Mick

I think it's more likely that he's highlighting that he gets stopped more than your average motorist, which I’m sure has nothing to do with him being accused of assaulting a policeman because they would never harass anybody.

And? You just seemed to ignore what he was getting at and decided to put your own spin on it so you could get a dig in I ignored most of his post because it was his opinion and he hadn't' said anything controversial. Trying to pass a fairly average at best footballer off as a cult hero is a bit OTT. Shola should have been peddled years ago.

And?

He's not on either account, he's a premiership forward with a one goal in every five games record.

Agreed, it must have been a bastard for him having to live a life of luxury while being not very good at what he's paid to do.

Don't worry more will turn up before the match.

I would be quite happy to never see him play football again, I couldn't hate him as he's been a perfect pro throughout his time here and when he retires I'll wish him well.

I doubt we'd pay enough on hitting 10 games to make it worth our while to pay him for doing nothing.

Has a lot to do with Pardew trying to please our strikers by playing 4-4-2. I can actually see us going on a deep run if we switch to 4-3-3. Actually I believe we have the capability to fight out for a top 4 spot if no one gets injured and we do play with a midfield three and Ba - Cisse - Benny uptop like last season. Has Pardew already forgotten WBA away? We were f***ing amazing then. Ba can still play left. He wont score and he wont like it, but just like at Swansea he and Cisse can swith it up a bit to help out defensively. It is obviously not the optimal, but we wont sell Ba and we wont get a new winger anyways so that the best we have. I also think Marveaux and Amalfitano would thrive in such a formation. Problem this season is definitely 4-4-2 and no Tiote in the team. I mean Cabaye and Anita reminds me of when Guthrie and Barton played couple seasons back in the midfield. One overrunning the other and no one covering each other. Not only there. Stoke at SJP was a f***ing brilliant performance, Liverpool at home was more than decent as well. It's there for everyone to see. Not only the front trio, but the midfield - whether it contains Cabaye, Tioté, Jonas, Anita or Bigi - will be far more dynamic and controlling if we just allow them to be more than two people in there. Hopefully it will come. Pardew's comments about Shola for Everton suggests he might be willing to introduce some more muscle up front in order to win the physical battle that our long-ball 4-4-2 game requires. I think we need to go back to basics and that for me would be introducing Shola next to Ba and playing a solid 442. Shola Do we have to repeat the same mistakes?

Under Robson we were also awesome at winning after playing in Europe.

Beardsley or Ginola.

I think he's got a lip on because he basically lined his best mate up to come here and we didn't push a deal through.

He's an amazing player and he now looks to have everything back after his injury, he's even got more about him than he had last season. Last season he was getting back but he wasn't going into tackles like he does now. He's actually going in to tackles with everything he's got, he's putting his body into a tackle in a way that he wasn't last season because he knows that his leg can take it. He loves the limelight and we've got to get him into games a lot more to get the most out of him. He's a special player and I'm literally on my feet every time he gets near the ball because he's always capable of doing what no other player at the club is capable of doing. He can do anything with the ball at his feet and he can get you points from games which have gone or are going away from you.

Most people around me were moaning about our luck when Simpson started holding his thigh and I said it might be a blessing in disguise. It's just a pity that our overall display was poor and we didn't get to see how much of a difference it could have made.

Disagree.

I used to love 4-4-2 when we had the players to make the system work, now though it's a burden. We don't have the players to make 4-4-2 work on a regular basis. It's bad enough when we go up against another team playing that system but when we go in with 4-4-2 against a 5 man midfield we're losing too much possession and games can go away from us from the off. We should start games with a 5 man midfield and try to control games from the off. Controlling midfield would make it much easier to go looking for goals rather than being on the back foot from the off.

Was it when Barton left, he was allegedly unhappy that he wasn't going to be the one taking the set pieces any more? Perhaps we're now in the same situation with Cabaye, he wants to be doing it every time. I find it astonishing that normally we don't mix it up at all. When Ben Arfa was on them against Spurs you at least thought something unusual might happen. As luck would have it, that won us the match. Barton allegedly went ape shit during pre-season because he was no longer going to take set pieces.

Agree. The only possible reason I can think of is that Pardew is worried about Ben Arfa losing the ball with our centre-halves marooned in the opposition box. Which is a valid concern tbh. Plus if we keep doing it, he'd just get ganged up on and crowded out. Would rather simply try and get better deliveries into the box, also agree with what you say Dave, it's what Arsenal are doing at the moment and it looks like a pretty decent tactic imo I'm not sure it is a valid concern, when a team comes away from a corner on the attack it's usually with pace so you don't need centre-halves to defend, you need players with pace to combat what's coming at you.

I'm surprised that we haven't tried to play more short corners to Ben Arfa running into the box, we'd get more from them than hitting the first defender.

He didn't start off very well as a few of his early passes were off but you can put that down to him playing in front of 48,000. He grew into the game very quickly and looked really good and didn't look put of place at all.

I'm not wrong, in more ways than you meant.

It started off as 4-4-2 then we lost all of our shape and it looked like like a case of every man for himself, the formation will not work with the players we've got and sticking to it is costing us. We didn't make a tactical change after 20 minutes, we went to pieces.

That game was shite and I can't take a positive from it other than the goal and point.

That game was shite and I can't take a positive from it other than the goal and point.

He made changes far too late, the game was as good as over with 5 minutes to go.