has had one great half-season for us, as has Cisse last season and Carroll previously. I don't think there's much between them (and still consider Cisse to be the better/more talented striker, despite the miserable form), with the only real difference being that Ba has been with us in the Premiership longer (and in a team set up to his strengths).

If he's subdued or quiet against the very best teams (of which Madrid, Leverkusen and Arsenal weren't during those years, imo anyway), then no, he hasn't had any dominant standout CL campaigns from start to finish within the context of him being the greatest player ever. The only campaign you refer to is the 2010/11 one, where he did tear Madrid apart in the semi's, but then he was very limited against ManU in the final (same as a few years earlier) - shut out to a similar extent as Chelsea and Inter in previous seasons. His goal came out of frustration because he was struggling to get into the game, and the goal itself was a shot straight down the middle that should easily have been saved were it not Van der Saar on the verge of retirement (you can't honestly say that the goal wasn't attributable to poor keeping?). The point I'm making is that I think he struggled, just like in previous years, against an organised, high calibre team that had set out to mark him out of the game, and he didn't perform to anywhere near his all-time-great standards - and this is a recurring theme in the CL and for Argentina.