Andy

The passing out of defence was made to look significantly worse due to the fact that our midfielders didn't drop deep and show for the ball once.

Colocini's performance reminded me of Boumsong's debut. Just didn't like the pitch, occasion and was incredibly nervous on the ball. Thought Colo was fine for the most part. Probably the only player who was, in all honesty.

Probably wasn't a red, but Pardew has received exactly what he deserved for a frankly ridiculous piece of management.

Exactly. You'd think we had a team of unfit sunday league players based on the whole "surely they can't play THREE TIMES in fourteen days without injuring themselves?" attitude.

More down to opportunities I'd say True I agree. But when he has had his chance he's not looked anything special. I'd say he's more of a gamble than Larsson. Agree totally, the thing is i dunno if Larsson would be happy being a 'squad player' which suggests to me, if he does sign, he will be a 'starter'. Didn't Pardew say earlier in the week that if any player was to come in, they'd have to do so knowing that they wouldn't walk straight into the team? I think Larsson will be aware that he'll have to put up a fight - especially if he wants to play wide right.

Much rather have Larsson in as a squad player than Bentley, who'd likely become unsettled quite quickly here if he was in and out of the team, and who would cost more in both transfer fee and wages.

I think he only did it to share photos etc., saves the hassle of uploading on them on Twitter AND Facebook.

If you want to talk about Sunderland, stick it in the relevant thread.

Which dickhead? @Gejon82

Wish he'd fuck off to bed. If he's shit tomorrow he'll be banned from facebook and have to go to fucking tumblr or something.

I noticed that somebody had made a comment on one of his wall posts saying "Pardew is a twat"... Two people "liked" it - would have been awesome if Jose was one of them.

Surely it would have made more sense to make a fan page than to use his own personal facebook profile?

So we'll stay up because we're not one of the worst teams in the league, huh? What a concept.

Most Declined Poster... At a guess, you were voting on the "Poster" who has "Declined" the "Most".

The majority of our better performances this season have come with Nolan in that role. Well maybe, but that doesn't mean it's the reason, or it's working. It does like. Nolan was totally absent from the Wigan game, for example, even though we played well as a team. It's a bit of a pointless discussion as we don't have anyone else decent for that position, but I don't think our good performances have much to do with Nolan - except maybe for his motivating influence. As has been said, we have nobody better in his position, it frees up Barton to play wide-right, he's scored as many goals from the center of midfield as any other player in the country, and other players seem to improve just for him being in the side. He might not boss the center of the pitch, but at the same time we've never been overran with him and Tiote in there. The advantages of Nolan far outweigh the negatives.

The majority of our better performances this season have come with Nolan in that role.

Shame about Carroll, because he's actually got the midfield right this week.

Happy new year everyone, and as Dave says, thank you all for continuing to make this one of the best football forums out there. Here's to 2011 and a Ben Arfa inspired top ten finish.

I hope he spiderman'd her. Shot his web all over her face, by the sounds of it.

Apparently he shagged one of their current Big Brother housemates one time or something.

We fucked their squad up in the Carling Cup. I was talking to a Sunderland fan I know the other day, and he was absolutely adamant that Chelsea's down-fall was caused by them. Apparently they took away all of their confidence when they tore them apart at Stamford Bridge. The pride with which he said this was almost quite endearing.

Taylor is too rash and the defence doesn't hold its position because he's erratic. He doesn't even do the basics like looking along the line so see where the others are and the off-side which was working well seems to now be history. People mentioned that our defence played a high line earlier in the season but it was effective because we regularly stepped out to play the off-side. Taylor seems to be in la-la land as far as his fellow defenders go. we only played a high line at man city and because it was commented on by the commentators people think we done it all the time....we didn't. man city and west ham till they scored were the only times we've done it (west ham until they scored was also the worst we've defended all season). thinking back on it the opposite is probably more true with people citing that we sat far too far back in many games. (blackpool,stoke,fulham) It's been mentioned a load of times this season that we've played with a high line. It's all Chris Waddle has talked about whenever I've heard him commentating on our matches.

Taylor is physically better and should be a better defender... However, in terms of awareness, positioning and general defensive judgement, Williamson is streets ahead.

In only three matches he's managed to remove almost every positive element that Hughton had going on - he's moved Barton back inside despite his best performances being on the wing, gone back to one up front instead of trying Ranger, split up our best-performing defence partnership, and turned us into a long-ball side. Great stuff.

Any one of us could have picked a more sensible XI today.