Ashley17

Ferguson was right in front of me in the first half and had a good go although not everything came off, Sammy did very little at all in that time. Sammy in his first half role was fairly pointless, he actually got in the way of Ba a number of times. But if we're comparing Fergie and Sammy's performances on the left wing, Sammy's was better, but I agree with those who have said Fergie will be better at left back. He'll be useful supporting a winger, such as Jonas, in a similar way to Enrique used to (without being freakishly strong at the back).

Sammy beat his man a few times, I'm not sure Ferguson did. Sammy's crosses were too deep and Ferguson's were dealt with by the first defender, I don't think either of them will be particularly pleased with how they played. It doesn't help that Sammy was shagged after 60 yet was still on until 79

Anita got on the end of a cross from Simpson in the 2nd half, from about 8 yards out his header barely reached the keeper. Defnitely not a strong suit

Ironically at 2-0 down we went beserk and had players roaming about all over the place, Taylor carried the ball 40 yards, ben Arfa was on the left, midfielders were in the box, it was like we were trying to score a goal, which is not like us.

They scored on 58, the next highlight on MOTD was their second goal on 87. Sadly, I can't argue with that. 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

If anyone can explain the thought process of the 2nd sub, I'd like it explained to me. We are 1-0 down. We take off the right back. We bring on a defensive midfield player. The current centre midfielder, who has been known to play right back, goes to left back. The current left back, who's had a decent game, goes to right back. I mean really, what the fuck was that all about?

I find myself watching other Premiership teams and thinking they do everything better than us. Passing, moving, scoring, defending, set pieces. Everything. There's literally only the mackems who have been shitter than us in terms of general play, and I'm not just saying that out of spite, I mean they were totally fucking gash.

It's always been super cautious from Pardew. It's all well and good protecting players from injury but the fuckers are getting injured or sent off anyway. Effectively, 7 or 8 of the players are training Monday - Wednesday knowing they aren't playing on the Thursday, and then after the European game there's a couple of days training in preparation for Sunday. Just one of the many factors contributing to our shitness

I sat between the Leazes and the East Stand and some of the "support" in there is terrible

Really fucking annoying game. We played ok for an hour, not bad but certainly not well. Then we went 1-0 down and the wheels came off. Many of our players are low on confidence and playing in front of our crowd is not the solution for that problem. Fergie & Sammy are decent prospects but nowhere good enough yet, Ferguson isn't a left winger in my opinion, he's not rapid and doesn't have the guile to go past a man. He's much better suited to left back where he can support and get a bit more time to cross a ball. Sammy was fucked after an hour but Pards left him on until 80, for some awful reason. Marveaux should have started for me, he actually gets his foot on the ball and picks a pass. He's not suited to playing wide in the 4-2-3-1 that we play in Europe but play him a bit deeper where he can get on the ball and it's a different story. Otherwise though, more shit going forward, it's Ben Arfa or nothing creativity wise and he can't do it all himself, he's running agaisnt 3 or 4 of them at a time. Ba had a bad day in front of goal, Shola still isn't the answer and I think everybody's fed up. Roll on Thursday..

Logically, you'd say play Tiote and Anita as a two and then HBA, Marveaux and Fergie or Sammy as a very loose 3 behind Ba. Won't happen though and we'll get some very one dimensional 4-4-2 play. Can't wait.

The big game is from Miami at 1am, Shola vs Venezuela

Turns out talks stalled Some ex-Livingston manager installed instead

Hope to fuck we do get through the group or our typical lame FA cup exit will mean our season is over by January.

I think you're right, if you play on the Sunday in the league and then during the week you train but you're not involved in the match day squad on the Thursday, you've then got to pick up the intensity on Friday/Saturday when the manager starts to look at the next game. Our better games have come at the mackems, Anfield (sort of), Everton (sort of) and Spurs, all of which didn't follow European games and we had a lot of time to prepare for.

Just a total shithouse performance from us, couldn't get going (partly due to Allardyce's delaying tactics) and once they went ahead Allardyce teams are a bastard to play against. What that doesn't explain is why we hoofed the ball time and time again to Ba and Cisse and latterly Shola, total waste of time especially as they picked up the 2nd ball time and time again thanks to Diame, who totally dominated midfield. 4-4-2 is a massive waste of time, fuck knows why we are persisting with it, but the solution is not to play 4-3-3 with a striker on the wing, just grow a pair and play two wingers and Ba in the middle. Cisse looks totally lost and honestly, if he hadn't scored all those goals last season you would look at him this season and think he was a total joke. It doesn't help that him and Ba don't seem to have ever met or spoken and have shown absolutely nothing towards being a potent partnership. What absolutely amazes me is that we have 0 midfielders breaking into the box, yet we also seem to have 0 outside of it, crosses or pull backs from the byline were met by nobody but headers clear would set West Ham on a counter, totally mind boggling and not for the first time this season I've had to check we have a full 11 out there, as we just seem totally inept at everything. We're shit to watch and it's hard to see us finishing top half at this rate. Out of 18 matches, or 36 halves, how many have seen us play well? Probably 3 or 4 maximum, which is depressing. As for West Ham, I don't care if Allardyce wanks himself stupid tonight for getting one over us again, I couldn't watch that sorry excuse for football every week. Second half inparticular they should be ashamed - not referring to the lads who were genuinely injured - but the other 5 or 6 who went down and called for the phsyio. That and the ridiculosu amount of time wasting in general, they were superb at it, and it irritates me greatly. This has been coming for a while, we've had some luck in avoiding defeats this season but today it ran out. Hard to see us beating a decent Swansea team but you can tell if we're going to get a result by 2pm when the teams come out. We have zero movemnt, zero imagination and zero drive. Whoop de doo

Context?

Hoping for a Joey O'Brien own goal just so we can sing any any any O'Brien, even if it's not against the mackems

I went for RVP, just need a standard week that isn't shit.

James Collins is shit but will look like Bobby Moore dealing with hoofballs all day. Agree that Ferguson is probably going to play this given that he sat out on Thursday.

Have we ever got more than a couple of points out of back to back home games? Never seems to go well for us

Should still be ok to finish top, beat Maritimo and it's all good. Doesn't go on goal difference either, should it come to that: If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings: higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question; superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question;

If Xisco scores we're on the pitch

MOTD made Coloccini look like a right cunt. Didn't notice it during the game but not his finest game for us..