Andy

Fucking hell

Perch? Obertan? Gosling? Campbell/Ireland/Kuqi? Kuqi was a stop gap. Gosling and Campbell were free transfers and Ireland was only a loan signing. Admittedly Perch and Obertan have been poor, I supposed it depends on the market. I don't know which scout is looking at Tomkins, probably not Carr so may not be great. What do you mean by that? I meant I don't know how good our other staff are? Who's watching Tomkins play this season? Is it from Pardew's 'sources'? Obviously if we had Carr watching him regular then I'd be more inclined to back it despite having the perception he's shit as Carr has scouted almost perfectly. However it seems he's probably just scouring the foreign market so my initial reaction of 'If we like the look of him I won't judge till he's played' may be wide of the mark #AlanOliver. See I just don't buy this. Are we to believe all our good signings came because of Carr and all the not so good ones didn't? He's our chief scout, I can't see why he wouldn't be involved in any of our signings. Pretty sure I've read or heard somewhere that Carr is involved primarily in international scouting. I don't think he attends matches in this country for us - could be wrong though.

Nowhere near as bad a player as people in here are making out. As you'd expect from a young defender, he had a bad time last season when West Ham's defence were almost constantly under pressure without any semblance of organisation or leadership, but he's looked much more steady and confident when I've seen him this year (I watch West Ham quite regularly since my father in law is a fan of theirs). He'll do well alongside Coloccini and is a better option than Williamson if you ask me.

Very much doubt it. Aye, it's not like he has a track record of upsetting managers.

Getting frustrated with the fact that this lad is our starting right winger. I've played with and against probably hundreds of players at Sunday League level who have a better footballing brain than him. Literally the only thing that prevents him being a lower league player is the fact that he can run really fucking fast and has tricky feet, so when he spends the entire game walking around and failing to beat his man when he has the ball, he's basically rendered completely useless. Needs to seriously pull his finger out and start playing to his strengths.

Starting to think there's a problem between Pardew and Ben Arfa like. I can understand him not starting today, but the fact that he was left on the bench for the whole game is a bit concerning.

You'll find out in a month.

Absolutely. He needs to drop the stubbornness regarding Obertan, Ben Arfa and the likes or he's going to end up undoing his fantastic work pretty quickly.

It's early days but he looks a cut above our other fullbacks like, which makes it all the more baffling that it's taken until now to get him into the starting XI.

We need two out-and-out strikers on the pitch to keep the ball in their half as much as possible and take the pressure off whatever rag-tag defence we have available.

Their insistance to consistently substitute a full-stop with "FTM" is right up there with the most cringe-worthy things I've ever seen.

No surprise, Ronaldo is usually found-out when he takes on anybody with a semblance of intellect. Stick to winding up the riff-raff, Ronny.

Aye, I'm the same as Dave, more of a numb, confused feeling than anything else. It's so strange knowing that someone has died but not having any rational or logical explanation as to why it has happened. Really has come as a shock.

Not. Pisses all over Bobby and KK. You're on the wind up fucking constantly these days man, you used to be worth reading. Yup, several people like this kicking around at the minute. Getting bored of it very quickly.

Ferdinand should have practised what he so regularly preaches and stayed on his feet; he didn't need to go to ground and he gave the referee a decision to make, even if it was ultimately incorrect.

Aye, his faith in Perch is interesting. He hasn't done much wrong when he's come on to the pitch this season though in fairness, and it's better than bringing on Smith... Lovenkrands is the only one that I don't really get; would make far more sense to bring on Shola if we're wanting to hold the ball up and slow the game down (which I assume was the intention). Can't fault him as long as the results are right though. No. Lovenkrands gives 100% and will track back while Shola will wait for the ball up front. If you want defend, it's Loven (in our circumstances atm), if we want to score, it's Shola. Lovenkrands gives 100% but he can't keep a hold of the ball for shit, and constantly gives possession away, which nearly cost us at the end.

Aye, his faith in Perch is interesting. He hasn't done much wrong when he's come on to the pitch this season though in fairness, and it's better than bringing on Smith... Lovenkrands is the only one that I don't really get; would make far more sense to bring on Shola if we're wanting to hold the ball up and slow the game down (which I assume was the intention). Can't fault him as long as the results are right though.

Much as I think he is underrated, Carrick wouldn't displace Cabaye and Tiote from our team like.

It's not saying much, but this is probably the most confident I've ever felt ahead of an away trip to Old Trafford. If the injury situation is kind to us I think we've got every chance of coming away with a point.

Fucking hell. When I read some of Christmas Tree's posts, I can only describe the inner battle I'm required to go through to drag my mouse away from the "delete user" button as being akin to a fat lass forcing herself to decline cake while on a diet.

I took "between them" to mean that one or the other contributed, in fairness. Ba assisted the goal.

I don't see how expecting to hold on to our better players should be seen as false hope. You don't have to sell players to increase revenue and it's just the easy way out for the club. If we increase our performances on the field then that should be reflected in our performance off the field. It’s been shown time after time that we’ve increased our income substantially when we’ve been doing well in the league and been playing in Europe. Getting to the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup would bring in something like £8 million a year and getting that far in that competition isn’t too difficult. We look to be very close to being able to take the step needed. Being in a league position to qualify would probably require a 6th place finish and that alone would bring in over £3 million when compared to where we finished last season. If we try to sell and buy constantly to increase our income then sooner or later it will go wrong and turn to shit. We will have to start showing some ambition if we're to avoind going backwards and now would be as good a time as any. It's false hope because that's what's going to happen, whether it's right or wrong. Simple as that.

The sentiment is great, but it's not going to happen and to expect otherwise is simply false hope. The club are following a modified Ajax-model - buy low, improve the player's reputation, sell high, repeat. I don't think any player in the club is exempt from this and that will be the case as long as the current owners are in the driving seat. It's a gamble, especially in terms of finding the right replacements, but the silver lining is that if the players are performing well enough for the model to work, then our league position should at least reflect that.

Depends who's bidding. If there was a bidding war between Chelsea and City we could easily fetch that kind of money, otherwise £20/25m sounds about right.

It's got nothing to do with "defending him", it was soft. Still clumsy, mind, but Richards went down far too easily.