tmonkey

Under Pardew he has effectively turned into an anchorman on the left wing. Very disappointing to see a complete lack of the drive that used to make him an important player for us, something that compensated for his terrible end product (at least he was driving the team forward and winning free kicks/corners etc etc). He, Simpson and Williamson/Saylor are the three players I'm hoping we'll be looking to displace in the first team in January with new signings (now that Ba/Cisse aren't going off to the ACoN). To be fair to Jonas, if he wasn't a first teamer he'd probably be viewed as a good backup/utility midfielder, ala Park when he was at ManU, as he still has some good traits: experience, work rate, defensive cover, versatility, and the odd good game where he shows a bit of technical/passing ability. Problem clearly is that when he's starting every week as a winger, a position that inherently requires the player to contribute with assists and goals, then he's going to get the stick he's currently receiving (or should be receiving) - and rightfully so. Being a bit cynical here, but I wonder whether dropping him is actually an option when his best friend is club captain and an absolutely vital player for us? If Jonas kicks up a fuss and decides to leave because he's dropped/replaced by a new signing, where would that leave Colo? Undoubtedly having Jonas here is a massive part of Colo's life. Maybe this makes Jonas a bit of an "untouchable"...or I'm talking out of my arse. Probably the latter.

It's difficult to stand up when you're diving all over the place. He really is despicable though. His dives are nearly as blatant as Gerrard's too, just the way he falls over with a little jump.

BTW Colo sold himself out very cheaply there. Everyone will ignore it as per usual of course.

Would love to have him in our team.

To be fair, West Brom had a better "team" than ours since the Championship season, and by that I mean their passing and movement has been miles better for the past few years. Only difference is we have by far the better individual players - whether that counts for anything changes from game to game depending on which individuals have a good game for us.

Think Mancini needs to take some flak for this. Really poor show.

Dzeko on the take. He must be.

Where's "the best centreback in the world" when they need him?

That Barca theme really rubbing it in their faces.

Needed Mike Williamson to aim that corner at.

Games like this you wish Barca played with a proper no.9 (Villa) and let Messi et al roam This. It's frustrating to watch.

Really want Celtic to score a second and force Barca into fielding a damn striker. They break into the box from the flanks so often and yet there's never anyone in the box.

That was Oscar worthy from Jonas.

Sessegnon probably had 2 touches in his 64 minutes on the pitch.

If he had flown in and put his full weight behind it, then it'd be a red. But it was just a kick on the shin, the type you see a couple of times in practically every game because it's just mistimed without serious intent to hurt. Larsson's Karate Kid kick into Shola's neck was 10x more dangerous, but because it's a common "challenge" due to poor timing without real intention to do damage (you'd hope) it never gets a red.

It still astonishes me to this day how easily referees are swayed by a home crowd baying for blood. You'd think by now that referees would be trained to block out crowd reactions, but seems like we're not at that stage yet.

Shocking decision. It's a yellow card every week up and down the country.

Glad to see this is still up: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Roy_Keane

Poor man's Fernando Redondo. But still an awesome player.

As a partnership, I think it's doomed. Both are p*ss poor at challenging defenders effectively with their backs to goal, their flick ons or knockdowns rarely go to a teammate (hence why we wanted Carroll). Their linkup play is a tad s*** with other midfielders and practically non-existent between each other. Both are inconsistent or unreliable when it comes to basics like first touches, first time passes, crosses, flicks, etc (not to say they can't produce good touches etc, it's that they're inconsistent at them and liable to produce e.g. an overly heavy touch or pass for no good reason) - I've seen other posters mention partnerships like Yorke-Cole or Shearer-Ferdinand, but from what I remember Shearer and Yorke especially were light years ahead of Ba/Cisse when it comes to consistency in their basic and linkup play, so each partnership had at least one player who was deadly consistent at the basics. So imo we have a situation where we have two quality goalscorers in the team but it's Shola who often comes off the bench and traps a ball, dribbles with it, or wins a knockdown far more convincingly than Ba/Cisse will have done in the previous 60-70 minutes they spent on the pitch. Both strikers excel at sticking the ball in the back of the net, so more often than not one of them will bag a goal and it'll paper over the cracks. But ultimately their "partnership" only serves to make things harder for the team as a whole - it's bad enough that we have defenders lumping it forward because they're not comfortable on the ball, or wide players who struggle to put in a good cross, but then on top of that we have strikers providing very little for the team to work with. I'd love to be wrong about this, but there does need to be a point when we have to accept that you can't always throw two good goalscorers together and expect it to work. E.g. Torres and Drogba. Maybe that point would be after giving them an entire season to "hit it off", but the price of that might be a mid table finish for the club just because of this hope that they'll start gelling at some point.

I think the issue with these payday loan companies is that they're unreasonable when it comes to those who, either due to stupidity or bad luck, are unable to pay back the amount within the agreed time. So whilst it's reasonable to charge £250 for borrowing £200 for a week, is it really fair to be charging e.g. £600 if the person can't make the repayment until a month after the deadline? It's not like Wonga would turn £200 into £600 by putting the money into a bank. It's undoubtedly extortion. E.g: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3279644 To put it in context, if high street banks, mortgage lenders, credit card companies, etc, did this when e.g. going over agreed limits or being unable to make payments due to unforseen circumstances, all hell would break lose, even though the exact same arguements of "it's your fault for not being more responsible" could be used. Instead, the majority of us benefit from a degree of protection provided by various regulatory bodies/the government/good practice/etc when it comes to these areas (mortgage holidays, lenders being required to provide assistance where possible, capped overdraft or late payment fees, etc etc). I don't think Wonga are an evil company, or that they should be banned. Just that there needs to be a bit more regulation to protect people who do fall foul of these lenders.

Ashley Cole does what Arbeloa just did at least twice a game. Get body in the way, pause, allow contact to take place, fall over and get free kick.

Poor from Valdes imo, should've had that covered.

Pujol on the advertising hoardings too.

Have we gone 4-3-3 with Cisse wide right?