Gallowgate Toon

I'm pretty sure Remy has played 30+ games every season for the last 5 years.

He certainly will be, his class on the ball is evident. You could see he's missing that bit of explosiveness from his game (the incident when Okore had to be subbed) but that will come with this fitness. He was apparently done in after 10 minutes two weeks ago, heck of a turnaround.

We could have a really decent season if we keep people fit but our lack of depth will hurt us, especially if we don't recruit further in January.

It's one game in a season, that's what it is. In other words, very little to judge how a season will go from. Actually, you can take a hell of a lot from today's game. He's a safety first manager, no doubt, but he's shown that he's comfortable going for it when he trusts his team. I'm not saying he's an all-out attacking manager but we saw his mentality today, he's fine to go for it when he feels confident. This was an awkward fixture to predict as they've played better than their results suggest (due to opposition), he deserves credit for being ballsy enough to go there and look to beat them at their own game.

He played an attacking line up today when it could have been very easy to go with something more defensive. If that's not a statement of his intentions, then I don't know what is.

Imagine if he was our manager one day

MOTD is unbelievably shit, as we've all known for ages. Criminal that they get away with such a shocking production.

Love this dude. Lovely player, so glad he's playing well.

Torn on him, I do think he'd benefit from a bit of time in a team playing relatively well but Gouffran's really making a great case to be starting.

Yeah, I was surprised. Good that he's having lessons despite being able to speak reasonably well.

Deserves a start now.

Anita and Shola out, Cabaye and Remy in, in my opinion.

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You'd think if we can keep Sissoko, Ben Arfa and Remy fit for the majority of the season, our away form will drastically improve. All are excellent options on the counter, great combination of speed and dribbling ability.

2-2 draw. Remy and Cisse to score. Think we'll get them on the break with our pace.

He seems horrendously injury prone.

What worked well in that great period on Saturday, was Gouffran took up a striking role when Remy pulled out wide. I'd like to see us go with how we finished (Anita over Cabaye however) when we go to Villa, I think Gouff could be very effective there in a game like that.

For all the talk of his decision-making, I thought he got it spot on in the second half. He mixed up his crossing and chose better times to run at the opposition. He's shown that when in a decent team (when we finished 5th) he makes generally good decisions. I hope that what we saw in that 45 vs. Fulham continues.

Gouff's a really useful player, certainly good enough for a squad challenging for the Europa League. I'd like to see him get a proper run at centre forward but that won't happen unless one of Cisse or Remy gets injured. He seems more up to the pace of the league now, he's been taking players on more and looked quicker and stronger every time he's played. I thought it was crap that he was dropped after the City match, he was actually having a pretty decent game until Taylor got sent off.

Do agree.... the main reason i think it was ineffective was the strikers offering no movement, the more Remy plays the more we create basically. Was so refreshing to see him come to the ball, collect, lay off or turn and do something meaningful with the ball - be it run at a defender, gather some space and switch play (Ben Arfa's goal). And honestly, it's not something drastic either - it was simple football but transformed us. Sort of telling how dire our strikers have become at the general play. Remy is a top player too though, none-the-less. Yeah, he made a huge difference. People obviously focus on his goalscoring for QPR but it's forgotten how much of a good footballer he is technically. You can see why he's been compared to Henry in terms of style, he doesn't seem like an out and out striker, he's happy dropping a little deeper and getting involved, pulls out into the channels, dribbles at opposition etc.

They're not completely incompatible but they're a pretty poor match if you want to be an attacking side when playing 4-4-2. Cabaye/Anita-Sissoko is the way forward.

Fulham was hugely positive. Half of the criticisms of Pardew are that players don't get forward enough, we don't create enough chances and that we try and protect leads instead of going for it. Exactly the opposite happened in that second half on Saturday. It was more than just a goal, it was the manner of the performance against an organised defensive unit, which has been our achilles heel for a while.

If we can keep key players fit until January, i think we'll do quite well. It's a big if, though.

I actually miss Llambias. Seems he was the 'brains' behind our (still flawed but better than nothing) plan. Something must have happened between Llambias and Ashley before Kinnear came in, I imagine the hitch was after Pardew's comments about Ashley needing to admit that he hadn't been the best chairman last season.

Kinnear's comments on the top brass agreeing that our team was good enough for top 10 said it all. That's all they care about, the happy medium of earning as much as possible while not having to invest further for the likes of Europe. I remember one journalist said that the management were unhappy that we got into the Europa.