Gallowgate Toon

Shame that Ramsey suffered that injury, think Arsenal would still have been in with a huge shout had he not been out for so long.

Everton were decent to watch in Moyes' latter years, IMO. They were often direct but I like to see that in teams.

Whoah there, non-fashionable opinion alert. Damn straight. I'm sure the point's been made on here before but Martinez has inherited an absolutely fantastic spine and foundation that was laid by Moyes, particularly defensively. Martinez may well be better but he's not really proven it over a period of time, my sneaking suspicion is that when it comes to him having to buy his own defenders then his teams will struggle more. Edit: I think someone like Moyes is actually a better fit for us in our current state than someone like Martinez. He'd drill a great attitude into the team and help build a platform for someone else to take on when it comes to challenging for the higher levels. Moyes has a ceiling as he's limited by his attitude. Martinez is much more positive and has ideals that are a better fit for more ambitious sides, I'm just unsure he really has the proper skills to bring it all together, that's something he's yet to prove.

Would snap my own hands off for Moyes, to be honest. He's a better manager than Martinez, in my book, who's still got a lot to prove.

Hoddle's supposed to be a great coach but an utterly deplorable person. John Beresford said he was the biggest dickhead he'd ever come across in football.

Klopp at Man U would be sickening. Hasn't Reus been linked with a move to them this week? Would be awful if they were both there. Reus would absolutely tear this league apart, he's totally made for it.

Feeling like a neutral and looking forward to seeing Ozil, to be honest. He looked like the player that we saw for the first third of the season, yesterday, one that will absolutely rip mediocre sides to shreds.

Steve 'slow-mo' Harper.

Ozil's looking much sharper. Seems to have some acceleration that was missing over the winter.

Dan Gosling-esque.

Lovely.

And the mini-cycle re-emerges. Still think they'll go down but cracking result for them.

Still really not convinced the mackems will stay up, even if they go on to win here. It's the 'easy' games that they've constantly fluffed.

Typical

Weren't these the quotes from before the Euros?

In what way would it be an easy decision? Ba was perfect for us and the level we were at meant we were perfect for him. The evidence suggests he doesn't have the ability to up his game when he's required to be more than just a goalscorer. It's a pretty damning indictment, in my opinion, that he's massively struggled to get a game under Mourinho when his competition has been pretty poor.

Ba's not as good a footballer as those two. Equal if not better goalscorer though, particularly Giroud.

It's not the most ethical thing that could have been done but who cares? As fans of the club we've been made absolutely powerless over the last few years. If we need to 'play dirty' to get things going then so be it.

That sounds similar to the stories in the press. However, we have so few English pros left of which the only regular first-teamer is Williamson and at least 3 of them will be leaving this Summer anyway. The only reason I posted it now was because of some of the stories that are coming out. I heard it a few weeks ago when I was at the academy and bumped into the lad in question, he likes the sound of his own voice so I just instantly dismissed it as rubbish.

HBA would be immense in their counter-attacking set up. He'd have to work pretty hard on the pressing front but I think he'd be fine with that if it was for a genuinely ambitious team - as he showed for us when we actually tried to do something in 11/12.

I know a lad who works at the academy - bit of a gobshite, admittedly - who's adamant that HBA is now intensely disliked by the English pros and has been since the end of last season where he was criticised for not looking after himself while out injured. It all came to a head for him at Goodison where Pardew and said few players apparently questioned his attitude and application, in the dressing room. As I say, the lad's normally a gobshite but I thought it was an interesting story.

DEMBAAAAA

Aye. Things weren't going his way so he reverted to type.

I don't think top 4 is within this squad's reach, to be honest. I think 6th would be the best we could achieve as we're a little too light in terms of depth and I think our defence aren't really good enough unless they're really well protected by the midfield. Still, we should be playing better football than we are and with much more consistency. I do think we'd always struggle against more defensive opposition due to a lack of creativity but to nowhere near the same level as we've seen under Pardew.

For all they're an incredibly exciting team to watch, I don't think they're the best footballing side in the division, overall. They're absolutely immense on the counter, better than anyone else, but City are pretty excellent at that too and I think are superior at breaking defensive opposition down. I do hope they win the division though.