Tachikoma

Pardew really needs to explain what he sees in what Jonas offers going forward. It's absolutely nothing to anyone with eyes. Winning freekicks I suppose.

Meh, I haven't seen the latest match so I can't understand the hate. I think he's our best bet to pick out a killer pass from "the hole" behind the strikers, and uses the ball even better than HBA does from that position.

He's the closest thing we have to a true No.10. This is effectively his first season with us anyway, give him the time to adapt.

Obertan over Ben Arfa, Jonas over Marveaux, Perch over Anita, the list does go on a bit... Oh yeah, Shola over Cisse for the central striking position.

Its just late enough for me to catch it over here, woohoo. Just realised that Eto'o captains these guys, hmmm.

I wasn't suggesting Pards will ever be as good or even close to as good as Ferguson. My point was merely that even the greatest managers had points in their career where they could, justifiably, have been judged to be doing a bad job. Not repeatedly though. Pardew wasn't sacked by West Ham and Southampton for nothing.

Tiote, Perch and...? The ghost of Clarence Acuna Jonas I suppose. Anita should still have come on instead of Perch.

Fuck off Pardew, just fuck off. ... lol.

Gouff is a tad wasted on the left, should be up top with Cisse. I know, 4-4-2, but still.

Phew. Now lets stop this sitting back business and finish this off.

Lol Cisse

Hmmmm... should I swap Mata for Gerrard this week...

Good player. ... not a patch on Marveaux though <_<

Two footed tackle on Jonas

*ugh* just thinking about it makes me wince

This. AND SENSIBLE SUBS?!

53, could have been so much more with the right captain and sub choices

Indeed, sitting back itself isn't the problem, the problem is that we're incredibly shit at it. I don't think having better players is going to change that, its more to do with how the coach drills the team. Every Prem side I've seen has a certain routine when it comes to sitting back, or setting up for the counter. We don't seem to have a better plan than lumping it up to the strikers.

Why? Tiote has been s**** this season he doesn't deserve to start until he proves otherwise. I agree with that team apart from gouffran. I think marveaux would be better with gouffran coming of the bench. Also i still think tiote is our best dm. He puts a tackle in and should start ahead of anita because anita hasnt got the height and tackling ability tiote has. Depends on who we're playing, I'd play Anita in games we'd expect to dominate - although this season that seems to be none of them

In my mental image of myself, I had a 7 incher and rippling muscles and a significantly darker complexion. Still can't rap if my life depended on it though.

... Gouffran?

I wonder if I'm the only poster who has tried to imitate Sissoko (or what I thought he'd be like) on the pitch. Got a goal and assist for my work but it still hurts to walk 3 days after the match.

In practical terms though, its pretty tricky to trap a ball with no one but Villa defenders around you.

Taylor would have been my first change, a poor winger is less of a problem than a poor central defender. Didn't think he was that bad myself, my point was several times Jonas got the ball. or should i say lost, miscontrolled the ball when a better player may have had us on the counter attack. Saylor shouldn't have started in the first place imo, Mapoop should. Mapoop

Lambert won the tactical changes hands down....he still didn't win from behind either. And we survived by the skin of our teeth. What's the point you're trying to make? Sometimes you deserve to come from behind and win, but you don't. We've lost from a leading position an awful lot recently. 4 times in 11 games. Which has been infuriating. Obviously we're nervous about it. Not sure the last time it happened before Stoke though. Maybe we've deserved it on occasion last season, but I can't think of any this season Hard to put it all down to luck when it has never happened in Pardew's entire spell here, however.