afar

They are in decent form atm, still should beat them but it won't be easy. I expect a draw, but we really need to win to keep in touch especially with Arsenal up next game.

Altidore = Sissoko * 4 Giaccherini = Sissoko * 3 Steven Fletcher = Sissoko * 7 !! Adam Johnson = Sissoko * 5 Gyan = Sissoko * 7 Craig Gardner = Sissoko * 2.5 Connor Whickham = Sissoko * 4 Michael Turner = Sissoko * 6 !!! Catermole = Sissoko * 3 No wonder they are where they are

This. Major reason we are playing the way we are right now.

Aye, forgetting we had Lovenkrands and they had Gyan and we beat them 5-1. Actually reading further through i, it sounds like the lad who made the comment was one of us on the wind up. One of their "true" fans does mention the word class though

LOL at this thread, just pure hate, they are so small time, and were apparently (in usual mackem rewriting history way) so far ahead of us when we had Peter Lovelyhands up front and they had the might of Gyan hehe http://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/mags.850991/

They are only 4 points away though, a lot of crap this year at the bottom, think that'll probably save them unfortunately

Come on man !!

Not sure how that team gave Chelsea a scare last week, there was a huge gulf in class out there today, in conditions that you would think would have favoured them. Good job Newcastle .

Obertan as an impact sub, is something I would prefer to see ahead of Zaha tbh, at least it's our player, maybe increasing his value. But who are you kidding, it's HBA that'll be impacted most. It's been HBA coming off the bench in the last few games not Obertan.

Again short term fixes (and in this case questionable fix, if it further reduces HBA's first team opportunities, personally I think that's have a huge negative impact on us long term). Need to resist stuff like this IMO.

I can state categorically that this is nonsense. By and large, we think we're now in a position to expect a challenge for top four every season. Winning the league is a different kettle of fish. But you are challenging for a Top 4 spot, but still sacked your manager. Finished 5th last year. In fact you sacked your last manager when he finish in 4th spot !!!

This. I hate it. I have lost faith in players giving a f*** and showing any loyalty so if a good one who would improve our squad becomes available on loan I would be more than happy to take them. They will f*** off as soon as someone bigger/offering more money comes along anyway so why not improve us in the short term? Would anyone have seriously turned their nose up at Lukaku on a season long loan? Teams like Man Utd and Chelsea are more than likely going to be ahead of us long term so why not take advantage of their greed? A lot of the time these players don't stay at their parent club anyway. we're supposed to be competing with these teams, not fattening up players because they have so many players through stockpiling them they can't play them all and they get pissy about it. The only kind of loan I can tolerate is a loan with a buy out clause, otherwise its just an admission that you really are just another small pathetic club and all that matters is the "sky teams" Realistically we won't be competing with them, not in the long term so I don't see how improving our options is going to be a detriment to us. Its not like Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd etc... can't just go out and buy a shed load of talent whenever they please. These are clubs who have players struggling to get an appearance who would walk into our side. As for fattening up, what does that really mean? If these players are good enough they will get loans anyway, why not improve the quality of our squad if we get the chance rather than letting them go to our real rivals while we have our 'pride'. I'd rather hang onto pride and hope that with intelligent enough planning and leadership from top to bottom of the club that in time we could compete with them again rather than wave the white flag and admit we'll never be better than them because if thats the case then what the f*** is the point. So because we are being realistic there isn't any point? Fair enough, let your West Broms, Evertons etc.. loan the quality talent while we have Shola starting or Obertan a couple of injuries from starting yes west brom, borrowed lukaku got a nice temporary boost and now they've crashed back down as that short term thinking left a large hole in their squad this season compared to last, they would have been better off taking a chance on some young player their scouting department think could be a good player. It's a big issue for these clubs actually and one Everton will have next year, when Lukaku, Barry and the Barca kid go back. You are not building your squad on solid foundations. You are also stunting progression of your own products. Now if Everton get into the Champs League because of these loans, then it would end up being a big win for them, as the income will allow them to find suitable replacement. For the first time recent memory we've benefited from the system too with Remy, where the hell would we be without his goals ? You could argue that Cisse may have been given more of a chance to play himself back into form, the likes of Campbell may be given more first team exposure and we may have been more aggressive in securing Gomis in the summer had we not brought him in on loan. It really puts clubs in false positions though and allows these megabucks teams to just keep buying up talent. It's bad for the long term health of the game, great for some clubs short term needs though, but those clubs exploiting it are hurting themselves long term, they just don't see it right now. That's when you compare loan successes to alternatives that would be somewhat successful, you might instead end up with a permanent alternative that ends up being turbo-s*** or always injured or a relative success with a contract clause a la Ba who ends up moving for not exactly a fortune 18 months later anyway. Loanees might also end up being s**** or injured, in which case you get to send them back. It's not always the Lukaku at West Brom situation, there are lots of permutations. In this situation I'd take Zaha assuming we weren't forced to play him more than we wanted. It's even worse when it's not a Lukaku type of player the loaning club get, they don't even get the short term fix. Sunderland I think have suffered a lot from it in recent years, they've exploited the system but brought in questionable talent, or a least talent that hasn't matured enough. Wellbeck, Johnny Evans, Bendtner, Rose, Nedum Onuoha and Djibril Cissé are just some of their many on loan signings in recent years, with varying degrees of success but none have had the impact big enough to pull the dirty mackems away from the lower reaches of the PL. Now their squad is a mess, they've had wholesale changes on numerous occasions, it's not all because of the loan system of course, but it's had a big part to play in stunting the progression of their squad building.

This. I hate it. I have lost faith in players giving a f*** and showing any loyalty so if a good one who would improve our squad becomes available on loan I would be more than happy to take them. They will f*** off as soon as someone bigger/offering more money comes along anyway so why not improve us in the short term? Would anyone have seriously turned their nose up at Lukaku on a season long loan? Teams like Man Utd and Chelsea are more than likely going to be ahead of us long term so why not take advantage of their greed? A lot of the time these players don't stay at their parent club anyway. we're supposed to be competing with these teams, not fattening up players because they have so many players through stockpiling them they can't play them all and they get pissy about it. The only kind of loan I can tolerate is a loan with a buy out clause, otherwise its just an admission that you really are just another small pathetic club and all that matters is the "sky teams" Realistically we won't be competing with them, not in the long term so I don't see how improving our options is going to be a detriment to us. Its not like Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd etc... can't just go out and buy a shed load of talent whenever they please. These are clubs who have players struggling to get an appearance who would walk into our side. As for fattening up, what does that really mean? If these players are good enough they will get loans anyway, why not improve the quality of our squad if we get the chance rather than letting them go to our real rivals while we have our 'pride'. I'd rather hang onto pride and hope that with intelligent enough planning and leadership from top to bottom of the club that in time we could compete with them again rather than wave the white flag and admit we'll never be better than them because if thats the case then what the f*** is the point. So because we are being realistic there isn't any point? Fair enough, let your West Broms, Evertons etc.. loan the quality talent while we have Shola starting or Obertan a couple of injuries from starting yes west brom, borrowed lukaku got a nice temporary boost and now they've crashed back down as that short term thinking left a large hole in their squad this season compared to last, they would have been better off taking a chance on some young player their scouting department think could be a good player. It's a big issue for these clubs actually and one Everton will have next year, when Lukaku, Barry and the Barca kid go back. You are not building your squad on solid foundations. You are also stunting progression of your own products. Now if Everton get into the Champs League because of these loans, then it would end up being a big win for them, as the income will allow them to find suitable replacement. For the first time recent memory we've benefited from the system too with Remy, where the hell would we be without his goals ? You could argue that Cisse may have been given more of a chance to play himself back into form, the likes of Campbell may be given more first team exposure and we may have been more aggressive in securing Gomis in the summer had we not brought him in on loan. It really puts clubs in false positions though and allows these megabucks teams to just keep buying up talent. It's bad for the long term health of the game, great for some clubs short term needs though, but those clubs exploiting it are hurting themselves long term, they just don't see it right now.

I would love to see them appoint Hoddle, lol: http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25394591

This. I hate it. I have lost faith in players giving a f*** and showing any loyalty so if a good one who would improve our squad becomes available on loan I would be more than happy to take them. They will f*** off as soon as someone bigger/offering more money comes along anyway so why not improve us in the short term? Would anyone have seriously turned their nose up at Lukaku on a season long loan? Teams like Man Utd and Chelsea are more than likely going to be ahead of us long term so why not take advantage of their greed? A lot of the time these players don't stay at their parent club anyway. we're supposed to be competing with these teams, not fattening up players because they have so many players through stockpiling them they can't play them all and they get pissy about it. The only kind of loan I can tolerate is a loan with a buy out clause, otherwise its just an admission that you really are just another small pathetic club and all that matters is the "sky teams" This, hate the loan system. Wish they would ban it tbh.

I googled: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/that-really-rustled-my-jimmies

It's terrible isn't it. makes me sad that one of these teams have already beaten us at SJP this season. If we don't comfortably beat the other one we should be shot.

Used to think really highly of Huddlestone, but every time I've seen him this season, he just looks like a lazy fat git, without the technical ability he was supposed to have.

Their manager said both teamscould have gone ahead in the first half they dominated us in the second !! LOL I didn't see that and the shot count of 16-8 in our favour doesn't reflect it either. Some managers must think fans as so fucking stupid, really.

2 points well and truly dropped today, had enough chances to win that. Remy not on his game today.

All Southampton at the moment, that missed chance could be huge for this game, got to take those.

Overhaul ahoy! Probably a good thing for them, if they go down (still have a nagging feeling they will get out of it though) they will instantly cut their wage bill. All those players are of questionable quality too. Well really all their squad is.

FFS just let the thread drop (I know irony in me bumping it by replying) we won 1-0, once. They've beaten us plenty times at there place by much bigger scores. This kinda post sounds like something we would deride the dirty mackems for (before they regularity started beating us) 2-1 FTM. Enjoy the victory by all means but lets move on, it's just one of a lot of good results for us this season. Makes us sound a little small time tbh.

We need to treat this like we treated Chelsea, Spuds and Manure. Southampton are a very good team, and if we don't show them enough respect, we'll end up with the result we got at Swansea and home to Hull. A win would be huge for us, really need a good performance though to get it.

From Garth Crooks team of the week crap "Now here's a question, do Manchester United buy Cabaye for £10m or Marouane Fellaini for £27.5m? Both were available in the summer." That's not the first time I have read someone saying that Cabaye was available for 10m, how come history is being re-written here, the way I remember it was that we rejected a Arsenal bid of 10 million in the summer and described it as derisory. I dunno maybe I'm going mad.