Gallowgate Toon

Adam is like a quarterback footballer, can't do much more than launch it hollywood style albeit accurately. His short passing, stamina and intelligence just isn't quite there compared to someone like Barton.

Chuffed for him, always maintained he was a decent player. I don't think he's much of a goalscorer a la Carroll but technically he's a really efficient target man, who wins a lot of headers and keeps the ball well.

Ben Arfa should be our link man between midfield and attack and as a consequence we should just keep the midfield the same with Barton on the right, Jonas on the left and Nolan and Tiote in the centre midfield with a 4-4-1-1 formation. We should really build our attack around HBA and keeping that midfield would create a really fluid offensive set-up imo while keeping a solid defensive structure. I wouldn't consider HBA a 'direct threat' in terms of goalscoring as i don't think he has a consistent striker's instinct. To compensate having only one striker in the box, in Carroll, Nolan can play to his own strengths which is arriving in the box from deep a la Tim Cahill. I think this'll be fairly safe in terms of defence as Tiote as we've already seen, is perfectly capable of covering Nolan's position. Having Barton out wide means we keep a consistent source of ammunition for Carroll's aerial ability but also someone who has the ability to feed Ben Arfa through, if he gets on his bike. As Barton is a deep winger, he can always help Tiote with tracking back by covering inside without exhausting himself. The player who i think HBA will have the best impact on is Jonas, i think he'll be a lot more positive in his play when he isn't constantly double marked, HBA will free up space for him, isolating him with the fullback which should hopefully let Jonas get to the byline/edge of 18 yard box, meaning his poor crossing ability with his left foot is nullified to an extent. The other positive for Jonas is that Ben Arfa will provide some movement up front, particularly in the channels, HBA can get wide and deliver a ball again preventing Jonas from having to use his left (as much). Ben Arfa can roam and i think he's the sort of player who pops up literally everywhere. He's got the dribbling ability ability to come deep and run at defenders, has the intelligence to use space well and the pace to run off the defender's shoulder opening a variety of possibilities and most importantly space for our other offensive players. In theory, it could be awesome obviously football doesn't work that way but imo on paper, that's a really decent attacking line up that would give a lot of defences a tough time.

He's only effective on the wing when the game is stretched. As we saw against Stoke, his natural instinct is to head inside and when we're playing packed opposition it has a negative impact on our play because we need to stretch teams but cutting in makes it more congested, playing into our opponent's hands.

I would rather have Welbeck than Ben Afra on the footage I have seen this season and I'm not having a pop at Arfa as I haven't seen a great deal of him to make an accurate assessment but Welbeck is going to be a top player. I've seen Ben Arfa twice when Newcastle have been on the box,once was a Sunday afternoon game and he got took off early in second half(can't remember who it was against) and in all honesty thought he was very average and the other game was Man City when he got injured so obviously can't judge him on that. Your criteria for the comparison is massively hypocritical, you've based Ben Arfa on 2 matches where he's in a new country etc, in the same period of matches Welbeck had done nowt, looked incredibly poor and your fans had already written him off. Even the best players have off games but Welbeck's had some time to swing your head around. Ben Arfa is on a different level of player, literally could be one of the world's top players if he gets his attitude sorted accordingly, Welbeck at best can be a nothing more than a Euro League player.

Fair play, must have made it up!

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.