Lotus

They will be tight and maybe a little deep now and hit us on the counter in the 2nd half. I can see no point putting Ben Arfa on the right. Raylor is never far enough forward to turn their defenders around and then cross it. There's no way Guti's going to RW and Ben Arfa at LW so the only option Pardew has is to bring Obertan on for Raylor and hope Obertan pushes them back a little. Cisse seems a very good forward for smart through balls or early crosses, given the team has clearly been told not to do the former and doesn't really have the players for the latter i'm not sure it's worth keeping him on either. Maybe see if Shola can do his usual Mackem terrorism!

Cisse not in the game at all. Not his type of football tbf. Probs best bring Ameobi on to compete for all the sky balls.

I think Pardew needs some help. He needs to be allowed to hire a coach who will train the players how to attack the opposition end by quick incisive passing and clever movement rather long straight balls from back to front.

Not expecting much in the way of football tbh (unless Sessegnon puts on a show). Will be plenty of direct play i would think.

I agree. Your last line though....

Krul 6 Simpson 5 Williamson 4 Colo 7 Santon 6 Raylor 3 Cabaye 4 Tiote 5 Guti 7 Cisse 6 Ba 6 Ben Arfa 4 Shola 2

I think midfielders are there to protect the defenders in Pardew's scheme of things and as such, this boy will never fit in.

As always after a disappointing result, emotions are running a bit high. A few things stood out for me today that some of alluded to here as well. The purpose of our midfield is as a shield to the back four. That is their overwhelming primary role. Our forward play consists of giving it to Guti to run up the pitch a bit or one of the defenders to try a long ball. The problem with our long ball game (and there is quite a lot of it to analyse tbf) is that it's nearly always pretty straight. Our forwards don't run the channels, we pump it up there for them and if they win it they've pretty much got to deal with it on their own because our midfield is instructed to not venture too far forward and certainly never go beyond the forwards. I guess doing so leaves a gap in case we lose the ball. It's quite easy tactics to read and i think we've seen as the season's gone on more and more even 'lesser' clubs can come up with a fairly effective game plan to stifle it. I do think we are good if the ball goes loose in the box, Ba is an excellent opportunist and Cisse looks he may have that about him too. Strange thing is, with the players we have in Colo, Cabaye, Ben Arfa, Ba and Cisse it's quite easy to imagine how we could pass the ball around with zip and purpose, pulling the oppo lines about and looking for gaps (Guti and Santon would also contribute well i think). Cabaye, further forward, Ba, dropping deep, Cisse looking for runs behind the CBs with Ben Arfa and Cabaye feeding him, Ba making a late run into the box if the ball goes wide. It would seem the natural way to play with team we have. We seem to be trying to play a type of kick and rush football instead. Our performances haven't had much to be excited about for a while and though we have picked some very lucky results, in the end, if you don't play well enough the points start getting away from you. I actually think we'll play the same 11 (injuries permitting) against the Mackems but i've a feeling we won't be so lucky as we were today. MON sets his teams up in a similar mould to Pards but tbh, he's better at it.

I'm with you on this one, the less players we can have on the pitch who can score and assist the better!!!

Christ! I'm hoping he means Sami (when he gets back from injury).

I'm not sure we'll be overun in midfield by Wolves tbh. Guthrie is a better user of the ball than Tiote. But hey, i'm pinning my colours to the mast here, just making a suggestion!

Would be tempted to play Guthrie and Cabaye in the middle for this one. That average postion bollox thing could end up looking like this! ..........................Krul....................... Simpson......Will..........Colo................ ...............................................Santon ...............................Guthrie.............. Jonas.......Cabaye............................. ...................................................HBA .................................Ba..................... ............Cisse......................................

What, against Jarvis? Not sure about that at all....

That's very narrow, teams will just play around us, dragging everyone out of position. ManC, Chelsea play that way. They have good enough full backs to do it, which is the point you should have made. I think also if we went with that type of formation you'd see Ben Arfa and Ba naturally finding wide positions also to find space and it wouldn't seem as narrow as the picture suggests. Need top fullbacks to make it work well though. Judging by Spurs, i.e. 1 game, it seems Cisse was kean to go wide and put in a couple of tasty crosses actually. Good players don't need to stick to rigid formations though, they read the game and exploit accordingly.

He doesn't read the game well, that's fairly obvious.

Managers make strange decisions from time to time. I know Dalgleish knows more about football probably than all of us put together but he got rid of Ginola and Asprilla for Stephen Glass and Stephane Guivarc'h. We all know Souness is a c*** but anyone listening to him commentate can't argue he know's his stuff, first thing on his mind when he arrived was to get rid of Robert and Bellamy. SBR was a legend, i still remember him dropping Solano TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE TEAM because he was annoyed Solano decided he still wanted to play for Peru. These were all decisions that from the outside, most of us thought wrong and to be fair, none of them worked out well! Pardew seems to have an issue with playing Ben Arfa. Given his alternatives i'm not sure why. Raylor puts in a good ball but isn't a very effective wide man, he's also not quick enough to really stretch a team or cover a good distance to help out his FB, hence he doesn't got too far forward. Obertan doesn't offers less going forward, one could accept this if he was defending as well as Jonas, he doesn't do that at all though. The only thing Obertan's got going for him is i think it was Pardew's decision to buy him (my conjecture) so i think Pardew want's to justfy that (i think the Ben Arfa deal was already in place but not completed before he arrived). Of the 3, Ben arfa is the bigger threat to the opposition, as good at helping his FB as Obertan, i.e. not that much but then we don't face massively attacking LBs every week. The only thing left for me is that it's personal. And that may not be Pardew's fault, maybe Ben Arfa has been out of line. Frankly, i'd like to see it resolved because if not, we need a RW desperately as neither of the other 2 are good enough.

Not really, the keepers were awful. It was like taking pens against someone with broken legs. Ahh come on! So many of them hit the side netting!

I did say in the pre-match thread that i could see a reason for Pards trying his 4-5-1 here, with one of the Dembas on the left, maybe ever switching. I'd have played Ben Arfa on the right because he can play football and he may have given their LB at least something to think about. Thought our high line was strange. They float about a lot (especially Modric) so to keep pressing them in midfield was always going to be very difficult but at having 3 in there might have helped. If we were going to play 4-4-2 we should have sat deeper and gone for the counter attack. It was bizarre tactlically. Obviously Pardew didn't envisage it ending up the way it did but given the personnel of both teams i'm not sure what else he expected from a high line other than them spinning constantly into space between CB and FB. Bad days happen but i'm becoming confused as to why he continues to try this tactic when it's been so flaky in it's implementation.

I was worried if CIV did win it Tiote would've been doing endless rounds of hand pumping in front of the cameras with all the politicians, etc. I guess this way he'll be home quicker. Got to say, on the whole, both teams technique at penalties was great. Sooooooooooooo much better than the English. Very impressed!

Wow! That can't be theirs, surely ?

Slick!

You typed that too quickly.....

You reckon it will be Dawson and King at CB?

Of course he is, he is a "luxury" player that needs a lot of people around him to work their arses off so he can have a free role and do what he needs to do. But you can't run a whole team around 1 player, it just doesn't work. We have got where we are with a magnificent team work ethic. Ben Arfa would be much more suited to a team that can just afford to give him the freedom he needs, which is probably not going to be for a team in the Premiership. Yes he is an amazing talent, but when I watch him, I just don't get the feeling he fits in with what we are trying to do. Yes a class player, but when we are not prepared to run the team around him and ask him to fit in with what we want to do, he looks like he is struggling. I would be with you all and demanding he was playing if we were struggling, but we are having the best season in a long long time, so unfortunately there is no real argument to start him yet. You're wrong there. I do like a reply that is backed up with facts and points to try and add to the discussion. Well done you, you are right you have made me change my mind. What's Obertan's goals and assists ratio per starts compared to Ben Arfa's? I agree Obertan doesn't look the answer in the long run, but he is a right winger, for me Ben Arfa isn't. Having Ben Arfa pigeon holed to the right wing does not seem to suit him at all. For me if he was to play in a 4-4-2 it would have to be on the left. Personally I would like to see him out on the left with Jonas on the right (since Jonas is infact right footed). I remember last year we started away to Man City like that, and I was excited at the prospect of it, and then came along De jong to spoil it all. Personally for me that is the only place I would play Ben Arfa, he isn't a striker and he cuts inside far too much when on the right. I'm not sure what you're watching if you think Obertan is a winger. There's rarely ANYTHING 'wingerish' about him. How often (you can just think back to Villa if you like) have you seen him get the ball, face a slow FB, move forward with the ball at a moderate pace, allow another oppostion player to track across so now there's 2 men on him, have a look inside, only then realise someone else has showed up, look outside again, barely accelerate, get near the byline, right turn towards the corner flag, turn right again, have a look for Simpson, thankfully get rid of the ball. Aye, got 'winger' written all over him....