AyeDubbleYoo

Nolans just slower off the ball in general, so i dont see him being able to play a solid part in either going backwards or fowards even if he limited his game to only that. so nolan attempts box to box and does it poorly, what does smith do ? maybe if when we attacked smith pushed up 10-20yds or so he'd be another option to keep possession (even butt knows you can't just be a defensive midfielder for 90mins). of all the players available to us i'd be choosing 2 from guthrie,nolan and barton to play centre mid. Nolan pushes up into the area during our attacks to be an option, smith stays in the middle of the pitch roughly 5 yards up from the centre circle, the ideal position for a defensive midfielder. During attacks Smith should be the emergency option, always going to be open if everyone else is covered. Granted he passed s**** tonight, but during attacks the job of a holding midfielder is to be open and and easy pass. do you really believe football is played like that, rigid positioning and movement like subbuteo players ? the quicker you get rid of of the idea of defensive/attacking midfielders the better. i may even print your post off so i can have the pleasure of scrumpling it up and throwing it in the bin. Think you're speaking a bit too soon there madras... surely the holding midfielder is the most trendy position now, and discipline is the key to playing that role well?

Think you deserve one of these:

You make some very good points there, it really could have gone either way.

Yeah, if we go up he would struggle unless he improved, but then that's true of at least 75% of our players.

Isn't that what people said about Shola as well some years back? Some players, like Milner and N'Zogbia when they were here, you could use that argument since they both had great games and bad games just inconsistent and needed improving on their end product, but I haven't really seen anything that suggests Simpson will shine. He's not great at reading the game, not a great tackler or a great passer of the ball. He's decent at all of those things but doesn't really have room to improve himself. I might be harsh on him due to yesterdays performance and over-reacting.. Well it is what they said about Shola, but I don't see what that means. They also said it about lots of players where it turned out to be true. I don't think he's a world beater, but as a cheap option we know what we're getting and I would rather keep him on than bring back Beye at this point.

Very sensible words from Shola there, at least he understands his limitations and that he still has more to prove. I'm not confident he can do it, but self awareness is important.

I would currently keep Simpson rather than bring in Beye. Simpson is being hung out to dry with no proper wide midfielder in front of him, and he's young as has potential to improve.

Does the tranfer ban also include selling players? According to the BBC "The Premier League has also banned the club from operating in the transfer market." Would suggest incomings and outgoings are covered.

Kevin Nolan?

Pancrate should be given a few games before we write him off I think.

We need everything really.

From the decline in Simpson's performances over the last few games I would think he knows he is going. Otherwise he needs a smack round the chops.

I reckon Hughton deserves credit, before the season a lot of people were talking about another relegation, the morale was shot to pieces and we were losing a lot of games. Whether it's down to the drop in quality of the opposition or whatever, a manager has to take some credit for the performances. My main annoyance with him is that his default approach seems to be to shut out the opposition and hope we get a lucky goal. To be fair though, this happens most weeks in the championship.

There's a lot of good points there guiness_fiend. Although I'm really scared that we're about to suffer a slow death, we haven't lost in ages and though we've been going through a difficult spell we've kept the scoreboard ticking over. Undoubtedly the likes of Notts Forest will stumble at some point, and if we maintain our current form we could well pull away again. We have a poor team, with a lot of weaknesses, so Hughton deserves his fair share of credit for getting it where it is.

in what way are we overperforming? player for player the team that played tonight is better than any other in the championship by a long way. it was clear that individually we had by far the better players. hughton is not a tactician however, so we are always going to be limited in that department. Play like that against any team other than west brom and we'd have bummed them, and we were still very unfortunate with a few decisions and they were fouling bastards. I meant that our league position is much higher than our general quality deserves, and I'm worried that it can't continue for the whole season.

I think we all have a responsibility to abuse Kevin Nolan when we see him out on the piss, and tell him to take a good look at himself and get down the gym.

Would love to see Guthrie given a go in CM, almost pointless mentioning it though as Kevin 'the blob' Nolan will never be dropped. Fair play to him for trying to do a job, but it would be criminal if we wasted him by never giving him a decent chance.

Not too disappointed with the draw, it could have gone either way. The longer this season goes on, I just hav a horrible feeling that we're overperforming and we can't sustain it for a whole season. So many poor players and so many weaknesses. Hope I'm wrong, obviously.

Probably our best player tonight, wish he had set up the winner at the end there. Basically my view is that we have so many worse players, he should be at the back of the queue for criticism.

I've thought this for a couple of seasons at least. In central midfield and upfront we need a few more athletes and a to get rid of Nolan, Smith, Butt and Shola. The speed the West Brom played at was embarrassing TBH.

Just a normal performance really, pretty poor at times because of our horrible midfield and Shola... redeemed by a couple of good players. Special mention for Nolan, absolutely awful. If he hadn't scored goals it would be an easy argument to say he doesn't deserve his place. He looks to be carrying a fair amount of man flab as well.

Awful performance tonight.

Lovenkrands, you legend. Haway the lads!!

Butt is a terrible player now, thinks he's much better than he is which leads to wasteful hollywood passing... and his legs have gone. Still, Hughton eh?

Late entry for best poster award?