AyeDubbleYoo

He hasn't sold many assets.

Me too, except I don't really rate Doyle that much in the prem, he never scores.

I don't think anyone would accuse you of knee jerking Ian, it's not your style mate. P.S. that word "semantics" has been used a few times recently on here, not quite as much as fuck, shit, cunt or bastard, but maybe things are looking up at last My knee nearly jerked out of the socket over the Carroll sale TBH, I was saying I was going to give up on football and all sorts. Then by Fulham kick off I was right behind the team again! Shameful

Nee problem then, I agree with you!

It was a terrible performance, whether or not it's a debacle or not is just semantics. It's not a kneejerk reaction, I've posted elsewhere that we shouldn't read too much into it (in fact that was basically the point of the post BenwellLad quoted).

Great post Obi, pretty much confirms all the failings I spotted during the game, Nolan was appalling. I really think he needs to maintain a goal ratio of at least 1 in 3 to maintain his place, and when Tiote's not playing he should never play central midfield. The question is whether we can do anything with tactics to improve things. It seems to be that our best hope is in getting better players on the pitch.

Diaby v Tiote will be mint, I really rate Diaby.

The basic answer to the OP is "nobody knows". For all we know the club could have had a few deals in the pipeline that fell through due to unreasonable demands from players and other clubs. It's not always right for NUFC to pay whatever somebody else is asking. If the real question is "did we need to bring in players in January" the answer would be definitely.

Also, what the fuck was Pantsil doing sprinting around the pitch after the game? Weird place Craven Cottage.

Best comment of the night Dave. Except that Liverpool are run terribly and were considered a shambles until Dalglish took over a few days ago. So what you mean is Liverpool were run terribly then, and now maybe this signals that the future might be on the up for them. As opposed to, say, a team who needs to amass about 10 more points with a strikeforce of Best, Ranger and Lovenkrands. Hm. Well yeah, but just spending massive money on two forwards doesn't make them a well-run club. Judging them just by the last 72 hours is a bit crazy.

I don't see him as similar to Walcott and Lennon at all, he's a #9 target man if anything.

Best comment of the night Dave. Except that Liverpool are run terribly and were considered a shambles until Dalglish took over a few days ago.

Hardly, he's just been asked how he feels about Carroll leaving. He's trying to explain that he can understand why he did it... and that the morale of the team hasn't been affected. It's pretty annoying how everyone constantly thinks he's leaving. Can we not just enjoy having him play for us?

We usually perform pretty well against Arsenal, obviously they're favourites and everyone is down about last night's debacle though.

Well the team generally had little idea of a gameplan and was very disjointed. I just thought that Barton could have helped the team more by being more disciplined and staying in his position a bit more. Play it simple for a bit while the team recovered itself. I don't think his wandering all over and trying to do everything was helping. TBF to him though, I realise we have no central midfield when Nolan and Guthrie are playing.

I would try out 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 when we have a couple more midfielders back, at least try to get some short passing and movement going on. I think the wing-backs thing might be too much for the players to handle... and I wouldn't want to disrupt a back 4 which is our biggest strength.

Barton was very poor last night.

Does everyone know that it was Enrique that Duff beat for the goal?

Is Ryan Taylor still alive?

I wouldn't really want Bendtner or Pav for that money TBH, and I'm not sure about Taarabt either.

Midfield is the problem man. They had no athleticism and no ideas last night, the main reason the balls weren't sticking up front was the terrible quality of the forward passes - they were mostly aimless punts from inside our own half.

No striker will thrive on aimless punts forward TBH.

I rated him very highly, although being a RB in that Man Utd team must have been the easiest job in the world.

Fair point TRon, I guess the answer is that most teams just play their 'best' two forwards every game. The real question is why we didn't stop lumping the ball aimlessly forward... it's impossible to tell whether Pardew said that or not, but the players certainly didn't do it.