Tachikoma

Ugh, just saw it and it was arguably a worse tackle than the one on HBA. Didn't even pretend to go for the ball.

Whether he's ready or not I can't see how he could contribute less to the game than Nolan does.

Should've brought him on instead of Carroll just to go up to De Jong and launch a studs-first flying tackle at his nose. That tackle would have repaid the 6 mil we paid for him, right there.

Not worth wasting him on thugs like that. Smith on the other hand...

Yeah, he practically trapped Ben Arfa's left foot with his own left, and applied a scissor kick to finish it off.

.... fucking hell.

Anything that isn't a hammering would be a bonus.

He could be useful to us someday... if the club forces a weight control regime on him that brings his weight down to the light heavyweight class at least.

He's a player learning, there was nothing for him to do in that match because he was isolated. Fair enough his defensive duties didn't make the grade but really not many would have faired much better the way we played Carroll yesterday. He had no service, Routledge managed only a couple of decent crosses in to the box, but were too far away from Carroll, wrong angles or pace and his only really chance for me came from Jonas and he at least hit the target, one or two more of them and he might have got a goal. The team 2nd half was atrocious, uninspired crap, we can't expect the young lads to pick us up, it has to come from our captain and senior players but those have shown to be the real problems, ones which show no signs of going away until their contracts run out. You mentioned his movement, but really his movement was typical of the whole front line. Carroll needs a partner to help with the burden, preferably a fast tricky player he can flick and head on too and be set up by. HBA is the only player we've got that matches that description even though he's not a striker but that means dropping Nolan, and that isn't happening apart from injury or hell freezing over. I agree with you mostly. Obviously playing up front alone and Hughton's stupid insistence for Nolan to 'support' him contributed to him not beng able to do anything of substance. But putting these factors aside, he too had a poor game (perhaps measured by his earlier performances). What struck me the most was that he wasn't making any runs at all. Surely he realized at some point that it was gonna be difficult for him to outmuscle both Huth and Shawcross, but even when HBA ran to the middle and looked up for a killer pass, Carroll jus remained static. There were just no options for HBA. Compare this to his run against Villa for the last goal. My assessment of him does not depend on him scoring, like against Everton eventhough he didnt score, I thought he had a decent game. Remember that run he made when HBA perhaps passed a split second too late? Carrol had a shot anyway but the keeper saved. Didn't see any of that against Stoke. Agree with Alpal, though he wasn't atrocious by any means IMO. Don't like the idea of having a nippy second forward just so Carroll can flick stuff on to him - it would seriously under-utilise his capabilities and make our team play unnecessarily ugly and one-dimensional stuff. If Carroll had dropped back a bit and collected the ball at his feet, he could have held the ball up and encouraged our relaxed midfield forward a bit more - that was my main gripe. No shame in winning only 50% of your headers when you're facing fucking Stoke - even if you are as good in the air as Carroll is. Relatively speaking a two-game "drought" is nothing, but sure a goal would pick up his confidence which is generally a good thing for a striker Well the problem with that is that he still isn't very good with the ball at his feet; he always takes a little too long to get the ball under control, which allows defenders to nip it off him. Carroll has improved quite a bit but its still a bit too early in his career for us to rely on him for goals. Our other strikers aren't great, but perhaps Xisco should get a shot in his preferred position.

he's not that slow, he's average paced, the problem is with his movement with him not being a natural forward the movement is not instinctive. also he hasn't been helped by the lack of support from the middle (has barton made a move off the ball to get alongside or beyond the forwards yet this season ? has routledge attempted to find that gap between cantre half and full back ?)). He has average pace and stamina... for a Sunday league player possibly. Barton has made runs every now and then, but that isn't really what he's meant to be doing, given that he's more of a deep-lying playmaker than a box-to-box midfielder. In any case, why should the team be set up to accommodate Kevin fucking Nolan?

Whoever we play at RB next week, we should start Jonas on the right to provide a bit more defensive cover.

So true though, isn't it? It would be 3x frag grenade + sonic boom + martyr for the COD4:MW equivalent.

I recommend you don't watch Blackburn at any point this season. I've only seen Blackburn once this season (against Arsenal), and they were nowhere as horrible as Stoke were today. At least Blackburn were playing the right game instead of Stoke's rendition of Aussie rules football.

We all know he can, but he constantly misplaced it or got caugh in possession. While Nolan didn't set the world alight he got involved and contibuted to a lot of our attacks. "Attacks"? I can only remember him touching the ball on two occasions in the last half an hour or so.

Anyway, back on the game, isn't there a rule that says you're allowed only 6 seconds to take a throw-in or something? Rory wiping the ball down on every throw-in, ugh.

I don't think putting Carroll on Jones was a bad idea, it just turned out that way in hindsight. He should do better next time anyway.

That was the 2nd goal, but conceding a throw-in against any team besides Stoke should have meant fuck all.

I don't think he played much better nor worse today than he has in his previous showings really, if you ignore the OG.

Jones had to karate chop him to win a header against him.

He looks pretty quick, could turn out to be an OK right back. Needs to stay out of the spotlight for a bit though.

I raise you Stephen Carr.

Would have liked to see him on if only to give Stoke a taste of their own medicine.

This. In a world where Kevin Nolan isn't captain, he would have come on instead of Shola for Tiote, fresh and ready to pounce instead of being completely knackered.

Who needs Anelka when we have Shola

What? That's one of Jonas's strengths if anything.