Andy

First Direct Arena is hilarious, especially if it's deliberate.

Starting to think he could be a brilliant winger if we ever had the luxury of being able to move him up the pitch, but as it is, he's probably our only real option at left back despite his obvious defensive flaws.

Weird seeing a team with Perch and Guthrie in midfield and still thinking we might be able to get something. Times have changed.

So pleased I'm playing football from 8-10 and thus don't have to sit through most of the bullshit and rumours. Go out, come home, see what's actually happened... Perfeckkk.

A combination today of being sloppy himself and having fuck all movement in front of him.

I'd probably just hoy Best central into Shola's role, then play Vuckic where Best was playing - assuming Pards doesn't want to revert to a conventional 4-4-2. Best is wasted out wide and Shola is just a waster in general.

Hasn't had his best game on the ball but has worked exceptionally hard so far and done a couple of nice things in possession as well.

Mr Llambias showing his true colours there

They're bollocks though, considering they don't weigh in the quality of opposition he's started against. Edit: Or what Dave typed about 3 hours before me, basically.

Was good today, especially when asked to play out wide. It seems to help his confidence being the "main man"; he raises his game.

Top player. Can only see him improving as well.

I fixed it ages ago, speed the fuck up.

Americans.

Speculation, then. It doesn't jutify abusing our manager, who happens to have done a bloody good job. Of course it's speculation, but in all honesty do you think it's the wrong interpretation? I think you're smarter than that. He certainly hasn't been dropped for his performance in the last match, has he? I do agree with the second sentence there though. Questioning it is fair game but the abuse is a bit much.

It's really frustrating like... Short-term, I'm still confident we'll win today anyway, but the "overreactions" are because people are looking at the long-term implications of this... Ultimately we're going to throw away a very talented player because he doesn't run around as much in training, by the sounds of it.

Baffling by Pardew that like. Rewarding training ground performance ahead of performance on the pitch, really disappointing.

That's what baffles me, the inconsistency of it. Pardew seems to have no problem with players being shit on the pitch as long as they run around a bit on the training ground.

Urgh. If he wins matches on the pitch who gives a fuck what he does in training? I don't give a toss if it's unfair on the likes of Lovenkrands who put in 100% on the training pitch, if he's producing the goods in the important 90 minutes - which he has started to recently - then he needs to be starting for us. Hopefully Pardew's bright enough to see that despite his comments in the press.

Could he be suspended for longer than 3 games given the nature of choking someone?

One to treasure that like. That's the most cutting comment I've ever seen you make.

Facetime or it didn't happen, Dan.

Meh, we ran with "Joke Enrique" for long enough and it did him the world of good.

That's what I was thinking, you'd think clubs would just do this shit over Facebook chat or something in this day and age.

Can't see Ba wanting to bin the clause altogether or it wouldn't have been there in the first place. I can't see him wanting the clause to be so high that it would repel bids either... If (big "if") a deal's renegotiated I'd expect it to be on the same contract length, with increased wages and perhaps a £15m release clause...

They're not buying out his contract though. A £7m release clause means that if a rival club bids £7m to us (note: not to the player himself), we're obligated to accept it and allow the bidding club to discuss terms with the player...