Lotus

Not good positionally imo. Has pace to make up for that. Anita will be much more useful in midfield against Norwich anyway along Sissoko and Cabaye. Either Santon or MYM at RB for this.

Me too.

Rather play a defender in the back 4. We've got 2 weeks to sort this out.

Hopefully he's been displaying teamwork tendencies in training and will get a start against Norwich. If he's still trying to do it all on his own i'd rather he watch us win from the bench so he can have a think he could get in the team.

Are we really that close? This summer Spurs spent £100m. Granted they sold Bale, but still. I think this highlights the problem with this whole debate TBH... footballl doesn't provide a defined return on investment. You could spend £20m and end up loads higher, or you could spend £50m and finish in the same position. In business terms, it's very hard to make the case in a concrete way IMO. Just so i'm clear here, across world football, there is no correlation between teams spending more money, buying better players and then achieving more points? That's not what I said, no. What I'm saying is that the exact correlation is vague, the returns are uncertain and therefore hard to justify simply on a business level. That's assuming we're not talking about spending enough to fill every position with a world class player. Why do other teams do it then? Even the ones with relatively small budgets, why do they spend money on players? Why are you trying to simplify the argument to such a degree? I'm not saying spending never leads to improvement, or that it's not likely to lead to improvement. I'm saying (in response to Kevo's post) that it's far from as easy as saying 'we're £20m away from being really good'. Sorry, when you said you could spend £50M at not improve at all i thought you suggested just that. Wasn't being a pedant, just think that, unless you spend it all one massive duffer, it's quite clear that spending money on players isn't so much a correlation but a causation of a better sports team and that's clearly demonstrated around the sports world where teams are, by and large, owned by businessmen who obviously see it as a causation.

Aye. All depends if Blackpool are daft. They could hold out for more in compensation than they are likely to get in Jan How is compensation defined? As in how much, i know that the word means....

Are we really that close? This summer Spurs spent £100m. Granted they sold Bale, but still. I think this highlights the problem with this whole debate TBH... footballl doesn't provide a defined return on investment. You could spend £20m and end up loads higher, or you could spend £50m and finish in the same position. In business terms, it's very hard to make the case in a concrete way IMO. Just so i'm clear here, across world football, there is no correlation between teams spending more money, buying better players and then achieving more points? That's not what I said, no. What I'm saying is that the exact correlation is vague, the returns are uncertain and therefore hard to justify simply on a business level. That's assuming we're not talking about spending enough to fill every position with a world class player. Why do other teams do it then? Even the ones with relatively small budgets, why do they spend money on players?

I'm not suggesting an alternative that is, I'm saying that hanging on for dear life isn't. I'm suggesting that there's one sure fire way to do it, I'm suggesting that there's a better way of doing it than we are now. First half against Spurs was a very good way to do it, and a way that I thought would be a good idea after seeing them recently. Second half we hung on for dear life and defended our lead. Why? What happens at half time? We can only play well for 45 minutes as a rule.

Won't Tom Ince have 6 months left on his contract?

Well, at least we've got someone who's good for those battling type of games!

http://gifsforum.com/images/gif/bertstare/grand/bertstare-eccbc87e4b5ce2fe28308fd9f2a7baf3-2177.gif Love a Bimpy gif I laughed too much at that.

Are we really that close? This summer Spurs spent £100m. Granted they sold Bale, but still. I think this highlights the problem with this whole debate TBH... footballl doesn't provide a defined return on investment. You could spend £20m and end up loads higher, or you could spend £50m and finish in the same position. In business terms, it's very hard to make the case in a concrete way IMO. Just so i'm clear here, across world football, there is no correlation between teams spending more money, buying better players and then achieving more points?

Actually agree with this. Not really sure where people get this notion of us 'building' on these type of performances though. 7 points of Pool, Chelsea and Spurs is fantastic and Pardew will see noe reason to stylistically change our approach on the back of that. We will struggle against sides who play it tight but that's what you get with Pardew. If things are going well, we'll out battle the better sides and hopefully get a goal and a result as space opens up as they try to play around us but we won't be the type of team who can break down teams with clever movement and passing.

True, unlikely to be away at Spurs though. They were always going to step it up. We did step back from them though, we were really hungry to close them down 1st half, gave them too much space 2nd half but that was also down to their good playt. I meant just in general though. It's like the spirit of Gilliepie has permeated the whole squad

He's not half the defender Enrique was. Probs better on the ball though.

It would be nice if just once we could put in a consistent performance over 2 halfs. Whenever we play well, we only manage it for 45 minutes.

We were at them in the 1st half and arguably the better side. 2nd half they really came at us but didn't really give Soldado much service. We've got plenty of glaring weaknesses but tbf, they've spent £100m and so have they. Credit to the players, Pardew and of course, Mike Ashley Thoroughly happy with the 3 points.

You'd think we'd need better than a striker who just manages an average of 1 every 3 games in the French league...

The club is a long, long way from realising it's financial potential, clearly. Now, there either there isn't the ambition to do that or there isn't ability (lack of expertise of people is key positions).

Good quote from Ricky... A creature spawned from the mouldy neither regions of a mag wife, herself a willing submissive to the crusty loins of magdor. This creature, uncouth of appearance and corpulent of belly, exists in a world of eternal hatred. He defines himself in opposition to the ideological crusade of mackemdom; an enlightened force through this nations history.

I know i will be accused of bias but i thought Cattermole's tackle desrved a red and the Hull players probably didn't. Surely it won't be that big a loss to the mackems, can't Gardner slot into his place?

I'm not crying because we are winning. Start losing and i'll be crying for him back in the side. I still want him in the side regardless and miss watching him but win matches and there won't be tears from me. Others differ, even if we win will say we would have won by more had HBA played and that's Pardew's fault, just opinions. Yeah! This hot winning streak of.....er.....1 that we're on. Smoking !!!

He's certainly not awful and i'm a long way from one of his biggest fans (as my posts in this thread wll prove), but to say he's awful is either eschewed by bias or ignorance.

Thought for the 1st 20-25 mins we were quite lucky tbh. Then we got to grips with it better, actually offering something going forward. 2nd half we certainly weren't lucky, we were better than them. Simples!

If HBA used the ball as well as Marveaux does and if Marveaux went looking for the ball as much as HBA does they would be a pair of blinding players.