Gallowgate Toon

But the best players are defined by doing great things against great teams, scoring bagfuls in La Liga consistenly (although it's been a poor competition this season) is obviously the mark of a very good player but for me when he has to step up from that level aginst the big teams, i can't help but be disappointed and i'm not just talking about aginst Inter this season either. Imo he can be the game's greatest but he's not ready to have that title yet, he's got another 10 years to prove it though. He was awful against Arsenal. And in what way are Arsenal a great team may i ask? In fact the team they sent out that match were hardly brilliant with a patched up defence etc.

I noticed that Aquilani scored but isn't on the pitch, did he play well? Read an interesting stat that he has the most assissts of any PL player in 2010. Thought it was ridiculous people (aka the media) wrote him off so quickly, he's a player with a lot of potential imo, a very classy and proper footballer.

But the best players are defined by doing great things against great teams, scoring bagfuls in La Liga consistenly (although it's been a poor competition this season) is obviously the mark of a very good player but for me when he has to step up from that level aginst the big teams, i can't help but be disappointed and i'm not just talking about aginst Inter this season either. Imo he can be the game's greatest but he's not ready to have that title yet, he's got another 10 years to prove it though.

Because the ref gave them everything. Referee also gave Barca a ten man advantage for 70 minutes. Shut yourself and stop complaining. If he hadn't raised his hands, he'd have still been on the pitch. It's his own f***ing fault for being stupid enough to push the player away with his hand. And if Barca players hadn't come into contact with Inter players they would not have opportunity to dive. Do not let minor infractions from players excuse vast incompetence for highly paid and qualified referees. The ref had no other option man. He raised his hands above the neck - EVERYONE knows that's a sending off - he shouldn't have f***ing done it. You can shield the ball without putting the palm of your hand on someone's face. It's only a sending off with intent, He didn't even look ffs.

Why was he taking his test? I've seen him drive before, used to have a Bentley Continental iirc.

He gets kicked all over the place in La Liga though, and it doesnt stop him. I dont see the difference. It's not like Messi is like Robinho. Ferdinand, and particularly Vidic can be nasty bastards, and he wasn't afraid of them. I think if he was the type to lack any kind of courage then he wouldn't be where he is now. He's always been smaller than everyone else. He scored a hat trick against Arsenal, he walked all over Man United. Whether you think they're tough or not, they're still two of the best teams in the league, which is enough. Am I missing something, when did Messi walked all over Man United??? In the EPL, Arsenal is as far as you can get in terms of being an English team. Arsenal's philosophy is to attack and play beautiful football which is exactly the type of teams that Messi loves playing against. Still don't think he will do as well as Rooney against defenders who go out to nail and bully strikers Er, only every time he's played Man United, particularly the CL Final. Arsenal IS an English team from the PL, one of the better ones. Man United are too, Messi has come off better against both. Tbh i was pretty disappointed with him in the CL final, he was kept at bay for massive periods of the game. I'm curious as to why you think Messi is so much better than everyone else, i admit he a fantastic player but if you compare his scoring records in the league this season with Rooney, both have played 30 matches and Messi has scored one more and he's not exactly amassed a mammoth total of assissts either (9), so how/why is he so much better? Because statistically he is ridiculous, last time I checked he was responsible (goals and assists) for 35 goals in 25 games. and just by looking you can see that he's amazing. Better than any player I've seen since the original Ronaldo. Fair enough, can't argue with that!

He gets kicked all over the place in La Liga though, and it doesnt stop him. I dont see the difference. It's not like Messi is like Robinho. Ferdinand, and particularly Vidic can be nasty bastards, and he wasn't afraid of them. I think if he was the type to lack any kind of courage then he wouldn't be where he is now. He's always been smaller than everyone else. He scored a hat trick against Arsenal, he walked all over Man United. Whether you think they're tough or not, they're still two of the best teams in the league, which is enough. Am I missing something, when did Messi walked all over Man United??? In the EPL, Arsenal is as far as you can get in terms of being an English team. Arsenal's philosophy is to attack and play beautiful football which is exactly the type of teams that Messi loves playing against. Still don't think he will do as well as Rooney against defenders who go out to nail and bully strikers Er, only every time he's played Man United, particularly the CL Final. Arsenal IS an English team from the PL, one of the better ones. Man United are too, Messi has come off better against both. Tbh i was pretty disappointed with him in the CL final, he was kept at bay for massive periods of the game. I'm curious as to why you think Messi is so much better than everyone else, i admit he a fantastic player but if you compare his scoring records in the league this season with Rooney, both have played 30 matches and Messi has scored one more and he's not exactly amassed a mammoth total of assissts either (9), so how/why is he so much better?

I'm not shooting you down, but it would be rank management to drop Guthrie because Nolan is unfit. If Nolan can't hack it in the Premiership, leave him out until he can. This. Guthrie has potential to be a very good player even in the above league, to waste his talent just to accomodate Nolan is lunacy. I hope we get rid of Nolan, yeah he's been good this year but sentimentality in football is often suicide tbh. He's too fat, too slow and just generally not good enough to be a centre midfielder anymore. I would only keep him as a CF as he's just not built for the midfield. He's been a decent leader too but i'm not convinced that he's a positive influence overall and next year when we're going to be losing an awful lot more, i'm sure the cracks will show.

How was his face/jaw looking? Fine, he comes in in quite a lot been in every week since the incident i think and it looks as if there's nothing wrong with him.

Saw Steven Taylor at work today, one of the lads on the till thought it'd be funny to ID him when he was buying some wine, the look on his face was hilarious as if to say 'you know who i am, don't you?'.

Colo has an amazingly disproportianate head compared to his neck like.

He won the Chammpions League with Porto, surely that's evidence that he can do well with a smaller budget and lesser players?

Exactly. Anyone see his masterclass on Iniesta? Not a powerful striker but a quick, extremely tricky and supremely intelligent footballer. Colo has never ever had problems dealing with sheer pace, it's the power/pace combo where he struggled. But it's not like that was even exposed that often by those particular attributes. Someone tell me in which games was he obviously physically pummelled and it led to a goal? I can think of the Stoke game where Fuller turned him but any others? The only oher terrible game Colo had was against Liverpool where he was outdone by some poor positional sense which was probably down to his naivety of the English game. Colo's main flaw last season was his apparent lack of heart, he seemed to give up on causes that weren't necessarily lost and he just didn't seem motivated to do well. Next season should see that dispelled though, he could have generally fallen for the club now a la Enrique.

I agree. I love a ball playing centre half but he dosnt win enough headers or have a quick enough turn of pace to cope in the prem. Carvalho is neither a quick player or an aerial beast but is one of the PL's top CBs. You don't need to be physically great to be a good defender, you need intelligence and that Colo has, he at least deserves a chance. I think he'll do a lot better next season, he has a better understanding of the English game and you could go through countless names of foreign defenders who have taken a year or so to settle in.

See him all the time at work, another Mackem player that lives in Newcastle.

What the hell's happened to Juve and more importantly Diego, he seemed to hit the ground running. Has he been injured a lot or just faded badly?

Was a Peterboro player iirc.

Saw Loven at work today, was with his daughter. Thoroughly nice bloke but you'd think he was a chav if you didn't know he was a footballer.

I'd rather play him than Carroll as out target man tbh he's got a great touch and has a great work ethic which constantly brings others into play and his headers when he does win them are accurate. I was impressed, he wasn't outstanding but his teamplay was very refreshing to see as it was so consistent.

I thought he played pretty well tbh, a very no-nonsense CF on today's showing. He did look like a very effective target man and some of his hold-up play was excellent particularly his first touch, not much of a goal threat but it's very early days obviously but i like the look of him.

I think it's harsh to judge Smith in his current role when he's playing with Nolan.

My point was that they rarely used the through ball but when they did it was just an extension of their main plan, to get at Simpson. Of course they didn't have one gameplan but they had a key area that they knew they could control the game from, that was Simpson's side and they could do whatever they wanted whenever they had him and Guthrie pinned back. I just think that you're singling out Colo as their target when it was evidently Nolan they were getting round as they played a 3 man central midfield, it's not a complex tactic to swiftly change the side at which you attack on, especially when you have someone as slow as Nolan helping to protect the defence from deep runs, it worked because he always left his man leaving the left side incredibly open. Also you say that he tried to stand in front of the pass, i definitely didn't see this, i was direnctly behind the goal in the first half and i always saw Colo track Bednar, on all 3 occasions in the first half which then left a massive gap between him and Enrique where one of WBA's 3 midfielder's would always run to, leaving Nolan for dead. I can't remember much that Steven Taylor did well tbh all i saw him do was flounder about when the ball was in the air and the only block i remember was Smith near the end but if you but if you'd like to remind me of any important blocks he did then i'll eat my words and what do you mean by 'more defensive work in general' exactly, it's a little vague. All i said Colo did well with was one-on-one defensive work, which is what he wasn't so good at last season with big and strong strikers (see Fuller for Stoke etc) but he always dealt with them well yesterday, consistenly nicking the ball away and not getting bossed, i was just saying i was impressed by that improvement in his game but i can't remember Taylor doing anything like that in comparison.

Tbh Valencia has been Man U's second best player this season after Rooney, he's not the problem and could turn into a real quality player. Man U's problems stem from the rest of the team as they are just a load of grafters bar Anderson, who i think is good but needs a run of games, he looked very impressive in his first season.

They were knocking through balls behind him from about the 5th minute. They nearly got in instantly because of it. At one point first half Brunt got in behind Colo & it took Taylor & Enrique both coming across to crowd him out. They knew how to take him out of the game & he did little of note. Very reminiscent of last season, the embarassing defending for the 2nd goal especially. Taylor had a much better game. I think i was watching a different game to you, from what i could see they consistently hit the right flank targetting Danny Simpson. Now i know that Colo plays on that left side, i think you may have been hit with a bit of bias here. As for Taylor, again he was no better his dealings with balls in the air was pretty terrible (as was Colo's) and on the deck he didn't deal with Bednar well, i didn't see Colo get turned once (with the ball on the ground) by Bednar or Miller, did you? Your statement about them knocking balls through is garbage as well. If you're speaking about Brunt then that's Enrique's fault because Brunt played LW. And i watched West Brom's tactics very closely, they did not as consistently attack Colo as aforementioned they attacked Simpson. They played about 5 through balls max and they only did that after Thomas got Simpson out of position, they would then shift the ball inward to their deeper lying CM, who would then put a through ball through the left side which would then be overloaded because they knew they could get in behind Nolan (who when defending took the left side of midfield, with Smith on the right) as he didn't have the legs to track, so consequently Enrique and Colo had 3 men to deal with. Their tactics were spot on, they knew exactly how to get us bent out of shape and they did that always through Simpson and Nolan.

Thought he was pretty good at dealing with Miller and Bednar on the deck tbh, they never got round him. Yeah so he didn't do well for the goal, they all make mistakes Steven Taylor could have been at fault for about 5 potential goals. Aerially Taylor and Colo weren't so good last night, their marking was slack in general imo but they had a lot to deal with.