Gallowgate Toon

Debuchy and Santon's positioning has been more to do with how we look to set up, in my opinion. Of course, they are attacking full backs but Pardew seems to be trying to find a balance with an 'offensive look', fiddling with the midfield while the FBs are told to get up high. Recent games suggest he may have learnt his lesson, however. Hatem was was doing well defensively until he was made the focal point of the team, I have faith he and Debuchy could work together. Gouff deserves his run though, hopefully HBA's taking notes.

I'm not exactly confident. We've probably been the most unpredictable team of the season so far, there are some signs we're finding some consistency now but I'm still not feeling like we'll win, despite how appalling they are. I am certain we'll score on the break though, their defence must be the slowest in the division.

According to Dummet, Williamson is always communicating and that makes him easy to play with. Got to say, he does look our most vocal defender, by some distance too. Although, I do think Mapou will fill that role in time, I was fortunate enough to catch some of his Montpellier days and he was a brilliant captain, led by example and was certainly not afraid to talk to and bollock players. I think he just needs to grow into the club first.

He'll be a tremendous player for us, I still believe that. He's shown some really good stuff this campaign - which has seemingly been forgotten about since the awful Goodison showing - and with a little more refining, he'll be great.

Nice to see a bit of passion and fire in a side that has been far too sterile for near enough a decade. The celebrations really looked like they meant something and that was great to see.

Debuchy's 'OK' but Santon seems to shoot more than he crosses after cutting in. I think he's only hit the byline once, against Villa.

In his brilliant run of form, he scored 6 goals from crosses/crossing situations of some sort. Only one of them came from cutting in. Villa - Jonas puts in an early ball. Norwich - Jonas puts in a low early ball. Liverpool - Ben Arfa puts in an early cross from deep. West Brom 1 - Ben Arfa plays first-time, low cross. West Brom 2 - Ben Arfa cut back. Bolton - Shola cross. Our service from those areas isn't as good as then and that's why we won't see that Papiss Cisse. As of now, I'd play Gouffran ahead of him because he suits our style more but being heavily reliant on a front 3 really isn't very sustainable. I'd rather we had further threats so we'd not be contained by the likes of Hull if they get their gameplan spot on or if one of Remy/HBA has a shitter.

There's also more to wide play than wingers, and I'm not saying it's just about running down the line and putting an aimless ball in either. It's about mixing it up, we cut inside the vast majority of times and want to play ourselves into the box. We also rarely play early balls, our delivery is very often floated. It leads to opposition regrouping, packing in the space and that's fine for Benteke or Lukaku but we don't have one of them, nor do I think playing in the way we do would get the most out of them either. They'd perform better than Cisse, sure, but as well as they have for their clubs?

I don't think our wide play has been too good, like. It's a bit better but we've mainly got goals from individual excellence or rebounds from deflections or saves. 3 of our 4 wide men are on their wrong foot, it limits what we can do, to an extent. Cisse's not very good at what we ask him to do, sometimes he really doesn't help himself but we really don't do him many favours either. It's just basic tactics, you play to your strikers' games to get you goals. We have a number 9 type who has obvious limitations but benefits from space and has a game based around movement, we should be looking to play to that a bit more. Cardiff showed we're making some effort towards that, I think Cisse will be alright if that continues. He's certainly not the long term option.

West Brom and Aston Villa are renowned for their dominant, varried football that revolves around wingers putting crosses in now..? Who said they were renowned for it? They're certainly more varied than we are, no question. It is difficult to vary your attack many different ways when playing with a centre forward who contributes the actual sum of nothing to the play. Yeah, our centre forward needs to be a great link man for our full backs to put in a decent early ball, or for Ben Arfa to look up a bit more. We're not talking complicated stuff here and it's not beyond our personnel to vary it up a bit. I mean, how the hell did we score and win games with Cisse leading the line in 11/12, if he can't do anything?

West Brom and Aston Villa are renowned for their dominant, varried football that revolves around wingers putting crosses in now..? Who said they were renowned for it? They're certainly more varied than we are, no question.

Yeah, and that Lowton who put in at least 2 magnificent crosses against us. When was the last time one of our full backs did that? Weimann was the one who put in that brilliant first time cross for Agbonlahor too, if I recall.

Oh great, a gif. Players like Benteke and Lukaku would improve us but they're not the full answer, especially as those two actually get goals out of teams that have some good wide men and play varied football.

I'm not sure why you'd want Ben Arfa and Remy to play the same, as well. It just makes us easy to defend against when all of our play involves being narrow and moving inside. Man U have thrived off width for years, they had the unpredictability of playing through the middle and out wide, we're not good enough to just do the former. It's no surprise that someone like Hernandez has got goals in his limited opportunities, they make space for each other by stretching other teams' defences out, so when crosses come in, there are gaps for strikers to exploit. That and they put a variety of crosses in. In short, Cisse is not the answer for us in the long run but inhibiting ourselves by encouraging playing in a very one-dimensional style is a bigger problem.

Can't believe you're seriously suggesting Ben Arfa's lack of creativity is to blame for Cisse's lack of goals. Maybe it would help if Cisse could hold the ball up for him so he could move higher up the pitch and make intelligent runs behind the defense without being offside every now and then. Of course he's a part of it, he's meant to be our most creative outlet It's not just him mind, it's the full backs as well. This isn't me saying Cisse's doing well or anything, he's not playing great at all but there are problems with our style. Bringing in a striker that can hold the ball up would be useful but you have to look bigger than that if you want to make an attacking unit.

They may not provide a flurry of crosses from the byline, but I don't believe that would be the way to get Cisse going again either; he's not exactly Andy Carroll when it comes to the physical battle with centre backs or Michael Owen when it comes to movement in the box to be in the right place at the right time. What Ben Arfa and Remy do provide is plenty of pace, movement and good shooting from out wide and out of the box. To do that effectively the ball needs to stick up top, preferably with a striker who can also create chances for himself and others around him. Is Papiss Cisse that type of striker? It's not about being physical though. If you put in an early ball or play it in at speed, then it's not a physical battle, it's about that movement and mental reaction to get you that advantage. Look at Hernandez for example. We just have no variety and play with little width. Cisse scored from quite a few crosses in 2011/2012. A striker that makes chances for himself and others is a great one, are we honestly going to pick one of them up? Of course I'd prefer it if we could, but we won't. Cisse is still good and it's useless not playing to his game, it's not as if what he needs is complex either, it's just basic wide man stuff. You're advocating having little balance to our side, relying on 3 players to do it all.

Ben Arfa certainly needs to step up on the creativity front. We've already got Remy to act as the second striker in our forward trio, we're lacking the creativity and service part. HBA certainly has the ability to provide good crossing and inventive passing but he's been far too focused on going it alone this season, we've seen he can do it but it has to be better than it has been. Pardew we spot on in that Fulham game, he was slowing us down, lo and behold he creates 2 very good chances in that second half.

Remy and Ben Arfa are good players, no doubt, but what wing play do they really provide? Do we have any wide players that have good, varied delivery? Remy's hit the byline once and Ben Arfa's put in 2 decent crosses all season, that's not enough for the central striker. Debuchy's alright but Santon is incredibly predictable, he never goes on the outside and seldom provides an early ball. I'm not saying we couldn't get somebody that would suit them better, either. I'm saying it's short-termist to try and find the person that does tie it all together when we should be looking to make our attacking play far more varied.

I think he can still have a decent season, it's just dependent on Cabaye at the minute. His movement is still good, it's just 'selfish' in the sense that he only really makes a dash when he sees an opportunity for a goal. Cabaye seems to be the only one that can spot anything for him with any regularity, we need to see more of the combination play that led to Remy's second on Saturday. Giving him consistent chances is going to be key, we have the odd game where he gets an opportunity or two but it's often followed by games where he gets nothing, that's not going to build confidence. For the calls that we need a striker that can do much more and link the side, it's a very short-termist view. Our wing play is a massive issue, a bigger problem than who starts through the middle, we're forcing the need to have a great all-round striker because of it. There are few like Ba who can feed off scraps so well, we simply must improve our wide service first and foremost. Hatem needs to re-find the creativity he had at the back end of 11/12. Edit: See the Fulham game for what we need to do. Cisse hit the bar after Ben Arfa hit an early cross, it's one of the only times we've done that this season. Crossing seems like a last resort for our lot, as a consequence, it's often slow, predictable and allows defenders to regroup. I think our wide service must be one of the worst in the league.

I could see Pardew's thinking by bringing Tiote in but I couldn't help but shake the feeling of complete disappointment that Vurn had been dropped. We could have done with his calm passing in the second half.

Not going to get too worried about him, I didn't have expectations he'd stay and am just looking forward to watching him this season.

Remy is a much better footballer. We'll see if he's as good at consistently scoring goals.

We should be looking at 5 points from the next 4 league games, minimum. I think we might pull out an unexpected win vs. Chelsea or Liverpool.

The best I've seen HBA for us was the back end of 11/12, his team play was better then and I think AP wants him to get back to that level. Dropping him was premature, in my opinion, but it may be better in the long run.

Did this win mean we've already won as many away games as last season?