Lotus

When you look at our bench it's not like we have anything to change this

He's holding us back a bit now, no movement (which you expect) but he can't hold it up either.

Sessengon looks a good player to me. Never watched him for 90 minutes but i can understand them wondering what all the fuss is about with Ben Arfa when they have a player doing that well themselves.

That and pace. Could be stronger too.

Tbh, i did think he could have made better decisions a couple of times. Maybe that will come with games.

Barring injury, he'll start against Fulham as Pardew seems to rate his 'input'.

That will be the line up i reckon. Would be lucky to get a 0-0 with that and Pard's super long game being eaten up by Hangelaand and that Swiss oaf /forgotten his name.

Thought he looked good up front and did well enough wide left. Beautifully taken goal.

QPR were more of a goal threat despite us having a far better squad than them.

We played better when he came on, that clearly wasn't solely down to him though as i didn't think he was great or anything. I guess he's lucky Sammi's out.

Needs to beef up a bit. That will come, he's young and will fill out.

Funnily enough, despite he's complete lack of ability to threaten the opposition goal, i thought he did fairly well holding the ball up.

Did well today, looked fit as well.

As someone said above, he had other options to bring on instead of Ben Arfa, those would have been in their natural position too. So basically, that post is a load of s***. You're just f**ked off Obertan didn't get on. I can't be f**king bothered with you, actually.

Pardew will bench him for Fulham, i'm certain of it.

Can't bring myself to praise a guy for these changes as they were forced on him. If Cabaye was still on we'd probably looking at 0-1 deficit right now with what was our 'set up'.

What would you try then? play him in behind a front two or alongside a similar player off a striker in front (and wide) of a middle 3, the main thing i'd be changing regardless is that the midfield look to get into attacking positions whenever possible instead of sticking to their positions at all times. I don't think he'd offer enough as part of a middle 2. If he's 'in the hole' then we do need our wide men to attack the box more (and better). Given the players we have i really think he might be better on the wing.

What would you try then?

So, he doesn't want Ben Arfa as a winger, he wants him as a 'working wide man.' Reminds me of someone else's patter now i think of it.....

Wasn't there some crap going around a couple of weeks ago about Krul having a £7m buyout clause? Probably the same rumour but with different names inserted.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Was great. A few points though: The players were very motivated. Credit to the manager, staff and the players themselves. They closed Manu down relentlessly, denied them space and time (for the most part). Pardew. In my humble opinion this was not a tactical master class. Clearly our game plan was to deny them time, don't dally on the ball ourselves and get it to the big men asap. Harrass them, keep a high line but put pressure on the ball so they can't find a clever pass because if they get in behind us, we're in trouble. As we started to tire, around 65 mins in, we couldn't pressure the ball as well. Then we see the ball over the top for Wellbeck that caught Colo out but Wellbeck miscontroled (luckily). I reckon if Allardyce had been our manger still, he would have wanted us to play exactly how we did. As Rednose said in his post match chat, we didn't tear them to shreds and he's right we didn't. We weren't working their keeper particularly. We had a couple of nice moves (Shola's ball to Ba that should have ended in a penaly) but on the whole, our 2 goals were wonder strikes that no one could have stopped. For the first, the ball skims of Shola's head, the ball bounced nicely for Ba who put in a truly cracking shot. Cabaye's freekick is a goal every day of the week, no one is stopping that. Tbh though, i reckon they were better around our box than we were around there's, which is probably to be expected given they have mostly better players (think Tiote and Cabaye will outplay Carrick and Giggs 9 out of 10) and a better manager. I don't think Ba and Shola raped Ferdinand and Jones for most of the game, they certainly gave them a challenge but they didn't dominate them. Our strikers would have had more shots in the box if we had. If you think to the first 20 mins, they really had some moments. Also, Simpson's block in the 2nd half was tremendous but those kind of things always have an element of fortune about them. We won because of Manu's team selection, maybe Nani on the left, Valencia on the right, Fabio and RB and Hernandez to start might haver been better for them. We won because Manu like to play through the middle but our middle 2 are better athletically and also very technically adept. We won because of 2 cracking shots of a quality which won't be repeated every week. We won because of our attitude which is to our credit and simple tactics of starve the opposition of time and bang it down field at the first opportunity and see if we get lucky.

I've heard this kid's mustard...

If i was playing as well as him i'd wait until the summer to see who we sell before signing a new contract. There must be teams all over the continent eyeing him up.

If he was just a bit quicker i'd say he'd be worth sticking with but he does lack a bit of acceleration against really quick players, and given the rest of his limitations, i only hope we one day find another dirt cheap player who's better.

I loved Enrique. I even loved Enrique when so many others were slating him. Santon looks better than Enrique did in his first season though, must be said.