Exiled in Texas

I'm surpised that no one has mentioned the rumour of Zaha and Moyes' daughter as part of the loan move. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2442327/Wilfried-Zaha-Manchester-United-star-denies-affair-David-Moyes-teenage-daughter-Lauren.html

But if he is making money, why would be sell up? Ashley would need to A) have a higher priority project that needed investing in where he could re-invest the Monday earned from selling NUFC, and B) an interested purchaser who wanted to buy the club. I fear that if NUFC is making him money then he will stick around and keep taking the money (albeit whether its through Sports Direct or through NUFC accounts)

Probably hadn't worked out the tax issue. Less salary in the UK might still have given him more take home pay than in France.

That's the beauty of January signings......they apply to both the summer before and the summer to come. They can be applied to either's spending tally without any firm definition. They were either to make up for last summer or brought forward from this summer or both or neither. Apply as needed for the current discussion at hand.

I agreee with that.....I don't think that this window played out the way Mike had intended. I'm not thinking that Mike planned on spending 50M or even 20M (unless there were a lot of real bargains out there). I just think that they expected the Gomis to deal to fall into place, just like they expected the Debuchy deal last summer to work out, and now they are stuck with looking to January.

And what we need to provide for him (and the team) are players who are also "Always open, always moving, always an option, always finds space." I saw a fare few times yesterday where Anita moved into space to receive the ball from the defense and then looking for the next pass but no one else was opening up to get in a position to receive his pass. He saw the need to move into space to make himself open for a pass, but it looks like none of the others are Ajax trained for this pass and move style football.

I like Goufran because he plays with heart and desire too. Always trying to make a run at the defense, takes them on and pushes the defenders back

Remy's first touch was to push the ball behind the defender and run at them. That first moment told the defenders that they had to worry about the threat behind them and that started to open open up the game. The defenders had to start covering the space behind them, stand off the ball carrier a bit more and that meant that they couldn't press forward as much. The age old difference in making them play our game not their game

It's amazing that we aren't playing a front 3, like, absolutely amazing. I suspect that the forward line looks very different now that Remy is playing

Ben Arfa's game seemed to open up once Remy started working the left side and suddenly Fulham were getting pushed back on both sides. Prior to that it seemed the the only threat was Ben Arfa and Fulham could over man that area to shut him down. Amazing how a bit of attacking pressure opens up the game and puts doubt into the oppositions defense. Beautiful goal.

Ashley is a business man - not a fan. He makes his decisions looking at the balance sheet not the pitch, so he has a different focus to the fans. He wants to make money (either for NUFC or for SD) and how he does that does not necessarily mean that the quality of the product on the field has to be good. If Ashley thinks that SD is getting value from their brand exposure through NUFC, then he is probably content with the arrangement. The difference is that fans are only interested in the product put forth on the field, and we don't value the SD advertising (especially as it doesn;t show up on the balance sheet at NUFC).

I see the Demba loan bid as a way of pressuring Aulas to stop messing around and sell Gomis to us. And at worst a stop gap until we can sign Gomis on a pre-contract (or January bid). Based on these options it's win-win for us. Of course the likely option is that Ba says no to the loan, and we don't get Gomis either now or then, so its lose-lose.

Probably - but throw ins are just a method of getting the game restarted and in general (except for Stoke) do not result in goal scoring opportunities. I'd rather that the referee crew focused on more serious fouls and tactical misconducts rather than worrying about throw-ins at midfield. (This is a big problem in youth referees, especially beginning teen refs - for some reason they like to call foul throws but wont call a foul , so when I am the CR I always tell them that they cannot call a foul throw until they have flagged a foul).

Yes. The law says the ball cannot go directly into the goal on an IFK. It doesn't say WHO has to have the second touch before a goal can be scored.

Smart GK will let the IFK go straight in to the goal rather than trying to save it. Slightest touch means its a goal. When I coached youth teams I always told them to shoot directly on goal for an IFK because you knew that some one would panic and try and stop the shot.

Partly Correct, as long as the free kick was taken correctly then the ball is in play. The ball must, however, touch another player before a goal can be scored. The restart would be a goal kick, as the ball left the field of play over the goal Lin last touched by an attacking player.

If the defender doesn't have control of the ball then it should be a free kick, simple as. The ball must be in playing distance. You don't have to be actively playing the ball (you can just let it run) but you must be able to play it, else it's impeding that opposition

There may be a little something to this, but seeing as we don't seem to turn over players (Buy, Sell. Buy, Sell) i wouldn't say that this is particularly true. If it was we would turn over the players much more rapidly in a revolving door policy. Of course I may look very silly if we sell Cabaye, Ben Arfa and Cisse this window, but we don't seem to do that sort of transaction. Value for money seems to be the plan.....making sure that we are not over paying for players. I approve of that strategy, even if it is a painfull process at times. The challenge is knowing when to give a little, but also knowing that each time you give a little it weakens the next bargaining position.

Ref-Cam makes its debut in the MLS I think this would be excellent, and the chance to see (and better yet hear) the game from the referee view would be a great addition to a broadcast. It would help people understand the referee's view of the game, but it would also be detrimental to a referee if the ref cam captured a view of an incident and the referee missed it/didn't react to it.

Pardew is the perfect example of "Not sure if Gusta"

Sports Direct already own Lillywhites in Piccadilly Circus, and that place is always packed. I would imagine that his Oxford St location will be stocked and managed similar to Lillywhites.

Big Girly Mama

Too funny!!

You're saying that comfortable in the knowledge that we got straight back up and are ok now, who wouldn't go back and throw in an FA Cup as well? The fact is not every relegation goes as smoothly as ours last time. We'd be relying on players like Cabaye doing what the likes of Nolan did last time around, and can we realistically expect players like that to stay? The instrumental players we had last time have all either left us since, will possibly be leaving us this summer (Colo) and have simply got worse since (Jonas), so if it happens again it'll be completely different. I think a lot of fans are underestimating just how bad a relegation can be because of our season in the Championship a few years ago. I asked the question, in hind-sight, because it provided one view into the future (i.e. that we came back up) because everyone seemed to think that once a team is relegated then they never get back up. We though that back in 2009 and that seems to be the thought now. But we did come straight back up, so there is/was a scenario that you can win the cup, get relegated but come straight back up. However, with each scenario, there is the alternate reality.....we stay up in 2009 preserving our PL status (so no cup win) but get relegated in 2010. So was the decision to stay up a worthwhile decision (This is an open question not aimed directly at you Decky).

Was relegation devastating last time?