Ashley17

Aston Villa: Friedel, Cuellar, Davies, Laursen, Milner, Reo-Coker, Petrov, Barry, Ashley Young, Agbonlahor, Carew. Subs: Guzan, Luke Young, Sidwell, Harewood, Knight, Shorey, Gardner. Villa going for 3-5-2 to match Pompey? Seems a bit odd...

Who's booing Downing?

Boro's kids have all been fucking shit here

I know I was agreeing Yeah.... Just the way you said it made it sound like you were making a totally new point, nevermind

You know the bit where he said "just not as a pairing"? Yeah...

How depressing to have failed to qualify 18 months in advance

Walcott is really pointless in a home game out wide, away from home its not so bad as there's space to exploit but he can't cross for shit. Much rather have SWP out there now he actually plays club football. Beckham can just be trotted out to play 20 minutes if it's necessary. What happened to our abundance of centre halves? Upson or Lescott and Upson gets in.....right. It's about time someone got some balls and dropped Lampard or Gerrard, don't care if it's alongside Barry or Hargreaves but pick them on form for fuck sake. And on this form, it's Lampard.

Elano scored against us last season on a colder night... But Robinho? Jo's used to it, I dunno, we never got at City last time we just let them piss all over us. What!? We pissed on them for large chunks of this fixture last year, first half in particular we missed a hatful of chances.

Oh I forgot Joe Cole was injured, conundrum solved.

There was a bit towards the end when Shola had a chance to run through one on one, he had a 5 yard headstart on Jagielka, he was caught before he'd taken 2 strides

Ashley Young for Downing A better centre back for Matthew fucking Upson - shouldn't be too hard to find Owen should surely be in there somewhere, however you can't leave out Defoe on recent form (even if he's dogshit at International level by and large) Rooney is a guaranteed starter alongside Heskey or Crouch. Anyone who played against Croatia isn't going to be dropped from the squad, be interesting to see if he goes back to Gerrard/Lampard. I hope he leaves Gerrard out tbh, think if it's one of him or Lampard, Lampard has been better this season.

I'm fucking sick of Dirk Kuyt, I swear he does nothing in a game but then pops up to score a late winner

Well I'm fucking exhausted Good game and we just about shaded it I reckon - Shay - Same old, some pointless hoofs downfield, something we had stopped doing in recent times Taylor - Great header, and a great run for the assist. Defensively, well not great still but at least at right back it's not always as calamitous when he makes mistakes. Enrique - Looked confused to be subbed. Will be away in January. Coloccini - So good at defending on the deck, lost a lot in the air against Yakubu as you would expect Cacapa - Meh, seen worse from him, good second half. Bassong - Strong, gets forward better than Enrique IMO. Guthrie - Didn't touch the ball for 20 minutes, but second half he was his usual steady self, kept things ticking over and rarely gave it away. Wish he'd put his foot through that chance in the first half instead of trying to place it. Butt - Gave away yet another pen but was better in possession today for a change Geremi - Few decent crosses, but I wouldn't like to rely on him N'Zogbia - Looked like the N'Zogbia of old, actualyl ran at - and beat - players, unlucky not to score (what a block!) Duff - Lot of effort, few decent runs, looks more confident but until he does it on a regular basis then it's for nothing Owen - Quiet, but it's no longer his game to lead the line, and he did look better when Shola came on Shola - Actually controlled a football, shrugged off his man and squared it to an on-running team mate. 10 minutes of "If Shola scores we're on the pitch" was funny, wonder what he thinks of it. Overall, a point is better than none and we're up to 18th! Just typical when we should be glad of a point we could have had all 3. That's NUFC in a nutshell though

Goodison Park playing Never gonna give you up. Biggest rick roll in history?

Subs: Harper, Bassong, Xisco, Shola, Donaldson, Donninger, Edgar

I was just interested in how it would be perceived, let me re-phrase then: Assume Keegan comes back and we get new owners (i.e. stability (until Keegan leaves again, before someone else says it)) with the current squad, are we still relegation fodder or do you think we will be okay?

If Keegan comes back, are we still relegation strugglers or do we return to "top half hopefulls"?

If he's working at Stoke does this mean we even have to pay compensation to get this moron on board?

Geremi produced 4 of the flattest corners I have ever seen btw. Was disgusting. What annoys me most about Duff is he's so easy to defend against. He thinks about taking his man on and just can't do it so he turns round passes backwards. Adds nothing to the team whatsoever

That might have been me! I believe the phrase "he's utter dogshite" was uttered

Just back from the game. Too fucked off to go into any depth but a few pointers: Stadium was empty, obviously. 5 minutes before kick off there must have been about 10,000 there, I took pictures of this which I'll post when I can be arsed, but thankfully it filled out in the 5 minutes before kick off. Felt pretty eerie at the time. Taylor....christ. It's bad enough that he lost the ball where he did but to Jamie O'Hara for fuck sake. Credit to the guy in the Gallowgate (who looked a bit like jimburst, incidentally) who ripped into Taylor and left on the spot. A very angry man. Geremi is fucking shit. Duff is really fucking shit. Butt is absolutely really fucking shit. Cacapa wasn't as bad as I thought he would be in midfield - no, he's not the answer, but he wasn't completely shit. Martins is lost without service, obviously. Owen took his goal well but it's a shame to see our number 1 talisman 10 yards outside his own box looking for the ball. Zog tried a lot, ran down some pointless avenues and inexplicably showed Lennon on to his right for their 1st goal. Should play on the left of a 3 in midfield definitely. Bassong - canny player, encouraging. Colo - Aye. We looked so much better in a 4-3-3, it just makes sense without a creative midfield player. Unfortunately Butt is the only one who can play the DM role, put Zog to the left and *sigh* Geremi to the right, Owen/Martins/Xisco up top and see what happens. Anything's better than watching an hour of backwards passing until the other team inevitably pick us off. Also Chris Foy had an absolute shitter.

I'm feeling very similar to when we were under Roeder and we lost at home to Sheff Utd. We had loads of injuries at the time and we still finished 14th or thereabouts so chins up and stop moaning.

I'm going but I can't say I'm excited by it

That ref will be doing league 2 next weekend then

Makes you wonder what goes on in training like. Bassong might really not apply himself in training, or something like that