Gallowgate Toon

Why is Duff starting over Gutierrez?

If Wise is in charge Xisco is going nowhere, he bought him because he thinks he has potential and i'm quite happy that Wise is doing the deals, he bought some good people in the summer.

He looked a lot better than Reina on Sunday, he looked really shaky when the ball was in the air.

His position and CM are possibly the hardest to adapt to in the league, so it will take more than half a season, Vidic and Evra are great examples of this. Bassong is not better than Colo, he has looked better so far this season but he's onl played 6 games and has a lot less pressure on him. If people are saying Bass is better than, then look no further than last season.

He's not actually slow himself, he's pretty quick he's just not used to the awareness of other players, like Gerrard, who make clever and powerful runs. He basically just hasn't adapted to that side of the league yet, tbf he does win quite a few headers when he goes up for them, but that isn't his job, he's the sweeper and he certainly isn't weak.

He's got power, he's hit some rakers for the reserves hasn't he.

Just lives off being from Man U, managers will see that as valuable experience and he'll never be dropped.

I agree he has something, he has a lot of potential to be very good, but a lot of players have something and they show it over a period of some games it doesn't mean that's a true reflection of their ability. There's been so many footballers who've made very promising and great starts over their first 10 games but a lot of them can never really carry on the form and their true level comes through. All i'm saying is be careful here, some people are naming him player of the season so far and he's played 5 games out of a possible 19, i'd rather just let him develop than mega-hype him and put too much pressure on him a la Richards.

Thought their only decent player was Modric tbh, i like the look of him.

I meant he has to prove that he can over more games or even a season. He's played 5/6 games but he's only had 4 good ones as everyone was rubbish against Stoke and the same for Wigan but that's beside the point, the fact remains he's still played 5 games, in all your time watching football how many players have you seen have 5 good games/or one good season even to completely flop later on, a certain Micah Richards springs to mind, as does Taylor when he first broke through and there's a hundred more i can name. If you're saying that playing well over a few games counts as consistency then that's just stupid, i'll call him consistent at the end of the season but not now. I like Bassong he looks a good defender and a great prospect but there's been enough footballers who have fallen into that category who have failed later on.

Did his knee last season and was out for 6 months iirc. Pretty sure he was injured for most of the summer too, when he was writing columns for the BBC. Not the first, nor the last, footballer to suffer a big drop in form after such a serious injury. Hope it's not permanent, he has the talent to be amongst the best in the Premiership, and was the real star a year and a half ago when Dunne and Richards were the in-form central defence partnership in the Premiership. I remember he also took a pretty bad knock to the head earlier this season, that like the Given injury might have shaken him up and lost some confidence.

I think it would be fair to say that Bassong's recent performances wouldn't have been as good if he hadn't been playing alongside such a talented and experienced defender, if you watch closely Colo organizes a lot he tells people where to go and when to go that's what you get from being a captain. Bassong has played three games, the key is to play consistently throughout the season not in just fits and starts. Colo for me has been playing at a consistently good level, not outstanding or excellent but good and considering he's played in the slowest leagues for all of his career that's impressive.

Taylor's never ever looked this good in the shirt tbh. not true Taylor loked pretty good when he first came through, very promising indeed.

I'd be careful here, he might turn into another Taylor if we get ahead of ourselves.

I heard Richards is one of the most down to earth footballers you'll ever meet and he'll never let fame get to him as he had a rough upbringing, am i right or is that bullshit?

Playing with one of the worst CB's in football, the great oaf Richard Dunne, says it all really.

Lennon got past a couple of time but you have to say there was also at least an equal amount of times where Enrique blocked him or tackled him well and started a counter attack.

Perfect club for him, his mentality was far too 'small club' to suit us.

Hands up here. I was sloshed on Saturday night, seriously hacked off with the shambolic result and was ripping into our players. Having said that, my true opinion is that, that HTT has mentioned above- a good player who's not offering a great deal of end product. Where's the player that had us all raving after the Man Utd game? Thats the Jonas i want to see. I accept the stuff about him playing out of position and with a load of knackers in our side, but forgive me for demanding a lot more. i think its the same jonas tbh. the difference is the rest of the team. we dont stretch teams any more. i haven't noticed much any real difference between the jonas now and the jonas then. the only difference is that we are not as a team playing as well and we overhype his performance against manure. he does exactly the same things now as he did then (going past players for fun, lots of running, good defensive work) but that doesn't seem to be good enough any more, whereas at the manure game it was. his end product is harshly treated as well. his ball to owen was sublime yesterday. get good players around him and he'll be brilliant imo. I don't think we overhyped the performance, i think it's taken him a while to get back to his incredible level of fitness, get comfortable with the league and get confident. The Jonas on the wing against Stoke (ok weak opposition) was very impressive and if he and Zog switched wings a bit more, they would be fantastic.

Beye should be captain like, i think he's a real leader, and if Colo gets more experience he is a definite contender.

Looks much fitter not than he has done, which is what he needs for his game, today on the wing he was excellent, and he's already got some assissts atm so end product shouldn't be questioned, his ball today was superb. He now looks to run more too which i like, perhaps he was just playing safe after injury but i'm glad he's gone back to his direct self.

Coloccini still probably isn't used to that side of the game in England, a guy in Spain would probably not have attempted that he would have just slowed down, held the ball up played around with it for a bit and then just passed it when extra men came. Colo will learn how to deal with these situations better, he has all the attributes he just needs the guidance.

Was inevitable with such a lightweight midfield against surely the biggest side in the league? They were just too physical and strong for our soft centre and ran through us. Too much pressure was put on the defence in the 2nd half because they had 4/5 men running at it with no help from Geremi or Gutierrez or Beye or Zoggy. Joe is a plank for his tactics though, yeah the players should show bottle but when you have a shape like we did in the latter stages, far too much pressure is put on you and you crumble. We lost shape because we had numerous square pegs in round holes which could have been so easily avoided if Colo had gone CM and Taylor CB or even Taylor CM but changing the team chemistry like that was ridiculous.

If you're going with this school of thought would it not make sense to take off games for Oba settling in to the league which Owen has never had to do, then also take off games for playing on the wing under Allardyce.

I don't think the fb's don't get forward because they don't want to, i actually think its more to do with tactics, JK plays more long ball stuff, so full backs aren't really needed as we have wingers, hence endless hoofs up to Ameobi.