Andy

Aye, if he has to go I hope PSG or one of the top teams in the other leagues snipe him away from the likes of Spurs. Crazy if the clause is so low though. You would've thought we had almost all the power in the transfer considering his knee is fucked and he didn't seem to have a plethora of options. Strange move.

PSG were always the big worry like, for the simple fact that they can throw whatever they want at him and not really have to worry that much about it going tits up with his knee. If this doesn't happen in January I'll be surprised if it doesn't happen in the summer. Hopefully Ba has a desire to continue playing in the Premier League.

What constitutes good business? We'd be making a significant profit. Get the fuck in.

The shitter the team they've got out the more worried I am.

It seems obvious that a clause exists, it's the nature of it that I'm interested in. If it was a simple buy-out clause I'm sure it would have already been activated. It might become active depending on our finishing position or something like that.

Absolutely not, it's a state secret akin to North Korea.

I agree with Dave, he needs to be used for impact. Bring him on either as a second striker or on the wing if we're struggling and the other team are tiring.

If Obertan starts I swear to god I will flip and delete this entire forum.

Ben Arfa bound to be fucking shit now.

Can we though? We've bought a lot of worse defenders for bigger prices in the past. Just because we've done worse doesn't mean it isn't still bad. Our recent transfers show that there is value in France and Holland, so for barely more we could get Pieters, Mbiwa, Douglas or even Samba. They'll be on our radar, so lets just go for one. Young + Highly Rated + English = potentially high sell on value. I get the impression we'd rather sign Tomkins for around the £4m mark than someone like Pieters, for example.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40191515@N05/6647379499/#

If he keeps banging in goals and lasts a full season without any major injury troubles I would be surprised if someone didn't want to take a gamble on him.

Same here. Obertan is a much better footballer at the end of the day. Ryan Taylor's biggest contribution was vacating the left back spot so Santon could play there instead. Rubbish. Obertan is a considerably better athlete but is one of most incompetent footballers in our squad.

The most enjoyable thing about this result is reading and listening to the "end of an era" reactions from Man Utd fans in the aftermath. The fact that so many of them seem to think we've confounded their demise is wonderfully satisfying

Last ever photo of them together. Great memories.

Gave the ball away a few times but played some intelligent passes as well. He's a far more competent footballer than Obertan.

Class. Hope his knee doesn't explode from now on.

Fucking fantastic tonight; on the ball and off it. Not very often you see such a technically gifted player cover as much ground as he does.

"Today we had our best team out there and it showed" Interesting comment... Fair play to him tonight though, got everything right.

Again, he's more concerned about dealing with the opposition than causing them problems. It's been said a lot of times that he works with the defence in training far more than the attack, and that mentality is obviously going to be reflected on the pitch. We set ourselves up to combat the opposing team's strengths instead of playing to our own strengths.

Baffling really. The Swansea game especially - awful decision making by Pardew there.

Aye, even Christmas Tree realises that he should be starting... For Hartlepool, granted... But still starting...

Good post. He is Mr Cautious. Literally won't take a risk, both in terms of the football we play and the personnel he selects. The Ben Arfa situation is a perfect example of it... I thought for a while it was a personality clash, but now I think he's just scared to play him in case he loses the ball occasionally when he's trying to win the game -- it's not a personality clash but a philosophy clash. Ben Arfa plays to win games, Pardew picks teams to not get beat. Interesting post. That Wolves game was the telling one for me. Cruising at 2-0, they're on the ropes - what do we do? Retreat. Lucky (and I mean that) to escape with three points in the end. Glossed over at the time. Not the first time it's happened either. The constant James Perch/Alan Smith substitutions that have occured over the course of 2011 are evidence of it as well.

Imagine Demba Ba with wingers in the vein of Robert and Solano in their pomp on the flanks man. Can only imagine that it must be infuriating for him watching our current pair clown around for 90 minutes.

For the job they do, we might as well just play two competent defensive midfielders on the wings or another pair of full-backs.