Parky

Yaya Old man now.

Best allround midfielder in the PL.

Everything I think of Rodgers in a nutshell. He is a mirage the words are his camoflage.

His defence will be that he won the passing.

Clever move. Cisse is a real man.

Wenger makes all of his young players do shifts either out wide, or deeper in midfield when they're still developing. Not until they're approaching their peaks do they get given the crucial #9 or #10 positions. Fabregas is an exception I think, as he was so advanced as a 16 year old. Walcott should be playing as a striker imo.

I know what you're saying, but it wasn't just about this tournament believe me. It was how he played all the time. This is the player he was. There's nothing that would have prevented him from playing this way anywhere else. It's not as though he was only able to do these things because of some physical advantage he had. His game was based on fantastic vision, passing and technique. At a lesser level though, I'm not saying that he wouldn't be a good attacking midfielder had he went somewhere else mind, I'm just not sure that he would have been a better player if he did. Well we'll never know I guess, and that in itself is a tragedy. I personally think he would have been a much better player, because I don't think he's all that good now. What they have him doing, a 100 other tall African men could do. Totally agree. Big strong african. [/playdm].

It's like fast black players end up on the wing instead of as the main striker in a lot of situations. There is a kind of bias at work. Look at Walcott scoring record since he started coming into the middle more...He had to threaten to leave before Wenger allowed him to come in from being a one dimensional winger. I belive there are a lot of situations that athletic black players with good engines end up being asked to lock down the midfield rather than being the creative one, that's why it was very refreshing seeing Sissoko given license to play his nautral game.

Chelsea have destroyed Obi.

His in-game management is often poor. This has been partly related to our poor bench and partly to his clunky solutions. I expect to improve a bit now we have better alternatives.

Dive.

Despite clear footage to the contrary. Ok then... I saw insatnces of Pardew asking the players to stay back in that second half. No doubt. Why would he do that? Purely a coincidence that as soon as Shola stepped on the pitch, the ball started flying over our entire midfield with embarassing regularity? It was a calculated a plan. One Pardew thought was a genius idea to counter the pressure they were applying. He didn't have the confidence to allow us to settle back into a period of posession, by just freshening things up with Anita coming on for Jonas, and Mbiwa for Taylor. The man has no courage whatsoever. To leave Jonas on and take off Sissoko and Gouffran in particular, who still looked fresh, was crazy. There is method in the madness, but the method is mad.

You can describe it in a simple phrase: Contain and put away the few chances half/clear cut that we make. That was the beauty of Cisse and Ba last year, they would just score off almost anything. Infact the domination we displayed yesterday in the first half probably caught everyone by surprise. We can do it in spells in games and in the PL what happens in those spells is the key.

I really can't see how his changes did not affect the game negatively. We took Perch off for Shola, which indicated , we wanted to play more long balls and hope Shola could use his strength to bully the defenders. We wanted to sit back and counter from defense, we had Gouffran on which had pace to get behind players or to dribble but he was substituted by Anita which play the pressing role up front to my horror. Anita would not be able to score when he is on his own, clearly instructed to press the defenders and hold onto the ball when he has it. Finally his master stroke of cleverness to bring on MYM for Sissoko to battle in he midfield and hold on to the win. He replaced all the outlets that could have a impact on the counter attack Sissoko which could dribble past players under pressure (He and HBA are probably the two players that can do that for us in this team) , taking off Gouffran with pace to run at defenders. Tactically i can't see how we were not affected by his tactics to sit back and defend the lead. Never going to score from the set of players he put out at the end, it was always to hold on to the lead. IF we lost the lead, we would have lost the game like reading, clearly because our key attacking players were taken off. Think it's generally accepted the subs were from the Disney school of fooball.

There really is no doubt we sit back on leads and let teams come onto us. Seen it in exagerrated form about 20 times now. Wether that is ALL Pard or partly human nature and the players themselves getting a bit protective is hard to call, I'd say it's mostly safety first AP. Last night I could excuse it as we were on the verge of winning a historic away game and a 6 pointer at that. IMO the first sub ought to have been Anita for guti to protect Debuchy with Sissoko dropping off to cover the middle and left zone (in front of the CD's). I'd have left Gouffran on as his pace gives some threat on the counter. Don't really think the French lads were tired although clearly Cabaye coming back from a long inj was. Think a calm 541 with ball retention as the cornerstone would have seen us through with much less drama. Really think Guti needs a long break now, at least 4 weeks to re-charge his batteries and mind, his game is clearly shot for now. It will be interesting when Hatem comes back how AP sets out his stall to inc Marveux and Gouffran, I suspect Marv will go back to sub status, someting he doesn't really deserve as he's been the one light in the tunnel for a month or so. I would like to see two holding (Sissoko and Cabaye) and the 3 AM/F all starting (especially at home). He won't do that in a million years. AP's thinking was so basic and obvious there is really no arguing around it. Shola was there as a target man and a few dozen hoofs (that just come back immediately) were aimed in his general direction. It is a solution, but I'd argue not at this level. Should have kept perch on and packed the mf with wide cover and gone to a slower tempo shorter game (most of these internationals do that as second nature in the national sides). I was very irritated Perch came off as he had put in some good 'reducers' on a couple of their players who looked scared when he ran at them again. The type of very high quality player we have now should be allowed to play their natural game and anything else will seem foreign to them and demoralise them. We can do it we did it for 20/30 min at ManU and Arsenal and for 45 last night. For me AP's biggest weakness is that he doesn't understand movement and space and thinks formations are the key. We have weapons now that can be more fluid. Make it so.

3-2 to us.

This is the 20m pound player Tiote isn't.

This was one game bulbnapper could have done some damage with the whole Villa side in our half.

Yup Marveux for Guti and it would have been 3/4 goals in the first half.

Think Villa are gone with Reading and one other - probs qpr. Norwich and Fulham are dropping like stones.

The French players have arrived with enough coaching (from their former clubs) not to be a danger to us till that wears off.

Would have left Goof and Sissoko on and taken Guti off for Anita. Not sure what Pards was upto there. I'm not going to lay into him tonight however as this was a manful victory and a very good first half which saw a well connected side. The Villa comment is just manager speak as he senses Villa are in trouble and he's just bouying up a fellow manager, no need to read armageddon into it.

Nice debut. Lovely movement around the park and happy to accept the ball anywhere and try something. Bargain.

You're mistaking confidence and momentum for weakness IMO. We don't lack spirit, we're just nervous because we've had such a bad run. Yup. This will be a massive confidence boost. Thought Sissoko and Gouffran played really well and without fear, that is the kind of thing fresh minds and legs brings to the squad.

Seems to be lacking a bit of fitness - quite laboured when running as the game went on.