oldtype

Gah, I can't possibly be allowed to be this excited. Surely one of them will go break a leg or something now.

What's tired is the same old tedious straw man of arguing that anyone who'd criticize Ben Arfa in the slightest is somebody who'd like to see us start with Shola and Obertan every game. He's obviously a good player but he had abysmally bad games against Brighton and Blackburn that highlighted his weaknesses. I don't think that's an unreasonable statement to make.

I disagree. It depends what you mean by giving the ball away. If you mean only when a player tries to dribble then of course coz no other fucker except maybe Jonas and occasionally Best dribbles. Why should a long ball that is headed away by the opponent's center back not be considered as 'giving the ball away'? Not quite sure on your point of defensive support, of course in terms of positioning all attacking players by default should be staying high up the pitch when we have the ball so that they emm attack. The point is when we lose the ball, HBA is no different from other players in tracking his opposite number or moving down to help the defence Aside from the fact that it happens for frequently, there's an obvious qualitative difference here. For the former, everyone is in an attacking position and very vulnerable to counterattacks. For the latter, there is time and space to recover. The second point is just wrong imo. On average HBA always occupies more advanced position than his counterparts in similar areas of the pitch

I don't think anybody can debate that he gives the ball away more than other players. Shola may be the one exception, but he tends to do so in more advanced areas. Also, he's Shola. As for defensive support, it's not a matter of skill or effort (although I doubt he's got much of a tackle on him), it's a matter of position. He's going to (rightfully) be staying in areas where he won't be available to offer defensive support.

Ben Arfa comes with significant disadvantages, i.e. his tendency to give away the ball, his lack of defensive support etc. What's supposed to cancel out these disadvantages is supposed to be his unparalleled flair and natural ability that can produce moments of brilliance. As such, his production needs to be held to a higher standard than others. He's the kind of player you'd expect to turn things around when the others aren't preforming well. If he is just expected to play well when the rest of the team does and is immune to criticism when he plays badly, (he was much worse than most of his teammates were against Blackburn mind,) what's the point? Obviously he's better than Obertan, but Obertan is fucking terrible. This guy needs to be held to higher standards.

There's a good point in there somewhere. Somebody with Ben Arfa's talents should be able to lift us when the rest of the team's not playing well. If he's only any good when the rest of the team is good, what's the point really? You'd expect much more of him.

That dive was bad enough to excise any thought of wanting to sign Hoilett from my head. What a cuntbag.

I. Quotation marks II. Premiership Club (at the time) > Championship Club (at the time III. You pedantic bastard

Leave NUFC for "bigger club" -> Ruin career. Happens to a lot of people these days

I think him picking Hoilett off the ground in outrage was the first time I've seen him show genuine emotion He's the Steven Seagal of football. Only has one facial expression.

Shot stopping and kicking isn't as good BUT Given did not command his area like Krul does, admittedly he still has the odd moment BUT for a young keeper that is no major concern Given had abysmal kicking. In fact, so does Harper.

Can it really be the wrong position though, if it has saved us a goal? strikes me as exceptional positioning. All his clearances were from set pieces where he's instructed to stand on the line in the first place, so accusations of "poor positioning" don't make any sense at all really.l He's doing his job.

Time to edit the op

Was 100% the correct decision to take him off and strengthen the midfield today, even if it's unfortunate that the best player we could put on in that position was James Perch. We would have lost heavily without that tactical change. Don't know what's up with him these last two games really, been utterly, utterly shit. He's always been a bit erratic before but never quite to this level.

They'd wake up and fire me. They can't do that man. Haven't you heard of affirmative action?

WTF how are they eighth all of the sudden? Where did they come from?

Can we change the topic to Gabrilol Rofltan?

I suspect the club might not be paying a whole lot of attention to this year's league position. There's very little real merit to finishing seventh if it doesn't get us into Europe anyway, and perhaps even UEFA football itself is seen as a hindrance by our regime. They may just feel that they want to use our scouting network and efficient practices to slowly build towards a team that's actually good enough to challenge for something and aren't really fussed about where we finish in the meantime, thus the emphasis on long-term value and rejection of any sort of spending for short-term benefit. (Pardew's mention of "Tipping Point" seems to point towards this as well.) Obviously there's the "finishing higher in the league gets you more prize money" argument, but there's no guarantee that a third choice defender would have secured us more points while it is guaranteed that even a loan would have probably cost us at least 1m in fee and wages until the end of the season, money that could be better invested for long term gain. Personally I wish they weren't so extreme about it, but when you put everything together there does seem to be a coherent gameplan behind all this madness.

Hope we're not actually trying to move him on. Would be devastating if Shola somehow managed to yet again notch up over 20 appearances next season too.

I'm fully expecting Bolton shirt sales in Korea to go down to zero seeing as we've signed the Japanese Messi to (indirectly) replace LCY. Ah well, at least we've opened up another potential marketing opportunity [obviously not being serious, as both transfers were for football reasons] You can't "go down" from zero to zero man.

Pretty sure clubs see Asian footballers as instant upward pointing arrow on a merchandise sales chart. Corinthians have not long signed a Chinese guy and pretty much admitted he's only there as a marketing stunt. Just found the article and the head of marketing for Corinthians advised to bring in "any old rubbish" from Asia to boost merch sales. Should get yourself down to Copacabana beach Oldtype. Could wind up playing for a team in Rio. Well, Koreans certainly aren't going to be buying CSKA Moscow shirts anytime soon as long as they have Satan on their books. Their manager says he's "amazed that he's not playing for the Korean national team." Well yes, that might have something to do with the fact that he's never played in our top flight. EDIT: apparently been registered for their CL squad. Maybe he's actually uh... good?

What the heck is that thing in the title supposed to be

Imagine if this becomes another Tiote-during-the-summer saga where they're stuck in Equatorial Guinea forever. We'd commit mass suicide.

Lee Chung-Yong if Bolton go down. Injury has probably dropped his stock low enough for us to grab him at a fair price. Do it Mike!

CSKA Moscow have signed some random dude I've never heard of from the Korean second division. Weird.