Yorkie

Couldn't argue with that one tbf. Geremi was doing very little, and we were in desperate need for more width. Bringing Faye on to cover allowed Milner, Shola and Martins to go up in a wide trio. Not that it worked like, but the logic wasn't wrong.

Harper - 5. Sort out your positioning ffs. Cracking strike but where the fuck was he for that goal? Taylor - 5. Couldn't play a pass, offered nothing going forward. Rozehnal - 5. Clumsy in all areas, and offered very little going forward. Caçapa - 6. Fairly solid. N'Zogbia - 5. Pretty shite going forward, passing was atrocious, but atleast showed some endeavour. Smith - 4. He was playing? Ah yeah, he was the one with the footballing sithe in his hand - i remember. Geremi - 6. He's going to be good for us, he's a tough-tackling ball player. Needs to be played with someone who can actually attack, though... Butt - 4. ... utter dogshit. Worst player on the pitch. He didn't have a clue where the fuck he was half the time. Milner - 6. Worked his balls off and looked like the only one who could creat something, though that was a rarety in itself. Ameobi - 4. Utterly terrible. There to do a job, win balls, hold it up, and play it. Also maybe get himself into one or two goalscoring positions and maybe, maybe shoot on target. Did none of that. Owen - 6. Not in it, but did well rounding Bywater. --- Still, and although it sounds like it now, it's not a lost cause. This performance will be anomoly when you look back at our first ten games, i reckon.

In fairness though, people preaching about knee-jerking are right. It was one of them shite nights where, unfortunately, the opposition had to treat it like a cup final. In hindsight, a win was always unlikely, it's just unfortunate that we were too shit to even sneak a draw. Sam'll learn a lot from this aswell and hopefully the likes of Emre and Viduka could be back soon. We'll beat West Ham. Desperate for Barton to be back more than anyone, though. Oh and Ramage.

Dreadful tonight. Think Caçapa was the only one to put in a 'half-decent' performance, he wasn't great, but every other member of the team was utter wank. You can include the manager in that little shortlist of wankness aswell. Allardyce has done wonders so far, no debate about it, but his line-up was a joke tonight. Smith and Ameobi both starting again - fucking ludicrous. People were scared of being passed to by N'Zogbia - it was either too slow or he fucking smacked it at them, with the ball consequently ricocheting out of play. Ameobi doesn't have a very good first touch, honest. Butt was just atrocious, in every respect. Smith just wasn't in it; you can't fit him in, Sam - drop him. Rozehnal wants to be a centre-mid and Harper needs to learn how to position himself (welcome back Given, btw). Apart from that i thought we were pretty decent.

Hell's teeth man. Hell's fucking teeth.

Stumped me well and truly. One, he wore 'Maric' on his shirt, Silvio was his first name. Two he wasn't a striker, was he? And three, who in their right mind would play Ketsbaia and Maric up top together? Well, Gullit, but yeah.

Christ. He's more Geordie than any other fucker born in Greenwhich.

Lee. Shit! Jesus .

Who's the other centre-mid!!! The three-lettered one...

I'm off out to watch the game with my Derby-mad uncle. Can NOT wait.

8 minutes and 30 seconds... so far. Took ages on Solano. Silvio Maric is stupid aswell, he never wore that on the back of his shirt. I guess i should really know the three-lettered centre-mid, then..........

Short term, we have to try Owen and Martins. Long term, Viduka/Owen no question.

And the person who mentioned Savo .... firstly, he only cost 3.5m. Secondly, he scored 29 goals in 85 league matches. Hardly brilliant, but one in three is hardly flop territory. Eh? EDIT: Quoted completely the wrong bit there. I was meant to be eh-ing at the Ivo Stas thing...

Man City won 1-0.

If FS has ideas of pairing Owen with Martins I'd sooner he did it in training or in practice matches rather than when there are 3 points at stake. Should just go with whatever is thought to be your best team, really. For me that is still one from Owen/Martins plus one from Smith/Viduka. Would you agree that, at the moment, the two best performing strikers are Owen and Martins? They haven't been paired together so we don't know whether they'll be good/shit/whatever, but it's worth finding out given how well they're playing and given the opposition's defense. It just brings me back to the team game thing. You can't always pick the players reckoned to be your best players. It's like Gerrard and Lampard being *supposedly* England's best two midfielders yet the team looks crap when they're together. I knew you were going to say something like that. But Gerrard/Lampard has been tested hundreds of times and never worked. Martins/Owen has been tried two or three times... who are we to write off two quality players like that? Viduka isn't playing well at the moment (Smith doesn't come into the equation i don't think), and would make an excellent impact sub if he was initially benched. I personally think it's in Viduka's best interests that we ease him back into the side anyway... Martins/Owen v Derby ftw.

If FS has ideas of pairing Owen with Martins I'd sooner he did it in training or in practice matches rather than when there are 3 points at stake. Should just go with whatever is thought to be your best team, really. For me that is still one from Owen/Martins plus one from Smith/Viduka. Would you agree that, at the moment, the two best performing strikers are Owen and Martins? They haven't been paired together so we don't know whether they'll be good/shit/whatever, but it's worth finding out given how well they're playing and given the opposition's defense.

Gah! I agree witih Shak aswell, just for the record. But what you're outlining there Shak is my idea of the long-term formula. Short-term, Owen and Martins should be tried out against Derby imo.

Scratch what i said earlier. It's a shite comparison altogether tbh. Upson's years older than Taylor, plays for a different club, has already featured in the England set-up, and is an absolute crock.

For me, too, Viduka would be the centrepoint of our attacking prowess, then Owen in behind as you say. But Viduka isn't fully fit, and i'm not impressed with Smith so far. Martins is erratic, yes, but when he's high on confidence and playing well he's sublime - and he's both those things at the moment. He's the second best striker at the club currently, and deserves a place in the side. I'm not saying it's the best long-term partnership, and your philosophy of Owen being better when in behind/playing off someone is spot on; i'm just saying that Martins and Owen is worth a go at this present moment in time. Also, if you look closely at his recent games (i'm excluding the England games here, because Heskey has been playing), Owen has been doing a lot more 'getting about', and generally doing more work in and around the box than before he got the injuries. Martins could profit from that. Also, against a slow Derby defense lacking in quality, and with Milner and N'Zogbia running the flanks, we could pass them off the pitch - and with two pacy strikers in the shape of Owen and Oba, we could quite possibly wipe the floor with them tomorrow night. Also - as i mentioned previously in the thread, if the strike-force is lacking the cutting edge in the second half, we can withdraw one of them and Viduka would make an excellent impact sub. Or even Smith. Like i say, it's not the best long-term combination in the squad, but it's worth a shot tomorrow night.

Matthew Upson and Steven Taylor are compareable in the respect that, when both at 22/23, they each had/have the potential to be excellent footballers. What makes them uncompareable is Upson's hurrendous injury record.

Pretty bold statement, given that it's only ever been tried once. And that was in one of our shittest performances of the season (well, tbh, was probably one of our better ones ) at Reading. You can't make that judgement yet. I think it could work to an extent, if enforced properly. They've conbined well in their last couple of games after all, albeit for limited time on the clock.

I'd be well annoyed if Smith was picked upfront ahead of Viduka and especially Martins in this game. I think Smith can do a good job up there, don't get me wrong, but Martins does not deserve to be benched again.

Yes, but the idea is that Taylor could become very good in time and we've got Cacapa, Rozenhal and possibly Faye to play at CB already. IF he's acting the twat and thinks he's the next John Terry and starts making outlandish demands then I've absolutely no problem with getting rid of him. But it's insane that so many people see him as not having the potential to be anything more than average, or "another Bramble". He's 21 and has been playing alongside truly wretched defenders his entire career here and has still managed to look a cut above pretty much all of them. We bring in Cacapa and Rozenhal who have a few good games between them against poor opposition and all of a sudden we have no need for someone like Taylor, a rough yet very promising prospect. Outrageously short-sighted. Pretty much all the faults I see in Taylor, and there are a few, can be eradicated with good coaching. He's not like Bramble, who you knew was going to just do something bizarre and unfathomable at any given moment, the type of thing that no amount of coaching can cure. Taylor just needs to be taught when to go for the ball-winning challenge and when to back off and make the man beat him or pick a pass. He's broken through at a time when the team has been going backwards, it's ridiculous to expect him to be the complete article yet. But it's certainly in him to become a very, very good CB. He's got some good, composed players to learn from in Rozenhal and Cacapa alongside him. I also have a lot more faith in Allardyce's coaching than the previous regimes. He should be paid roughly the same as what Milner and N'Zogbia are getting. If we're offering him significantly less, then we're being stupid about things. If he's demanding significantly more, get rid.

Yup. Will do him wonders if we start him on the bench, give him twenty minutes, then start him against West Ham/Arsenal (depending on how Martins and Owen play together). That should have been done in the first place with Viduka, imo - but then hindsight's a wonderful thing. He'll make a canny impact sub once Martins and Owen have run the legs off the defenders by seventy minutes, n'all.

Nicky Butt signing a new contract is good news, plain and simple; i'm not disappointed in the slightest. I can say that even in the knowledge that when the full squad's fit, he shouldn't be in the team, but he's just such a leader and an experienced head that he's fantastic for the dressing room alone. When he came out after the Watford game and talked about the nonchalent, disinterested players in the squad, he went up in my estimations. I bet he's an excellent, hard-faced member of the dressing room, and still a decent player. Sam's done well to get this sorted as soon as possible.