Gallowgate Toon

We played a system which was never going to work as we actually reduced our threat from last week by dropping Perez who wasn't brilliant but offers something in front of goal. We packed the team with defenders and midfielders and played a bloke up front who looks like he couldn't score in a brothel, it was destined to end in failure and did so. Fair enough. By the looks of it, a couple of our players going forward looked pretty off it today so I really don't think it would've made that much difference.

Really not great today. Just didn't seem to impose himself at all. He's had a solid run of great games, mind, so can't be too harsh on him for one no-show.

It's mental they don't think we need a good CB, like. It's just as important as getting a striker in, IMO.

Aided by a fair amount of s**** on the pitch. All he had to do was make one f***ing change. Jesus. And then what? Our centre halves still would've been mugged off by Deeney and Ighalo being able to out-muscle them. So might have been an idea to play to our strengths then rather than rely on a defence that got raped by the same front pair at St James. The f*** are people watching? The same thing but trying to view it with more balance, maybe? Balance. Christ. Have you actually criticised any players today, by any chance? Or is it just your usual McClaren rant that you've been regurgitating every single week for about the last 7 months? We're back to the Pardew days again are we? Manager gets it all wrong so lets blame the players, or perceived lack of them. Last week was McClaren, I don't recall anyone taking it away from him. Today was McClaren too, f***ing s***. Every decision wrong just like most of his time here or we'd have more points. Why do you only view this as one way or the other? That's my point, I only ever see you criticise one person out of the staff in our whole mess. Because we go through players like a hot knife through butter while holding onto managers for years. It's simple stuff to me. Get a better manager the players will play better. Today was the worst I've seen of McClaren, basically Pardew vs Reading levels of absolute s****. You blame whoever you want but I said before the game started we were beat with that formation and selection and that's how it turned out. And you don't think there's a decent chance we'd have been beaten in a 4-2-3-1 with 2 physically poor CBs against 2 of the most direct forwards in the league?

I'll repeat, we lost to Watford in the cup, was his plan to lose today? So what we lost? I said we played it to decent effect. That means we put in a decent performance with it and your point that 'they don't know what they're doing' isn't entirely valid because they've played it before. FYI, I don't think he should've changed it today but I don't think the result would've been that much different if we'd have played a 4-2-3-1, our deficiencies are there for us all to see when we come up against physical strikers.

Aided by a fair amount of s**** on the pitch. All he had to do was make one f***ing change. Jesus. And then what? Our centre halves still would've been mugged off by Deeney and Ighalo being able to out-muscle them. So might have been an idea to play to our strengths then rather than rely on a defence that got raped by the same front pair at St James. The f*** are people watching? The same thing but trying to view it with more balance, maybe? Balance. Christ. Have you actually criticised any players today, by any chance? Or is it just your usual McClaren rant that you've been regurgitating every single week for about the last 7 months? We're back to the Pardew days again are we? Manager gets it all wrong so lets blame the players, or perceived lack of them. Last week was McClaren, I don't recall anyone taking it away from him. Today was McClaren too, f***ing s***. Every decision wrong just like most of his time here or we'd have more points. Why do you only view this as one way or the other? That's my point, I only ever see you criticise one person out of the staff in our whole mess.

2 weeks ago we lost to Watford in the cup, are you taking the p*ss? Again, the performance was supposed to be a decent one. Same old story with us this season on that day, had chances, played some decent stuff but missed out on the clutch moments. They're not alien to it.

The players don't know the system we're playing, it was a pointless screw up by a manager who is massively out of his depth. Didn't we just play it two weeks ago to decent effect? Doesn't seem like they don't know it, we're just not that great a side still. To decent effect? We lost and went out of the FA cup, man. The performance was meant to be a pretty decent one, no? Just the usual can't take chances but played OK stuff.

Still need some players in and it's good in the long run for us that today showed it. Need a proper defender and striker in, pronto. Not good enough on too many levels today.

Aided by a fair amount of s**** on the pitch. All he had to do was make one f***ing change. Jesus. And then what? Our centre halves still would've been mugged off by Deeney and Ighalo being able to out-muscle them. So might have been an idea to play to our strengths then rather than rely on a defence that got raped by the same front pair at St James. The f*** are people watching? The same thing but trying to view it with more balance, maybe? Balance. Christ. Have you actually criticised any players today, by any chance? Or is it just your usual McClaren rant that you've been regurgitating every single week for about the last 7 months?

The players don't know the system we're playing, it was a pointless screw up by a manager who is massively out of his depth. Didn't we just play it two weeks ago to decent effect? Doesn't seem like they don't know it, we're just not that great a side still.

Balance comes up again when discussing a s*** manager who was sacked by Derby. Eh, yeah? We're a soft team at centre half (which they have the perfect combination against) and nobody to play at left back. I wouldn't have switched it but I don't think it's the main reason we're losing this game.

Aided by a fair amount of s**** on the pitch. All he had to do was make one f***ing change. Jesus. And then what? Our centre halves still would've been mugged off by Deeney and Ighalo being able to out-muscle them. So might have been an idea to play to our strengths then rather than rely on a defence that got raped by the same front pair at St James. The f*** are people watching? The same thing but trying to view it with more balance, maybe?

We seemed to start pretty attacking but got pegged back. We're hardly very good going forward, man

Aided by a fair amount of s**** on the pitch. All he had to do was make one f***ing change. Jesus. And then what? Our centre halves still would've been mugged off by Deeney and Ighalo being able to out-muscle them.

So rubbish defensively.

Is the system seriously getting blamed for that goal? It's just basic, basic defending, man.

Sounds like the usual recent story. Good football, relatively solid-looking defensively but missing opportunities.

The other thing that was noticeable in that first goal is as soon as Shelvey gets the ball, Sissoko makes a run in behind straight away. They obviously trust him to find them. Edit: the pass had a bit of disguise on it too, I thought. He sort of gave the eyes before popping it off.

I'm not sure that it's down to him or just the quality of the players we are signing. Wijnaldum, Perez and Jonjo are just good footballers who play football the right way. Graham Carr was getting flak on here for signing too many players unsuited to the premier which was justified to some degree, but from a technique perspective some of our best football comes from those signings. What I will say is that the football we saw yesterday could never have been produced in a million years by a long ball merchant like Pardew. It's a mixture of both. You need the players to execute the gameplan. That first goal was a smashing team effort and Shelvey said it was something they were instructed to practise in the warm up. McClaren was much more astute in his post-match interview, talking about the importance of a passer like Shelvey opening a defence and tempo being key. I'm sure he knows the formula, he's just not had all the tools for it. We'll see where it goes from here.

He played on the left for Tenerife, didn't he? I think he'd be absolutely fine there with a good LB behind him. Long-term, he's probably a fit for 10 but I think he's better off sticking wide for now and keeping on learning his craft. We still need a LW, obviously - if that Montero rumour is true we should be all over that.

Great to hear the 1st goal is a move we've been practising. It was executed so well.

He's not as talented a dribbler as Ben Arfa but his overall game is better. He's sensational and certainly the best of those, in my opinion. The others all had some form of big-ish weakness in their game, Gini is pretty damn complete.

Lovely, lovely finish.