Gallowgate Toon

I'm sorry but the fact Villa is that far down compared to some of that utter dross is ridiculous. What does the lad have to do to get the credit he deserves?

I wonder how the "offers" compared with (1) the fee we paid for him and (2) the salary he gets here. I share your scepticism there. I don't think he's changed as a player - it's the quality of the opposition that's different this season. If the only problem was mental, I'd have some faith in him adjusting to top level English football, but I think the problem is also physical. He's too slow, he's not that strong and he's poor at set pieces. Basically, Premiership strikers were able to bully him, and when they managed to turn him or get him even slightly out of position he had no hope of recovery. Surely set pieces and beasty strikers (a la Parkin) are more present in this league than the tier above, from what i've seen anyway. And of course there's a mental aspect, being clever is the biggest part of a defender's game moreso than being massive or exceptionally quick, take Micah Richards for example, he is the defender you've described above but failed miserably in the centre half role. If you're a defender that's not mentally on it, that's when you're done for. He'll now be up to speed with the English Game, which is again arguably played at a quicker pace in this league.

Cracking result for Atletico today, Aguero absolutely demolished them. He will be an awesome player.

I feel sorry for Pellegrini like, so much to think about on top of being a manager. He's going to have to do something soon though, if he wants results from Kaka, he needs to get him in the centre, he's so wasted in wide areas.

Higuain absolutely has to play, he's the future of Madrid. I like him a lot, i also like Benzema (the jury is out on him but he will do it imo). Pellegrini has so many options but he just fucks it up with his selections.

The Real formation Pellegrini plays is useless, talk about square pegs in round holes. Why is Kaka anywhere near a sideline? He should be in the middle driving Madrid forward behind the striker. You should never have a one man team but you have to build the spine around certain players. If i was Pellegrini i would go with this: Casillas Ramos Pepe Albiol Arbeloa Lass Alonso Ronaldo Kaka Marcelo? Benzema/Higuain/Raul He could even go with a diamond too, just move Ronaldo up further with the main striker and Kaka playing behind them. A good manager imo but doesn't seem to be too confident or in control.

Shame that goal wasn't allowed, cracking finish. Always good to see a player who's got so much stick play so well, respect to him.

What a f***ing run that was from Quaresma, where's all this confidence come from? Has he been playing much recently Mattis?

Quaresma just needs confidence, h's a top player when he believes in himself.

I would prefer if up until February we didn't get a PL team. If some of our players play mint, then it could bye bye to them and bye bye to our promotion campaign.

Exactly, why do people always fail to recognise this. I would agree we don't want to burn ourselves out but if you want to conserve energy then chasing the ball for one half isn't the best way to do it. Conserving energy would mean keeping the ball. Fair point, but you're going to have to run anyway however attacking means doing that defending and then running to attack then running back to defend etc.

Exactly, why do people always fail to recognise this. Because it would be nice to hand out a real battering to someone and it would send out a message, If WBA can do it, then why can't we? We have a squad that is about as small as it's ever been with virtually none of them ever playing this many games, we have no guarantee that we'll get much funding in January, we have some totally unfit key players (see Nolan) who have no replacements in-squad. Fatigue is something vastly overlooked by people at the end of a season (Villa for the latter stages of last season). If we go flat out from now till Ferbruary or March then we'll be screwed, and those 4-0 wins might start to turn into 1-0 losses especially in difficult conditions and that can potentially mean we go on a bad run and lose all our momentum. At the end of the day a 10 -0 win is 3 points and so is a 1-0 win. I don't care about West Brom, yeah they're thumping everyone etc etc but i don't see them ahead of us in the table.

Exactly, why do people always fail to recognise this.

Paid £15.

I agree, i thought yesterdays performance was quite poor by his standards.

According to Thomo, the takeover is imminent, it will happen next week possibly Tuesday...

I can't believe we've just signed Michael Owen, this will be massive for us, in fact i'm going to stick my neck out and say he'll get us back in the Champions League. He has a fanta stic scoring rate and although he's had some injuries, i think he's got over them. I predict that this season he'll get about 28 goals because he's so hungry for success after his Madrid experience i think he'll really fall in love with the place and take the captain's armband one day and he'll be brilliant leading the toon to that elusive trophy. I'm telling you lads, i can feel it in my blood.

Double paradox, as there was no Internet around in 1969

I remember about 2000 to 2002 he was an absolutely immense keeper, what's a bigger shame is the decline in his career. Get well soon Carlo, but that's probably career over now.

I've recalled another time. There was this regular in front of me at, he was pretty old, must've been pushing 75, perhaps 80. Well, he always wore this wooly army green hat, ridiculously thick or so you would have thought. One day i looked down, and he'd rolled it down, turned out it was a balaclava, honestly i've never laughed so much, seeing this doddery old guy in a f***ing balaclava, priceless. He got some right funny looks as well, what some people must have thought when he was on the way out of the ground. He never came back after that...

Looks like you're just insulting him at first glance

One time there was this charva lad sitting next to me at the match and he was wearing Nike Air Maxs, Adidas tracky bottoms tucked into his football socks etc but he had a tracky top on too. He seemed alright for the first 10 minutes, but then he puts his hand into his jacket pocket and whips out... some deodorant. He then proceeds to spray the the stuff onto his armpits but not the actual skin, his jacket armpits. He then continued at regular 5 minute intervals to do this, until half time then he just pissed off.

I don't think he's really going to bitch about the guy that pays his wages tbh.

Obafemi Martins, he's played in the Champions League already and for 3 top level clubs but he's still only 15.

My sister was in Manchester with her work but met up with Charles N'Zogbia and Scott Sinclair for lunch. She's been friends with Zoggy since his time up here, but after lunch they all went shopping together, my sister basically came back with a £700 hand bag and £200s worth of clothes and makeup etc that Charles bought her, and he offered her a Blackberry too. But that's not even the best of it, my sister came down on the train but Charles decided to go back he'd get my sister and her friend a driver to take them back to Newcastle... a £325 an hour luxury Mercedes, fitted with Champagne, TV's and all the rest of it. On a side note my sister said that Scott Sinclair was a really nice bloke, very down-to-earth and wasn't arrogant about how much he earned etc. They also don't really like Marlon King, and really didn't want to talk about him.