Gallowgate Toon

Excellent news.

Not if we get Debuchy in. Simpson will be demoted to yellow, silly!

Won't happen that fast Bet it will. Yep, this'll be done by the 1st.

I think he'll do really well. In a way I'm glad to not see him on the wing anymore.

Someone will come in, we're down a purple!

I really think we'll see Remy coming in for the same price now. I wouldn't really have a problem with that, as i think it'll lead to better football and other scorers, but we still need more depth up top and are back to square one unless we invest a bit more.

Fine to keep him here until his contact runs out tbh. He's decent as back-up, although I doubt the board will see it that way. I think this is a definite indication that he's on his way out.

Danny Simpson taking some form of responsibility

Attack those teams, like we have recently and I can see us doing really well in those fixtures.

There's a case for him but I think we need Tiote in there against such a physical team, Anita deserves to be there too with his performances and we need Marveaux for creativity. I just think throwing Bigi in as the defensive midfielder against a strong team like that would be a bad idea.

Same team that started tonight but with Anita replacing Bigi. There's no chance we're going to stop them from scoring with the players they've got at their disposal, so we're just going to have to try and go for it as we've done of late. Strangely enough, I fancy us to get a win.

Strengthen the defence please, Mike.

He's a lovely footballer, he'll be a real problem for teams in that central role, especially at home. Fantastic tonight, he should have cemented his place in the team now.

I'm giving him credit for going for it much more of late, hopefully he can now see we do actually have some attacking potential and not revert to the terrible shit we were playing before. The defence however, is just not functioning, some of the protection they've been given of late has also been poor which is probably a reason but we just need to find some balance. Those subs were abysmal too and the main factor in us getting hammered for that last 15. They're one of the quickest teams in the league, so leaving them acres of space to burst into was always a bad idea, although he doesn't seem to know how to handle speed, considering his use of high lines against quick forwards. It was good to see him admit his mistakes but this isn't the first time he's done this, hopefully he'll learn this time.

I don't think he's as useful in games where we're on, or need to be on, the attacking front, he's a much better player when we're under the cosh. I'd rather try and dominate the middle with genuine skill, which I think we can do against the majority of teams at home. It's not a case of not defending at all either, Cabaye and Anita are very astute defensively and as long as we have discipline in our shape, we'll remain solid, you don't necessarily need defensive midfielders in there all the time. I've watched a lot of teams come here this year and put in a massive defensive shift and we've really struggled to break them down. We need as much creativity as we can get, there's plenty of crap in the league that don't need the amount of respect we've shown them so far this year.

Totally agree with this, I think he's a necessity away from home and against the 'big' teams but we don't need him against the lesser sides. At home, I'd like to see a midfield 3 of Cabaye, Anita and Marveaux with Ba, Cisse and HBA up top. Away, I'd want Tiote, Cabaye and Anita as the 3 with HBA, Marveaux as the wide forwards and either Ba or Cisse in the middle.

It's not the only tactic but has looked our best bet. Also, Ba really isn't rendered useless as a wide forward, considering he's played the majority of his senior career there and scored plenty. It's not like he didn't have chances there last year either, he just wasn't putting them in. I don't remember Ba being anything special out wide personally and the chances he was missing are the same chances Cisse is missing this season. The main fact is it's almost a year since we signed Cisse and while we've played them both together on nearly ever occasion, they still look like strangers. As you've said though, he only played there for a few matches last year. Facts are this, he played there for Hoffenheim and still managed a very respectable scoring record, I don't see why he can't do the same here. Spurs.

It's not the only tactic but has looked our best bet. Also, Ba really isn't rendered useless as a wide forward, considering he's played the majority of his senior career there and scored plenty. It's not like he didn't have chances there last year either, he just wasn't putting them in.

Spot on. Plus didn't Ba score one goal in something like 16 games out wide. That isn't both of them scoring. But Ba HAS played out wide a fair bit in his career and scored regularly there, Cisse's never been that type of player. It's not like Ba didn't chances there last year either, he just didn't finish them off. In my opinion they should both be on the pitch rotating but they need someone with a quality delivery too, it's what they thrive on, if that link's not there, then it's all a bit pointless, which is what we saw yesterday.

What I don't understand is, Jonas is a poor crosser of the ball on his left, we all know that and yet none of our players ever gamble at the front post. Around 90% of his crosses must end up there, surely someone has thought about anticipating where it's going to end up?

Or how about when he's having a poor game, you simply sub him off and leave the one that looks up for it on, who also happens to be a goalscorer?

Proper harsh that a player played well (considering) and got subbed off, while another who played poorly stayed on.

He had every right to be furious, the lack of faith AP's shown in him has been horrendous.

Yep.

I didn't think today was too bad in all honesty. There are still massive areas to improve upon but at least we're approaching games like a football team now, Pards just needs to be more proactive in his selections. Marveaux should have been on from the off today, normally I'd want him centrally but we really need a decent left footer in that front 3, we could have been in on numerous occasions if we'd more potency down that side but we had Jonas, who's a useless crosser (as we all know). I'm confident we'd have won this far more comfortably, if we'd had a starter with that little bit of creativity in the final third. We're edging back to our old level and I thought it was good to see we didn't go overly hoof when Shola came on, it's a step in the right direction. On a sidenote, I felt sorry for Cisse. He played relatively well in my opinion, with some nice touches and movement off the ball, it wasn't really fair that he was sacrificed.