Mick

It does remind me of him.

Will dropping Nolan for Ben Arfa be any worse than Keegan selling David Kelly?

w*****. He's setting himself up.

I don't like giving Nolan stick because his commitment to us has been massive and I think he's brought out the best in others around him. His personality has been good for the club but we might have to move on and look for something more from his position. I'll never question his desire, motivation or commitment, sometimes that isn't enough, sadly. I also think Smith has had 3 good games and he'll be another one who has probably done a lot for us off the pitch, we need to improve though if we're to move on as a team.

I'm not sure he's constantly proven correct in his selection but he does get more than his fair share right.

I don't care who is wrong as long as whoever plays off Carroll is either scoring or creating goals for others.

The only thing he did wrong was walk away from the referee when he was booking him, he was never going to change his mind.

I think those reports are a bit one sided, I remember him losing the ball against Norway when he was almost on the right corner flag and he chased back to his own left-back position. I'm not saying that he'll do it too often but we'll have to wait and see what he's like for us. Personally I don't want to see him doing that for us as he'll be the ideal person to run with the ball and take some pressure off our defence instead of it coming straight back at us. I'd rather see Carroll track back as he's got more of a physical presence than Ben Arfa.

I agree with most of that, I just don't think he'll get many goals in this league, time will tell.

Probably both.

so were smith and butt last season. Straight into his hands.

He could probably out-run me but that wouldn't be too difficult.

I'm not sure he's being used as a scapegoat, I just think we could do better with somebody in his position with some pace.

The opposition being weak has a lot to do with his first goal against Villa, it was because the keeper put the ball straight back onto his head, the second was at the other end of the ground but he did well to get it. I'm not saying that he's useless but for a lot of the game he isn't involved and we give up posession because good balls are played in for him and he can't reach them.

I'm not going to post any more regarding the first paragraph. I agree with the rest of your post and have already said that it's far too early to make a decision on if they are forgiven or not.

What do you think is a myth? It can't be his lack of pace because it's true, he's very slow. The only thing he's not slow at is when it comes to giving up a chase. Don't get me wrong, he has a lot of good points, I just think we need somebody who gives the team more over 90 minutes. I don't think we'll play many teams who defend as badly as Villa did against us so I can't see him having too many games like that where he grabs a couple of goals. He got into some good positions yesterday and didn't score because the opposition weren't as weak as Villa were when they played us.

I had an excellent view of him in the first half against Villa and the number of through balls he failed to reach was unbelievable.

Somebody was also thrown out of our directors box, it was wrongly claimed on here to have been Alan Oliver.

I remember somebody on here posting that an arrest had been made at an away match when Ashley and/or Llambias had been attacked.

Keep digging the hole.

That doesn't mean they weren't hassled.

I've read the title and was responding to a post, not the title.

Since when?

I've never said anywhere that I forgive them, I'll wait until the end of the season before making that judgment. I expect them to look to progress each year and not just get to where we were, getting to where we were is still another step in the right direction. I'll not wait until they've won a Cup or qualified for the CL though because we haven't won a Cup since 1969 and have only qualified for the CL twice and the last time we did that was the 2002/03 season.

He can't change the past, just because they've made some mistakes doesn't mean they'll always make them, exhibit A is history.