Mick

So we would have won if we were playing against 10 men.

He doesn't.

Debuchy going off made a massive difference to our game but even when he was on our forward play was poor as we were getting balls into the box and not getting on the end of them which is typical of us for most of the time. Halsey was poor, that doesn't changeg how bad we were 11 v 11, them going down to 10 men would have given us an advantage, it doesn't hide how bad were though.

The ref is shit but you can't get away from how bad we were.

What is the point of Shola?

Santon is shit.

He's not a right back.

We get the ball into the box and can't get on the end of it.

We are clueless going forward.

why is Tiote getting a game and why is Santon on the right when he's much better on the left?

If tomorrow is the last Sunday in March, yes. If not then the answer is no.

Marveaux should start every game for the rest of the season, he gives us something we don't have without Ben Arfa and he needs a run of games.

It looks like your question doesn't have an answer, what I have found seems to be common sense. "A cold or inadequately warmed up muscle is stiffer and therefore more resistant to lengthening. If the athlete attempts a rapid eccentric contraction of the hamstrings under this condition, the muscle may be more likely to tear. Therefore, it is essential that an athlete has reached a point in the warm-up where the muscle group is at an optimal operating temperature for both enhanced performance and reduced injury risk. However, determining a muscle temperature for optimal elasticity of the muscles is difficult, and therefore the athlete should be instructed to warm-up to a point where they feel that the muscle is in a state of readiness for the following competition." It would be interesting to know what we do during half time and if we prepare for a 2nd half after muscles have had 15 minutes to relax, he didn't last too long into the 2nd half.

I didn't say that you were being smug, as for the injury, is it not detectable? I would be amazed if it can't be detected in this day and age. It's obviously not an 'injury' in the standard sense of the term, though. He can run, he feels no pain (from past interviews anyway, things may have changed). It's a scar tissue issue, it's a problem in the healing of his muscle by the sounds of things. Muscles are just bunches of fibres, they tear and then heal, it's a perfectly natural process. This one has complications. It doesn't sound like an issue that actually currently affects his running etc, but not operated on will do in future. Sometimes you can't see in to the future. It looks like a MRI scan can be used to predict how long an injury will take to heal and an MRI scan can be used to predict the likelyhood of a re-injury. It would be interesting to know if an MRI scan was performed before his return.

I didn't say that you were being smug, as for the injury, is it not detectable? I would be amazed if it can't be detected in this day and age.

Should we not have known if that was the case? I can understand the player not wanting an operation but you would think that our medical staff might have known better.

He's got nothing to be smug about, Ben Arfa has now made two come-backs from this injury, to have him break down twice is beyond a joke because he couldn't have been fit to return. We made a mistake the first time and shouldn't have repeated it. Maybe a hamstring injury is harder to detect than I think, if that's the case then the club may have an excuse.

I don't know if we brought Ben Arfa back too soon but I do know that Cisse was ill and Pardew said on the radio that he went to see Cisse in an attempt to get him to play. You can't rule out that we're guilty of bringing back Ben Arfa too early.

I can't remember who mine was against, it was mid to late 60's and my uncle took me for my birthday. I do remember sitting on a floodlight in the Gallowgate and it pissed down so much that the die ran in my new jeans and my legs were blue for a good few days.

I'm always expecting him to drop a massive bollock, so far he's avoided doing so, I never feel that way with Krul other than when he's got the ball in his hands.

Hopefully Krul has been watching the way Eliott finds one of his own players when releasing the ball.

The Turks were shit, it seemed like they were getting banned every few minutes.

Love him, to piss off.

I must admit the Benfica fans coming on here have been a refreshing change from some of the morons we've had on from other clubs in the past. The two games could be brilliant for non-footballing reasons, it's always better going away from home when you can relax and have a good time with the locals. It looks like we could be in for two of our friendliest European nights ever. I hope they bring a few here because the atmosphere will be much better if they do. Good luck to them in the league, shit luck to them in the Europa.