afar

The difference between us and them is that we can defend, I honestly don't think they are good enough to play this way all the time. Against any quality they will struggle, as we've seen in the second half the moment Ibe..sorry Jordan got brought onto the pitch.

LOL, I told Bornemouth they should have taken Defoe off, hehe

That was quality to be fair, why haven't they done this before now.

Brighton winning but it's like all those inappropriate jokes about getting a gold medal at the special Olympics, there should be no open top bus tour after this one. Bournemouth need to drop Defoe, he's killing them, just can't see how they will get a win for a long time based on this.

And when he's not scoring, he offers nothing to your team, that's one of the struggles for Sunderland last season, they were, like Bornemouth tonight playing with in effect 10 players. Kind of like our very own Gayle unfortunately.

Is that Don Goodman co-commentating for us international folk ? Whoever it is, he's bang on.

Haven't seen a lot of them but not convinced at all so far. What's their plan to create chances? Completely agree, they've been built to defend, Hughton did well with us when we came back up for half a season, but he's not got a great track record at PL level. He's clearly just trying to hang on in games the Pardew way and nick a goal some how. This game is horrible, both teams are relegation fodder.

This is a prelude to our game tomorrow, we'll see exactly the same two teams negative in the extreme. So little quality on show here, confident with Rafa we are better than both these two.

whats that 3 more games? should be doable. Yeah, against Stoke, Brighton and Liverpool. LOL

Excellent. This is how West Ham and Swansea viewed us. Absolutely being underestimated is a huge benefit to us right now, on one hand long may it continue but in order for that to happen we would have to put in a bunch of abject performances and garner few points.

I'd guess Bet 365, a huge global operation which makes a lot out of football and is prepared to reinvest back into the game, principally through Stoke City. There can't be any other reason for their enduring strong situation. The biggest single reason why Stoke have endured, is stability, during their entire PL life they've had two manager's and both like them or not are adept at working with smallish budgets and surviving comfortably in the big league. They've been perfect appointments for the club, Hughes has tried to add a bit of quality to the graft they already had, and they seem to have a pretty well balanced squad, which has not cost a great fortune to build. They've spent sensibly within their means.

My first choice team would never be picked by Rafa, but I do think he needs to look at the effectiveness of Perez in the 10 role and Hayden's lack of composure in every game bar West Ham. I would like to see LeJeune back in the starting line up but hard to say Clark and the Capt have done anything wrong to warrant either of them being dropped. Although I've like what I've seen from Joselu, if Gayle is fit, I would perhaps be tempted, maybe not for this game as it might be more suited to a forward that offers more than just scoring goals. Rafa likes his rotation, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some changes, they'll probably be more subtle ones though, than the wholesale stuff I'm advocating. Think this is going to be a good gauge on just where we are, Spuds are way out of our league and we can't expect really to compete against them, Swansea and Huddersfield are relegation candidates this year, West Ham are on paper a mid table team but playing like relegation candidates. Stoke have mid table written through them, in really good nick, a victory here would point us in the direction of having the potential to be at the same level as them and that would be a fantastic first season back in the PL.

Funny as f**k. Hard to explain what Hogan's doing there. Watch Henri Lansbury being his usual dick self in those highlights first he does his customary penalty area drive to try to con the ref into getting a pen, then looks shocked when he's sent off for bringing down a player when he's already 10 yards away from the ball.

Really ? He is more of a liability than Ritchie who could have been sent off in 2 of the 4 games we played already. Stop being a drama queen, Shelvey has been sent off legitimately once in his Newcastle career.

He asked to play, he hasn't played 90 mins since the Wolfsburg friendly. He needed it and next game isn't until the weekend so plenty of time to recover.

LOL, I love our new sponsor, that's fantastic.

Guess it's safe to say he had no issue with celebrating scoring against his old club

He didn't, did he, that's magic

Henri Lansbury sent off for Villa Still hate the cunt.

He does have a good track record at the smaller clubs where expectations are just to survive. What I would be concerned about if I was a Palace fan was, the PL has changed in 5 years since he managed in it, he's not come out of the England situation with a great deal of credibility and that will effect his relationship building with the players there, also the big one is he's 70, age is a factor whether people admit it or not, as an England manager you can get away with it since it's hardly a taxing role outside of the major tournaments for a few weeks every two years. The life of a PL manager is way more intensive, especially when things are not going too well, you do worry about his health, he's going to be an extremely easy target if he doesn't get off to a good start and has Benteke taking the corners.

Another different type of challenge. They've started really well when you consider the opposition they faced. Narrowly beaten on the opening day at Everton, beat Arsenal, drew away to WBA (which isn't an easy place to go) and drew this weekend against Manure. They have a big strong defensive back line and some quality in an attacking perspective. I doubt they play the same open game that West Ham did against us and they are not going to be keeping the ball for keeping it sake, like Swansea. We may need a different approach here to get the win, all signs point to a draw tough in my view.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/boo-them.1390823/ Wow, that'll work I'm sure

Good on them for getting players in and having a go, but I think they are favourites for the drop. The media have been hyping them for the underdog angle and because Wagner is Klopp's mate and automatically assumed to be a genius, but they've been riding their luck since last season. Promoted with a negative goal difference and getting through the playoffs without winning a single game was Greece in the Euros level of flukey. The other thing you need to take into account with Huddersfield is that their squad is paper thin, a couple of key injuries and they are very weak. Mooy is pivotal to them, honestly if they lost him for any length of time they will be screwed.

US bank stadium is fantastic: http://www.aia-mn.org/wp-content/uploads/USBankStadium.Feature848x360.jpg

Didn't think he put in too much of an effort tonight, I can understand him holding back a little pointless getting injured playing for the reserves but lacked any intensiveness, his replacement in the 2nd half Frendandez was way more impressive.