Dr Venkman

They'll sit off us in the derby and try to hit us on the break. We'll score 2 in the first half and they'll collapse.

Based on what? His inability to use his left foot, i think he would be much more comfortable on the right. he does use his left foot. you think maldini, lahm etc would be more comfortable on the right. i'm not saying he is or isn't this or that just the idea of ' he's right footed so should play on the right ' is s****. Lahm can tackle with his left, so could Maldini, Santon cant do that. He will always look to tackle with his right, which leaves him exposed and vulnerable when the man goes to the byline.... You cant use Maldini's ability as reasoning for playing him LB. can't really remember anyone going past santon on the outside when he hasn't been done for positioning (more naive than owt else) Off the top of my head, downing did. whats he doing over there, the left footed downing ? Gotta pick you up on that. There's a huge difference between natural sided wingers and fullbacks. Fullbacks see more of the ball generally and very often right at the start of the team having possession the ability to push it up the line into space after receiving it from the centre half is really important. I mean staying in possession btw, not just a first time pass up the line.

No it doesn't. The abilities of a player are the deciding factor in a players best position, not where managers choose to play them due to the needs of the team. As it happens we need him to play left back right now. With regards to Madras saying he hasn't been beaten on the outside, I'd go further and say his key attribute in defending on the left is the ability to intercept passes between him and Colo with his right, that's the benefit of him being on that side.

We'll see this teams potential with him on the right and a left footer on the left. As Ian has said, two natural fullbacks and two wingers cutting in is a much better balance.

on the other hand it means he can cut in towards the box and have the ball on his supposed better foot for shooting or passing. at least a couple of times against QPR i was screaming at him to shoot as he cut in inside the box and had a clear sight, much better than going outside to look to cross. Pretty soon we'll have Ba and Cisse to aim for, I'll take a good cross into the box over a shot in those circumstances.

Sinclair's grown his hairstyle to Jazzy Jeff proportions.

nothing's changed at all about his game lads, he's been utterly shit with the odd great performance, for ten years

maybe in theory, in practise he trailed ben arfa rerady to do his covering for him. against QPR? not as far as i could see. only saw second half today like but didnt see it there either.

Ah, I know he's been getting down the right wing and laying it across, just hadn't seen him whip a cross in Saw him whip one in against QPR after about five mins on the pitch, we won a corner from it iirc

Seen a few people surprised that Jonas was central today, he played there for 70 mins against QPR

is it wrong i'm happy senegal are losing?

No need to rest anyone, go full strength, we've got a really good chance of winning this with the three African lads coming back for the next round. Obertan can fuck off out of all these starting line ups.

Not only is he clearly brilliant his stats here back it up. Goals and assist ratio compared to games started is very impressive. And Stu, I've seen him put a few good crosses in during his games on the right :-)

He's started blaming the players already? Nice one, didn't think it would be this straight forward tbh. Hope they finish in the bottom half.

Well other than us losing and the mackems winning that's a good day for us.

how on the very earth can this ever be the case? we NEED to win games when our main rivals do, not when they lose ffs You know what i meant you massive spacker the opposite of what you said?

how on the very earth can this ever be the case? we NEED to win games when our main rivals do, not when they lose ffs

Liverpool

I'd be worried if it happened every week, just the once isn't overly concerning for now imo

fwiw in the second half only HBA looked capable of doing anything going forward. I saw Jonas, Best and Shola all run out of ideas and just deciding to shoot from 35 yards.

Only saw the second half but that was very reminiscent of WBA at home imo. The formula they had for breaking us down was scarily easy like, lofted ball into Zamora who was 5 yards off our defence, back to Murphy or Baird, chip over the top to Johnson or Dempsey. Every single time.

The amount of times we've been caught in behind here man, dear me.

Were you lot telling the truth about the first half? Coz all I'm seeing is balls pinged at Shola coming straight back.

Well this has been fun

Plan B is now Plan A, and it's fucking mint.