tmonkey

Wigan are a bunch of dirty fuckers.

A goal = the difference between Marveaux and Obertan because Marveaux released it early.

Diame looks pretty decent.

Roundhouse sweep.

"Soccer's most dominant team". Didn't know Barcelona were playing in the Manchester Derby.

This lineup Pardew likes so much is basically entirely reliant on Jonas either creating a chance or winning a free kick.

Absolutely no excuse for Best not scoring there.

We do play shit though. Way too many long balls. Biggest problem is that we have two big guys up front who are only useful when it comes to scoring goals.

Great block, but he's been good at that for most of his career (including the sniper incident). That's my beef with him, some parts of his game are good, other parts are poor and he'll try to mask them. For example, penalty aside, I still think he was a tad disgraceful at times today in the way he backed off/ran away. There was one occasion where it was extremely blatant because he nearly ran into a teammate to get away from an attacker. IIRC he was the closest man to Bale, who was running free down the left flank, and instead of coming across to close Bale down as most centrebacks would do (and despite being in a good position to do just that), he turns his back and runs in the opposition direction to where Coloccini is already standing - wtf was that about? Surely someone also noticed this? Luckily Bale made a bad decision and nothing came of that instance.

Cracker of a goal, some quality touches/dribbles. Thought he could have worked harder to get into the box after the goal - we ended up having Ben Arfa as the only person to aim at in the box on a number of occasions when pushing for the win, but whatever, he scored, looked class, and we know he's not perfect

Who said he's the worst defender ever after one bad tackle?

Some brilliant passing by Cabaye down the right wing, some turboshit wingplay from Obertan and Simpson.

Guess this is why he backs off so much when the opposition player has the ball. Like Simpson, he can't tackle for shit, only intercept.

We should give him a few games in central midfield just to gage what level of awkwardness we're talking about. Would it be Coloccini-in-midfield awkward, or Ameobi-on-an-off-day awkward?

Scottish tactical defending™ there.

Man City Money scores.

Krul is currently as good as Peter Schmeical, with the potential to be better than the Big Dame.

Harper is an OK goalkeeper in a number of areas, but for me he has poor reflexes/agility/speed, making him comparatively easy to score past. Also think he spreads himself badly when a striker has a good chance, whilst all of his "good" saves seem to be slow motion ones where he has ample time to get to the ball. This may be a bad analogy, but I think of him as a bucket full of moderately sized holes when he's in front of the net - from a distance the holes aren't really visible, but when you look closer...ok that's a shit analogy. Maybe a large barn with a door, and the door is wide open, and rushing towards that big wide barn door is a three tonne rhino running at full speed, and all you have guarding the door are a few small barn animals (pigs, a few chicken, some ducks, etc etc). The barn animals would be Steve Harper.

Still consider him to be a total cunt for this comment. Players should have no right to question their employers so publicly on things like players sales and transfer policies. If the club want to sell high (as all mid-table clubs do), move the dross on and then instead of spending big on replacements, opt for gambling on players who've fell out of favour elsewhere, or sign hungry players looking to make the step up, or bring through some of the youth players, then who the fuck is he to pass judgement on a policy like that? Especially when "Andy, Nobby, etc etc" were players who developed into "major players of the team" because of such a transfer policy.

Those two posts are bang on the money for me. I've never understood this "great leadership" bollocks that seem to have sprung up overnight with him. Score a few goals, babysit a colleague, give a few media interviews sucking up to the fans, shout at players when you make a mistake, and you're a great leader on the pitch...supposedly. The "lead by example" comment is the most pertinent, that FA Cup game against Stevenage was a perfect example of just how crap a "leader" Nolan was with his head down and his disappearing act. If anything, Barton stepped up to the plate and tried to egg the team on whilst Nolan was walking around knackered on the half way line for most of that game - I'd say that Joey was far more of a leader on the pitch than Nolan ever was (and a far better player too). Re: the shouting at others, I've always thought he was a bit of a c*** on the pitch, and wouldn't be suprised at all if a good number of players actually hated him in private, as that's the natural reaction in any job when you get someone less competent who decides to mask their flaws by just being loud and aggressive. Can imagine the more athletic players running around putting in 100% not taking kindly to Nolan getting red-faced and barking at them from his on-pitch managerial dugout (the centre circle) whilst doing literally nothing all game. Of course noone would ever admit to that in public, as the captain is always a "great leader" no matter who it is (I'm betting the same lines will be trotted out for Coloccini, who's exceptionally quiet). Nevertheless, he'll most likely still be a very good signing for them come the end of the season when they're promoted. In truth, the ridiculous contract they've given him is a small price to pay if they get back into the Premiership straight away, especially with their impending stadium move.

Does anyone think Carroll in front of Ben Arfa would have worked? Personally was always uncomfortable with that potential partnership, as I don't think Carroll is well rounded enough on and off the ball to play as a lone front-man in a side that would utilise a creative playmaker

Wow, Coloccini doesn't get away with poor defending for once.

Obertan so bad he's good.

Don't think it's unreasonable at all to question whether he should be dropped, possibly for Marveaux. I appreciate that Tiote + Cabaye will hopefully be our long term midfield partnership, but that doesn't mean they have to play together in every game from the start immediately. For now we need the points, and it's possible that another performance like that against QPR may result in Tiote directly costing us points. IMO he isn't doing an adequate job defensively and is clearly giving away possession cheaply on a consistent basis, putting us under ridiculous pressure. So put Marveaux in alonside Cabaye, increase possession/ball retention, and bring Tiote back in when he's ready. Right now that seems as sensible as persisting with Tiote and hoping his form immediately picks up.