Gallowgate Toon

You have to see the level of opposition though, i don't remember him doing much against higher level opposition in the CL. I could be totally wrong and conjured something up but i've always had the impression he's a bit of a Zlatan and i've never been massively impressed when i've watched Wolfsburg.

Nah, most of them came in the Euro League iirc.

He's unproven against high level opposition though, he never did much in the CL when Wolfsburg were there.

He scored a few goals in Germany. 30 million spondoolies. Can't say I really know anything about him. Stupidly over-rated player.

It's all well and good having pace on the wing but i reckon it's better to have one pacey byline winger and one technical who swings it in from deeper positions. I wouldn't fancy Ben Arfa on the left tbh, he's a centrally minded player who doesn't have a winger's mentality. He will be an excellent second striker, working the channels as well as picking the ball up in central positions and running at defences/picking passes imo. Iirc Bentley definitely isn't slow, he's quicker than Beckham was in his pomp and i remember him skinning quite a few players in his Blackburn days with a mix of good skill and speed.

Routledge was the option that was obvious. Joey wasn't positionally disciplined today and consequently the midfield was stagnant. This is the type of game where Nolan is shit and does naff all and it's a common theme of the home games this season. Should have mixed it up at 65 minutes or so and gone with a different angle. Jonas was my motm tbh, a tireless performance and we deserved a point, the ultimate smash n' grab tbh. It's just a shame Chris hasn't learnt from previous matches.

You'd think Chris would have more of a plan B in these games. We were woefully lopsided and looked devoid of ideas after an hour. Need a more balanced team against this sort of opposition to negate the tactic of a flooded midfield.

Yes it was, almost unreal. Seen it before, but i cant find that video again, wanna se it again. Anyone? If i remember correctly i had to search "Ben Arfa vs Evrton on google or something like that? Cant find it now though It was a Viddler video but it's gone for some reason. I'm sure someone could find it, if they trawled the net enough.

I don't think that would happen, we are a team of seasoned pros who can think and play for themselves and i think our biggest strength is our versatility as a team. We have loads of options and i think he'd add to them. We can play deep crosses, go to the byline, short passing game, long game and we're very disciplined and combative in terms of defence.

Agreed, that specific run was very Dyer-esque (but a lot better with the end product). I think in Ben Arfa and Tiote we could re-create Speed/Dyer combo but with added quality, as i think Tiote and Ben Arfa are superior players respectively. I see him as a mix of Dyer and Solano in terms of attributes and mentality, possessing pace and direct dribbling combined with great vision, technique and passing range. They would be a deadly pairing in the middle imo a match for anyone in the league.

It's hard to say whether we'd have done better if his injury hadn't occured. We're an effective unit but he's on a different planet to any of out current lot and the team should ideally be built around him. If we're playing the current system when he returns to full fitness, i think he can perfectly fit into one position. On paper, you'd say he's best off replacing Jonas but HBA drifts in far too much when we need that wide outlet and it creates more problems more than anything he's better off in Nolan's position imo but only when Tiote is playing. As long as Cheick's covering, he can forray forward as much he wants and he has all the assets to be a huge thorn in any team's side. He can pass and shoot, has tremendous vision and most importantly he can dribble in tight spaces. He can be our Dyer of 01/02 but better, with end product. It's something i'd love to see before the season's over and something we've lacked for years, pace in the middle of the park, a player that can run at defences through the middle. His run vs. Everton where he set up Carroll was magical, beating 4 players in the blink of an eye. Can't wait to have him back.

David Silva is very likeable and is the most talented player in the league imo there isn't anything he can't do and he makes City an attractive team to watch. They are an awful club and set of fans but i'm glad they've brought in some talented flair players like Silva and Balotelli, they're improving the league.

I love how they're now labelling us a hoof ball team when we've completed 3276 passes this season and they've only completed 2300, the meltdown over there if someone showed them that.

If you mean Ben Arfa, he's played in more than 30 games in the league last two seasons for Marseille and saw a lot of time for Lyon the year before. Definitely enough to analyse him. He's not been a solid starter though, given a run of 20 plus consecutive starts. How can he get into a proper rhythm?

What's the point in mentioning his consistency? He's never been given a full season to perform tbh.

Just Sod's law more than anything, Dembele gets scythed down and he's out for a couple of weeks after a leg break was initially suspected. Ben Arfa is on the end of a bad one and gets a serious leg break, when are we going to get a break.

Gutted... This is one of those days where i just feel like giving up on football. Honestly we've got some crap players this could happen to but it happens to our best and our main hope for the season. I hope he gets well soon and is the same player when he returns.

Nah Routledge will stay on, i think CH sees him as our most dangerous crosser of the ball and considering he bases our system on Carroll and Nolan, he's going to set up to their strengths.

Nolan isn't useless, he's useful but only in certain types of games. He is intelligent in using space but the problem is that he needs it there, he doesn't have the ability to make it for himself. He's great at making runs into huge gaps but he's not going to one-two with someone else and make it for himself. In that sense he's very over-reliant on other people to carry him through certain games, like Stoke, where the it is tight, defensive and space is limited. So against Stoke, yes we had Routledge and Ben Arfa (who were both double-marked), who do make a lot of space but not in the right areas, it doesn't help out wide, you need someone in the middle who's going to open those gaps. Ben Arfa may have come in a lot but that didn't help our cause, it played into Stoke's hands making it congested and even harder for our already struggling central players. So taking this into consideration, he's not totally useless. I think he's decent away from home or games that are a lot more open with space but he's a passenger in those really tight games. Bad news for us because the teams we need to be beating will come here and be hard to break down and they all have the ability to nick a goals themselves. For those games we're going to need two solid players out wide to stretch them and a mobile player in the middle to drag defenders out of position a bit more. Next game against City is going to be tight, they defend well but tactically we can easily have the better of them. Have Jonas and Routledge out wide to stretch them and keep the space more open in the middle. Ben Arfa starting in the hole can pick up the ball from a deeper position and run at the central defenders, that is going to drag them all over the place and there will be loads of space for Carroll to get into.

So despite Nolan being in the side for his goal scoring prowess - and starting every game so far - we are hardly banging them in are we? It's only early days though tbf, he seems to think we're creating a lot but we aren't really doing that either.

Does he? Every game i have watched he played on the wing. Any idea how often he has played central? He's mostly been deployed as a winger, rarely been played through the middle in the past but he doesn't play anything like a wide player, more importantly he doesn't think like a winger. Even on his youtube vids, his most effective work has come from the middle, often cutting in and making something happen. In a way he's nullified on the wing, yes he's a good dribbler but it's easy to double mark him out wide, there was a wall in front of him at times against Stoke. Get him in that free role and his options are endless. He can make himself available and dribble from deep, he can play people in and he can make some decent off the ball runs and if he can make himself space he's got a good shot on him too.

The justification to play Nolan ahead of Ben Arfa is based on goals but Nolan hasn't looked like scoring since Villa, his only good chances against Blackpool he fluffed. Ben Arfa may well not score many but it won't take very much for him to beat Nolan's tally (which is only going to be bolstered by penalties, which Joey Barton is equally as good at) as long as Ben Arfa can make space for himself around the edge of the box, i'm sure he can get some shots off and with his accuracy that'll surely result in goals, something Nolan doesn't have the ability to do.

I think it's just a matter of time for him now. The Journal are suggesting that CH doesn't think Ben Arfa is ready to take the playmaker role due to language barriers and not being used to the league but he may well do in the (hopefully near) future. If it doesn't keep on going well for Nolan, he'll be dropped to CM in my opinion and then he'll get found out there as well. It's all a matter of time.

All that worrys me about that is its dependant on Carroll's movement. I think it's quite the opposite tbh if anything it requires the movement of Jonas and Routledge much more. They have shown a great ability in the past to make some clever runs between defenders, as long as they get into those positions, all Carroll has to do is move to get some space to get a shot off. Carroll has to be the 'fixed' point of our attack with the 3 behind him playing 'fluidly'. If you bring Ben Arfa into the equation then, yes, he likes to roam but i did see him make some penetrating runs off the ball into the box against Stoke. The good thing for Ben Arfa is that he will provide an option for the wingers but not back or to the side, actually ahead of them, something Nolan just doesn't do. I mean Carroll's biggest problem atm is that he's double marked, with Ben Arfa off him though defenders will have to be a lot more cautious.

Surely it's just a matter of time before the management team cotton on. Hughton, it appears won't. His justification for Nolan is that he can pop up with a goal, CH doesn't appear to be thinking about the bigger picture. He has learnt in the past, just hope he does this time.