Ronaldo

He needs singling out because he's a brainless idiot that costs us points and contributes nothing in a footballing sense. The rest generally do.

If his best form was here and we didn't have much better players anyway.

At his best he'd do just fine in a team with no ambition, yeah.

At his best he's not what we need to progress. In the form he's shown over the last 18 months or so he should be back on the bench in Holland.

Indeed.

He had a fair few against a couple of big sides and when teams didn't press him. Even in good form he'll never be what we need to progress. You play an out and out defensive midfielder under two basic conditions and a side looking to climb the table isn't one of them, imo.

He was 'fantastic' when we wanted someone simply to protect the defence and merely avoid relegation. Before his weaknesses had been discovered by the rest of the league.

This.

LOL.

Boomshit, holy fuck He must have got him mixed up with Bassong. He never played alongside either, fwiw.

100% behind the ball.

Miles offside. Nah he was miles off. Do yee lads even watch football? I've just watched us play football against Aston Villa. He was behind the ball, just.

All keepers make mistakes that cost goals, even the very best. Acknowledge the mistake by all means. We're lucky. There's very few I'd swap him for.

I do love Colo but his best days are behind him now and his levels certainly dropped last season. Still one of the better CBs in the PL, like.

We've now actually got a modicum of competion for places at CB, CM and ST. It doesn't feel right.

Stick with the best combination till we can improve on it.

Disagree. Ideally you'd want a full season for Mapou to learn from Colo but beyond that we need a Douglas type in there. Something we can really rely on against all forms of attack.

He was.

I wouldn't split them up yet, don't get me wrong. But anyone who thinks CB is sorted in the long-term is deluded and not very bright. I'm totally shocked as to the usually brilliant posters taking this view. I thought it was obvious to everyone that given Colo's age, we will need another CB soon enough. Obviously it would be nice to get a CB who complements MYM's weaknesses. It also seems fairly obvious that our in form CBs are Colo and MYM so stick with them for now. Surely this is not revelatory enough to need a page of posts over? I don't get it either, man. As usual there's a few jobless little scrotes mucking around who fancy making an argument out of a basic truth that clashes with their footballing wet dream.

In what sense? They'll probably do well this season against the majority of sides if selected. Ultimately there's no long-term in it.

I wouldn't split them up yet, don't get me wrong. But anyone who thinks CB is sorted in the long-term is deluded and not very bright. I'm totally shocked as to the usually brilliant posters taking this view.

One's a replacement for the other, who's nearly 32. And as we've discussed at a pointless length they have the same costly weakness. Of course there's no long-term future in it.

Again utter crap, Simpson who played all his youth football at Man Utd. Sorry just utter bollocks. There isn't an excuse for it no matter how hard you look. This week has shown, what football can be played with this squad, all the better for it, and i'm happy as it was enjoyable. Mind you, I saw zero fucking evidence of that when he was here, Bimp. Dreadful footballer with no natural ability on the ball whatsoever.

How's that? Surely, if you have a player who is better in the air than your defenders, then it makes sense for him to mark the opposition's biggest aerial threat. We used to do it with Carroll. I never said it didn't make sense given our personnel. I said it hurts us that our defenders don't defend set pieces. They should be taking responsibility for them and they can't/don't which is going to cause us problems given that the rest of the team aren't anything approaching effective in the air. Aye, that's fair enough. To be honest, we really lack an aerial threat accross the park. Sissoko should be decent, but really, really isn't. He's a young lad who's probably never been tasked with significant aerial duties.

Right. As has been said, as good as they are in certain circumstances there's no real long-term future in a Colo-MYM partnership.