Mick

I bet the media didn't see it, Jesus wept, David Pleat though the injury was to his shoulder while he was holding his leg.

If they knew it was that bad then they shouldn't have been doing the hand slapping for any reason.

Has this been confirmed?

Another shitter from Captain Fantastic.

I thought the hand slapping by Man City players to De Jong after the tackle on Ben Arfa was shocking.

We did score and should have had a penalty when Shola was tripped in the box.

That was a shocker by the officials, cheating bastards.

Aye, the one player who has offered something up front is dropped while the one who offers nothing plays, try working that one out.

Hughton was saying that Carroll still had a lot to learn earlier this week, he's probably struggling to work out that Nolan is the weakness.

The forecast is for it to get better as the day goes on.

They should never have sacked Southgate when they did, morons.

I can live with going for the win and not getting it, I'll be seriously pissed off if we're as poor as we were against Stoke in the 2nd half.

I wouldn't expect Nolan to get many goals playing from the wing. So far his 3 goals have been a penalty which most players score from. His first against Villa was a soft header which he was lucky to get as the keeper should never have put the ball on his head and the other was a good goal as he was in the right place at the right time. Apart from that I can't remember any keeper having to make a brilliant save to keep one of his shots out, I might be wrong, and he hasn't an assist to his name. Basically, he hasn't done anything this season to change a game through direct play as his goals have come when we were walking one game and the other was a defeat. I've actually lost site of why we're discussing Jonas v Nolan when they play in different positions.

Do you think Nolan would find that space in and around the area if he was playing on the wing?

Do the kids still have mass battles on the school field?

Nolan is bound to, he's playing centrally.

Jonas seems to lack any power when he shoots, I'm not sure practice will do anything with that problem.

If you were to combine the best of both you would only use Nolans goals and shots, other than that he's behind Jonas at everything except when it comes to giving away free kicks.

My guess is a stab in the dark.

No, 19 free kicks conceded. Nearly half of those are through balls where the recipient was offside. For comparison's sake, Carroll has conceded 20, all of which were fouls. How do you know how many free kicks were for offside?

I've had a quick look at the stat's for Nolan who has started every game and Ben Arfa so see what they've both done. All numbers come from http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/chalkboards/create Goals Nolan 3, Ben Arfa 1. Shots (excluding goals) Nolan 12, Ben Arfa 4. Passes Nolan 161, Ben Arfa 67. Interceptions Nolan 6, Ben Arfa 7. Tackles Nolan 16, Ben Arfa 23. Clearances Nolan 4, Ben Arfa 0. Blocks Nolan 3, Ben Arfa 0. Free Kicks Won Nolan 4, Ben Arfa 2. Free Kicks Conceded Nolan 19, Ben Arfa 2.

Walking from Seaburn station and having to go behing the Fullwell end was always a good laugh when visiting Joker Park, it's not the same going to SOS.

You're not in a minority of one, the only difference is that I haven't been tempted to stop going. I didn't live too far from you in the late 70's and early 80's and worked and lived for football. I found it much easier going to away games as the travelling distance was much less. I travelled back up to Newcastle on a Friday for the night out, only to travel to London and places like that on a Saturday for the match. 3 hours travelling each way for a home game was a bitch especially if we travelled by train as we would have to leave 5 minutes early to get the last train to Stalybridge so that we could get a connection to Birmingham and then a connection to where we lived. I made loads of friends in the midlands just by travelling to games by train as Newcastle fans were probably the only ones at that time to wear team colours, especially to away games. I didn't like Newcastle Brown but I felt that I had to dring it because of its association with the area and club, we'd down 8 or 12 cans on the train then go straight to the first pub when we got off the train, they were mental but happy times.

They pulled the Leazes down, I would have willingly paid a membership to have been able to go in.

I think Hughton will get pressure from the crowd before he gets a reaction from Ben Arfa. Almost everybody was moaning about Hughton leaving Nolan on as we were coming out on Sunday and I don't think it would take too many defeats before Nolan is given some stick from the crowd. It was a bit surprising to me how bad some of the comments were and how quick the complaints had started.