Taylor Swift

you're drunk Dyer was a difference maker who'd make us instant contenders for Europe if we had him now, and he could easily play in a title contending team. Nolan is a mid-table player.

No way, man. Jose's the best defensive LB in the league. Only A Cole comes close and he doesn't possess Jose's strength. Overall, Jose's probably behind him and maybe Evra, although Evra hasn't been as good as he was two seasons ago. I like Baines also; he's better than Jose going forward, but not as good defensively. Actually, from the little I've seen of Kolarov, he's as good as Jose (overall; he's not as good defensively but makes up for it with his attacking play).

Take a look at Liverpool when they were good two seasons ago. They had Mascherano and Alonso in CM, and Kuyt and some shitfuck on the left. Barton's probably as good a player as Kuyt, and Ben Arfa is as good as anything they have on the left, but Liverpool completely dominated matches. They had more possession, more chances, and inevitably, scored more goals, and it all stemmed from having midfielders that contributed to the style and shape of the team. Tiote is our Mascherano - equally good imo. The only difference between our teams is Nolan and Alonso. Now Alonso was never prolific but he was so instrumental to their team (like he is now to Madrid) that his weakness in terms of goalscoring was more than made up by the intangible value of being able to dictate the game and control the ball. If we are to progress, I see us having to go the same route. That, of course, means that we need some good strikers. We won't be able to get a Torres, but none of us are expecting to challenge for the title. If we are able to get some decent, mobile strikers, I think Nolan will quickly become superfluous in the team, while our other midfielders won't.

I don't really have a comment on that debate. The issue I have is how we progress from where we are right now, and the key areas, imo, are strikers, a right winger and then it's Nolan's position in the team. I think we're good enough in all other areas to be real challengers for Europe season-in season-out. Football is about controlling the game. If you have the ball, the other team will always find it hard to score, regardless of how good your defence is. Sure, you may have some shit defenders who are prone to mistakes (ahem, Arsenal), but if you control the ball for most of the match, you're going to end up winning more often than not (this Arsenal exemplifies). Which means, then, that you need excellent midfielders with some mobile strikers who can exploit the weaknesses in opposition teams to controll the ball and dominate the match. Take a look at Barca and their players. Their three midfielders aren't particularly fast nor do they particularly excel at goal-scoring, but they control the ball so well that their defence can push up so high and choke the opposition strikers out of the game. Their defence has good players, but it's the shape of the team and their style of football that enables them to control the game and thus concede very few goals. It's the midfield and the strikers that allows this to happen. I look at our team and I see players who contribute in this intangible way. I see Jonas - in his good days - who is one of the best outlets in our team, who allows our defence to push up, who pushes the other teams back which allows us to control the game. I saw Carroll who was able to hold the ball up and intimidate defences, which allowed our midfielders more time on the ball. I think Tiote is a magnificent player - probably the most important player in our team right now - and he's a player who's good on the ball and contributes so much to the shape of the team. Then I look at Nolan and all I see is goals. That would actually be fine if he was a striker, but he's not. He's occupying one of the most crucial positions on the pitch, and goals alone just aren't enough. They're more than enough now, for us, for a newly promoted team and for a team which would be more than happy at finishing 10th, but they will not be enough if we want to challenge regularly for Europe. He just doesn't contribute enough. That doesn't mean that he's not contributing enough now, because he does, but if we are to aspire to more, then I think it's less likely that we do so if he's a starter in the team.

Nolan's missed three matches, two of which was very early in the season IIRC. I don't think that's a big enough sample size to determine whether we're better or worse off with him not starting. We saw what happened when Tiote was banned, however, and that's why I think it's a given that Tiote's one of the most important players in our team right now, if not the most based on the position he plays.

I still think his game is very limited, regardless of how many goals he's scored. I think it's quite likely that he doesn't go through the same green patch next season and more people will come to realise what a limited footballer he is. I'll also say that our 'style' isn't affected when he's not playing, but it is when Tiote is not because Tiote is the spine of our team. Nolan's taken a lot of the chances that's come his way this season and for that he deserves a lot of credit, but I don't think it's likely that he's third joint Prem scorer next season at this stage of the season.

It's not the FA's rule. It's FIFA's rule.

He's been excellently defensively for all his time here. You could see from his first few matches that he took his time to settle in offensively, but he was always a beast in defence. It took him maybe the first season to sort out his shit passing and there are still stray passes every now and then, but there wasn't a winger who got the better of him in my memory.

Yep. They're just too soft. When Arsenal won shit they had a spine that scared the shit out of other teams.

OMG

neesy talking about people lacking a perspective on things...

Nasri is running the show.

van Persie!!!

Zigic misses a sitter. Arsenal choking in a big match.

Zigic, 1-0.

Awesome run by Nasri.

Should have been a pen and a red card.

These two quotes sum up our support. The very contrast in optimism and pessimism is astounding. The top quote is more factually correct btw. Fwiw, Apisith never said that his 40 points comment directly applied to Newcastle. Just making an observation. It did. Sorry. The priority is still survival. We're playing decently but we're still not safe. Everton are a much better bet for a European place than we are. If only they could show some sort of consistency, they'd easily climb the table.

Get in, West Ham. It looks like 40 points won't do it this year.

Nike don't own any factories so they don't choose how much labourers get paid.

Most minimum wage labourers here actually want overtime work because it pays more. Without it, they can't survive. I don't know whose fault that is, but that's the reality.

What's the best site for football shirts in general? Especially if you want to print your name on it.

No, it was aimed at Apisith. Be honest. Stu and I have made up.

That's quite easily explanable if you consider the fact that we were selling players up front and buying players on installments. So it's easily possible for our cashflow to be fine for a couple of years (because we were getting money from selling players up front) but then our cashflow would have to deteriorate quite astonishingly when the money went out for the players we bought on installments. So actually, the -£5m probably masked our financial problems. The club was losing money each year (as shown in the accounts). The fact that only -£5m went out that year can probably be attributed to getting money in earlier than it was due (like getting the sponsorship money paid early, or selling players up front), but then obviously the opposite would happen in the years after i.e. instead of our cashflow showing a reasonable number, it'd show a seriously worrying number. I know there have been comments coming from the new regime that many of the transfers were still being paid off, which fits in with the story that I've described. quayside has also explained it well in the post above. Our trade creditors declined, meaning that not as many people owed us money (meaning cash was being paid up front, or we re-negotiated some installments, asking for early payment and probably giving those clubs a discount) while our trade debtors increased (meaning we were paying in installments). What quayside describes also fits in with the comments coming out from the regime that we were operating on a sell up front, buy in installments model. That's actually technically the best way to maximise your present value of money, but it's only all right when you're not making a substantial loss year in year out because in the end you don't have money to pay for stuff. We were heading in that direction.

Doyle is fucking shite. Even worse than Carlton Cole. We're done for 3 years if we sign either of them to be a main striker.