Gallowgate Toon

He'll be far more effective when our other wide forward isn't a bit crap. I think we'll strike a nice balance with it really, Cisse and Gouffran will move around and keep defenders busy, while Hatem and co. pick them out. There's more to come from this one.

Indeed, like the wins we eked out over Norwich and QPR this year that sent us on big runs. I meant as in he seems to like grinding out a result after a hard run and then releases the shackles a bit. I don't think it's how he should go about stuff but that seems to be his usual style in these circumstances.

His acceleration was incredible. A brilliant piece of play.

Pardew says he sees Sissoko as the midfield and attack link man, I think I'd rather play Cabaye there and use Sissoko as a box-to-boxer to be honest. I didn't feel like Sissoko offered a lot of defensive protection tonight, perhaps he ran out of steam, or was told to play higher up, but we really need him to help out in that regard.

Says he feels like he now has a good enough team to go and attack Chelsea, whereas at other times this year he's felt there's been a lack of fire power to set out to attack. We'll see how he goes about it, he's got history with eking out a win to build momentum. See Norwich last year.

He played well as an attacking midfielder, but I think he and Cabaye should have swapped roles second half, we needed a little more energy in the middle. Ideally, I'd like to see in the long run: Anita Sissoko Cabaye

Yep, one of the main reasons we were so under the cosh, we needed him to fill in.

Shame we didn't get to see more of his attacking movement in the second, he has great instincts.

He'll be fine, he just needs to adjust his thinking a bit. Great first half.

This was similar to Fulham in a way but Villa didn't capitalise. He basically went 4-4-1-1 against a turbo crap team who naturally overload the midfield, the result? Us being all over the shop second half. We needed 3 in the middle to shore things up and get a foothold of the game but he dithered for 20 minutes or so and then we were just a mess. The guy's a gutless knob, I hate seeing someone so conservative in charge.

A slightly different formation makes him look a right mug, just like Fulham too. Doesn't help when he tweaks a formula that looked so good first half.

Is Jonas special?

How is he so clueless, they have the fucking midfield and attacking numbers you cunt, don't give take away men from that area.

Fucking get Jonas off.

Shola? They're going to tear through us here man. What a fucking idiot.

Seriously needs to get a hold of this. Drop Sissoko deeper man, you pleb.

Why are we just hoofing it? Our strength lies in our midfield.

Sissoko needs to drop a little deeper here. Looks like Pards has fiddled about too much to me.

Midfield all over the place, no protection so far.

Looks like he's changed to 4-4-1-1 to me, anyone else think this?

He's not switched the formation, has he?

Credit to Pards here, good performance.

I thought he was excellent that half.

Fantastic mover, as well as being comfortable on the ball. He's a huge, huge bargain.

Why exactly? He's a similar player to Diarra and Makelele, who played well in the position. He's not a bit like either of them, to be fair. In what sense? I'd say he's particularly similar to Lassana. Tenacious, quick and with good technique.