Dr Venkman

We don't need to improve our attacking play though, we've just scored goals for fun against 2 of the top teams in the league. It's our defensive play that needs improving. Keeping the ball stops your opponent scoring. Aye, that worked a treat against Arsenal. you know what i mean, cheeky scamp

We shouldn't really be asking him to be too involved with build up play though. You have to in this day and age. Even Defoe has been improving that side of the game and Bent isn't getting a game partly because of it. Ba is hardly Bergkamp but he's better in that regard and Cissse needs to develop that part of his game. That's a fair point. I do think he's equal to Ba in terms of hold up though, even better on some occasions. He can't really do the brute force backing in type stuff but his ball control is often much better and he releases the ball quicker. There's a bit of unfair stuff being said about him in the Ba thread as well with regards to him playing in a 2. I don't see any reason why he wouldn't flourish in a 2 if we found him the right partner and created some chances from wide, Debuchy should help massively with this.

We don't need to improve our attacking play though, we've just scored goals for fun against 2 of the top teams in the league. It's our defensive play that needs improving. Keeping the ball stops your opponent scoring.

Everyone's just reconciling it within themselves. At this point it seems pointless to fight the inevitable so everyone starts looking for the silver lining. Not me pal. The positives in this move have been staring us in the face for months, IF he's replaced properly.

Bollocks, Cisse's hold up play is regularly more accomplished than Ba's and that's without having as big a physique. Ba CAN do different jobs and roles but that's useless when he spits the dummy when asked to do his bit for the team. Call Ba the best striker we've had since Shearer, that's fine. He isn't ACTUALLY Shearer for gods sake.

I can sort of understand them not paying higher than a price that was already agreed, if that was the case, as it could set a precedent for other deals going forward. It's only sort of though, as a fan obviously I'd have preferred they paid the extra money and we'd had him sooner.

1) He's a very experienced player. 2) Look at who he's replacing.

Disagree, he'll be in as soon as possible imo.

Incidentally, I hope Pardew's learned his lesson and the next time a player suggests that they would prefer to play in a certain position every week, they're told who makes the decisions and that's that.

We shouldn't really be asking him to be too involved with build up play though.

we do, but don't forget how good HBA is as part of a front 3.

Which would be fair enough considering it's Chelsea, but even if he did only move for money, wouldn't you? Multiple clubs appear to be willing to pay him what he wants, so he's obviously worth it. Point your blame at Ashley, not Ba. If he's replaced I'm not sure there's any 'blame' to be dished out is there? We signed a striker on a free who had a 1 in 2 scoring record for us and we've ended up getting a fee for him. As football goes that's a pretty good bit of business.

Why do people always result to using words like 'magic' and 'automatically' when it comes to stuff like this? What does suggest that Cisse will be every bit as good as competent as Ba if he's deployed in his correct position, is his scoring record. Magic's got nowt to do with it. Exactly, we've even had half a season witnessing it with our own eyes! 'Cisse's not just magically gonna start scoring because you play him through the centre'. I've heard loads of it recently. Of course he won't magically start scoring, he'll use his fucking feet (and shins) the same way he's done for his whole career.

Why do people always result to using words like 'magic' and 'automatically' when it comes to stuff like this? What does suggest that Cisse will be every bit as competent as Ba if he's deployed in his correct position, is his scoring record. Magic's got nowt to do with it.

This is an anomaly imo, we put the clause in to get him here and it's been a good bit of business considering how well he's done. We all know that it usually takes daft offers to get players with standard contracts out of the club.

It is a concern, I've always had a feeling we'd come out of it ok though for reasons already covered, let's wait and see.

I'll stick to what I've been saying for months, with a clever signing this can be handled just fine.

At least everything's getting done early

His attitude fucking stinks, did you see him yesterday waggling his finger at Tiote for having the audacity to pass him the ball when he was in space? I'd have gone mental at someone for that sort of attitude in a five a side game never mind the highest level of professional football. He's a shit footballer and he's a total fucking knob.

Got pass the duchie stuck in my head now.

I'd be fucking delighted if this were true.

His defending was like that of a school kid. Yep, but he did carry a threat when attacking and got an assist, for the second game running.

That's the first time I've seen him start in the premier league and look anything other than useless. An improvement

This is one situation where you can absolutely say that we were right and the manager was wrong. And none of this 'well maybe he was holding him back until he was ready' shite either, he categorically got it wrong and he does that far too often, see HBA last season.

Now looks completely unreliable under pressure, which is the worst attribute to have playing in his position. Plays with his head down, the opposite to Bigi. Bigi plays poor passes but they're usually when he's trying to make something happen going forward and is in the opponents half. Tiote loses it when he's closed down in our half, much more dangerous.