STM

Barton's return will be welcomed with open arms TBF. Even if some people don't rate him on here, he's still better than Butt and more productive than Nolan. IF (and that's a big if) Barton had been fit for the first half of the season, i reckon he would have got a similar amount of goals as Nolan and more assists.

Journal reckons smith is struggling with an injury. Please don't make me watch Nicky Butt.

Kilkline almost could be considered a perm. Very curly at least.

Saw enough CAUTION in the Leicster game to last me a lifetime and he just stood there perplexed and then made changes way too late. It might happen that we miss automatic promotion by 2 points, cause it's going to be close...We will lose more games as teams are less in awe of us than the start of the season and they've worked it all out...Hence Leicester continued to attack with 10 men cause they could see we were essentially toothless. Butt and Nolan basically have almost no movement and no ability to dicatate anything other than a pizza order on the phone. I'm astounded there are people in here who refuse to see that CH doesn't really have the mental and tactical tools to help us in the PL it is quite evident already, we are just scraping by at the minute....Sooner or later we'll lose 2 or 3 games close together. It sounds like you're really criticising the players more the Hughton. I hope he plays Guthrie in the middle now he has Routledge, that's pretty much all he can do to improve central midfield. I bet he starts Nolan and Butt against Cardiff and I also think they will beat us. Won't happen. I wouldn't put too much money on that if i was you.

That's a fair point, but draws are a lot more valuable than defeats in more ways than just points. To a footballer, and to a certain extent a manager and the press, a draw is a decent result, you didn't get beat. It doesn't destroy confidence like defeats can do. I think this might be part of the reason that we aren't trying harder for wins - it's definitely part of the reason why I can't criticise our approach too much. Sensible points. It also suggests we have a platform to build on. Once of the hardest things to do is construct an organised defence and remain unbeaten.

To me the CM is just too slow. No creativity going forward and overrun when defending. We dont have a box to box midfielder and we desperately need one. If we could find someone that could link with both the defence and forward line we would look a whole lot better, especially going forward. The major problem here is that the "senior professionals" Smith/Nolan are the problem, and they seem to have quite a bit of power right now. There aren't many about these days either. If Hull go down i'd look to take Bullard at a knock down price. Perhaps someone like JJ will come available in the summer too but you are right... we need legs.

I don't particularly think we are in a better position than West Brom to stay in the premiership but i don't think we are any worse off either. It's just some are suggesting if we played a more fluid attacking style, then we would stand more chance of staying up, which isn't strictly true.

"Good football" is a bullshit term. I want "effective football". Do you think Stoke play that brand of "bad football" that you think will fail in the premiership? I can confirm to you that they don't, FFS they even use throw ins to lump it long! I'm not saying i want us to use this style of football, i'm saying that it can work and it's nonsense to think it can't. We don't play effective football though, not when we have the ball anyway. We've conceded 16 goals in 27 games, that's why we're top. In attack we are pretty much directionless, and get by mostly on capitalising on mistakes from our opponents, the type of mistakes that aren't going to be as easy to come by in the Premiership. Stoke at least have a good collection of players for the style of football they want to play (a bunch of big fuckers + a guy who can throw the ball miles). We have a bunch of tall strikers who, barring Carroll, are pretty much shite in the air. And yes, eventually that brand of crap football will be found out and I expect Stoke to be gone from the Premiership in a few years. We are top, how can you say we don't play effective football? We play more effective football than every other team in the league. It's just ugly and defensive that's all.

Excellent; Harper Simpson Williamson Colccini Van Aanholt Smith Nolan Routledge Jonas Best Shola Is what i expect, although he may start with Shola on the bench. It's hard to predict who he will play up front.

I would agree, because the whole bottom half of the table are all about trying to figure out ways of scraping together points. This includes "non conventional" types of tactics such as launching long throw ins into the box. Look at the teams in the Prem. A whole boat load of them are awful, but they stayed up and we didnt. Why is that? It's true, if we had this "boring" football last year, we may have picked up the odd point away from home and stayed up.

"Good football" is a bullshit term. I want "effective football". Do you think Stoke play that brand of "bad football" that you think will fail in the premiership? I can confirm to you that they don't, FFS they even use throw ins to lump it long! I'm not saying i want us to use this style of football, i'm saying that it can work and it's nonsense to think it can't.

Pretty much this. There's no doubting there are major improvements needed (if we get promoted) but i think what we have a achieved deserves recognition and Hughton deserves credit. Credit is all well and good but if you can show me how being nice to CH will stop us getting relegated next year I'm all ears. You are treating as if it's a fact that Hughton will get us relegated next year? Even though we are not even promoted yet. In his first full season in charge his record is brilliant, the only thing that has been poor is the style of football. Why not see who he would bring in during the summer and then judge how we would perform in the premiership?

Forest are a good team, throughout their 11 i have been very impressed. West Brom look like they will drop more points than us TBH, there defensive is as bad as our attack. Hopefully the introduction of Routledge, Best and Van Aanholt to a lesser extent will give us a different look to our team. Routledge and Jonas on the wings could be pivitol.

Pretty much this. There's no doubting there are major improvements needed (if we get promoted) but i think what we have a achieved deserves recognition and Hughton deserves credit.

OK, i agree with those points but aren't they just proof as to why we needed defensive cover (if that's the way Hughton has decided to set up his team)? I'm also not disagreeing that we play a defensive side, with a limited attacking outlook. What i'm trying to point out is that we are top of the league, which was the fans expectations (or at least what we wanted) at the start of the season. Yet it seems that because of the way we play, people want Hughton out.

We are top of the league because we have picked up more points than every other team. I genuinely don't understand Ronaldo? Are you annoyed by the style of football or the results?

I've never seen him go over without being touched first though. Although, i am very ignorant.

and being top of the league.

I voted Woodgate over Lescott on sheer talent but the likelyhood is that Capello will pick Lescott because he has been playing.

Very one eyed post, but heh, its your site, I think you will find you have more divers and cheats than us though if you are honest! That's the most one sided post i've ever heard TBH. So Jonas is a cheat despite the fact that almost every team tries to break his leg in every game. Fair enough he goes down easily but that isn't cheating. Apart from that i don't know anyone who is quick enough to dive in our squad, after all you need to beat a man to dive. As for Smith, Nolan, Butt etc they are all hard tackling players, if they foul then more often than not they get carded (often on reputation). They can hardly be considered cheats, dirty perhaps but not cheats.

Agreed, half our old squad are now playing in the premiership and doing alright. Alot of the sunderland squad are dross that they have had for ages or unproven foreigners.

Coloccini wasn't strong enough and he certainly wasn't quick enough last year, at times his positional play didn't look too good either (i think that was just because he was beaten to the ball for the first two reasons). This season he's been better but i think that's mainly because of the standard of opposition. The one thing i think he is good at is playing the ball in tricky situations. He's fairly calm in possession of the ball, especially alongside Enrique.

Hopefully West Ham will pull away which will drop the mackems further down. If it's still close in the last few games then anyone could go down. Sadly they are the best out of a bad bunch.

It's about numbers TBH. Although we've thrown up the odd excellent footballer in our time, we have never had alot of good footballers coming through. It's because the area hasn't got a big enough population, especially when you consider there are two big clubs in the near area.... newcastle and gateshead of course . As for Boro, they have brought through alot more players but it's argueable on whether they have been "good enough". However, with all that said, i've never been convinced by our youth set up.

This. It could quite easily be a boring 0-0 or a boring 2-0. Depends on us taking our chances.