Mattoon

Absolutely confident in this deal, just the kind of player we're constantly looking out for, fast, technical and confident on the ball, add to this his desire to join our club and I can't understand how this wouldn't happen. However I do think the season could be well under way before we see him holding a shirt up on the official site, Lille are dragging their feet for as long as possible, probably trying to squeeze as much money out of us as they can, but we know how our board like to play hard ball! It's in no ones best interest for them to keep him, why would they want a player who doesn't want to stay, under-performing and shot of moral?

This! But even if after the "clause" expires I wouldn't take 10m and Carroll for Ba, as said above a) Ba is the much better all round player and b) We need strength in depth, not a straight swap. I've been agonising about this one, on it's merits and it's problems and I just think Carroll, at this stage would be a waste of money, we could get at least 2 quality first team players for the alleged 18m we're willing to offer for what would be a bit part player and a bench warmer, not good business in my eyes. We could get Debuchy and Remy for the same price tag, I just see Carroll as a step backwards. He's certainly not worth 2 Cisse's!!

Don't know if someone has posted this as I haven't trawled through all 60 pages but: Squidward http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55744000/jpg/_55744395_obertan.jpg Obertan http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100611163813/spongebob/images/a/a2/Floral_background_squidward.jpg

"Two cocked Gutierrez spreads the love"

Cisseeeeeeeeeeeee you fucking beauty!!!

Tails up now, lets finish the job! Come on Fulham do us a favour

Needed something special today, Barfa = God

FUCK ME THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

Picked him at 12+ goals when we bought him, just had an idea he was gonna surprise people, had me worried after that first game like!

Fuck you James Lawton!

2011/12 GAMES GOALS ASSISTS SHOTS 18 6 4 20-odd

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/player/_/id/43340/hatem-ben-arfa?cc=5739 Dunno if it's right like. You can add 2 assists and a goal to that tally

Been an avid supporter of HBA from the off and said a few weeks back Pardew was a fool for not playing him, I've noticed all those that were slating us for our opinion and his "lack of defensive ability" has suddenly crawled under a rock! Maybe this was Pardew'smaster plan, unleash our secret weapon at the run in! Genious!

Good to hear this from Pardew today, is he finally having an epiphany??? “This guy Ben Arfa is exceptional. I don’t want our fans to start thinking I don’t think this is a good player.” “He is special and we have got to get him on the pitch.” “I’ve got to find a way of getting him on the pitch to play like that, because that was his best 45 minutes.” “We’ve got 11 games to go and he can cause some real damage. He was the big difference between the sides in terms of the technical quality.”

I can't knock the guy for where we are in the league and if you had said we'd be here at the start of the season I'd snap your hand off! Trouble is now I've seen what we CAN do, but have failed to do this year so far, I want to see more from our team. He's clearly doing some thing right or we wouldn't be so high up the table, but our tactics this side of xmas have been substandard to say the least, with Arsenals xmas hangover, Liverpool's inhability to sustain a winning streak and Chelski's OAP demise, we should be challenging for that 4th place spot. Only the two Manchester clubs and the Spuds have shown and sort of sustained class this season and where they rightly deserve to be. As for today's game, I hope that teaches Pardew a lesson that we should be playing a more attack minded game at home, obviously it helped that the Scum were reduced to 10 men, but we were dominant before that and I'm convinced that we would have got a result out of this game even had there not been a sending off. If he leaves HBA out again after today's evidence then you have to question his mentality.

a) That doesn't tell the whole story - what teams were the stats against? b) Clearly the best run has been when he's come on as a sub c) He plays in fits and starts, doesn't get a series of games to settle in I'm not a bandwagon jumper that comes on just cuz he hasn't started, I just think he's too talented a player not to be given a chance.

pardew does not only play 4-4-2, we have played 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 depends on how you look at it, and Pards opted to deploy HBA as wide right, and he wasn't very impressive. then again he played Best at wide left at the same time, what a genius Pardew, plonker. And as soon as something goes wrong his arse goes and we're straight back to 4-4-2.

The guy played in France, ffs. It is not as if he has chicken bones while everyone else has those of an elephant. He can handle physicality. One bad injury will not change this. Not saying he can't handle physicality, would just expect Henry to come flying in with a two footed tackle aimed straight at his knees. Well with any luck he'll take out R.Taylor then Obertan!

He's our most creative and flair player we have, there obviously is no room for him as a number 10 because Pardew won't play anything but 4-4-2 with Cabaye and Tiote in the centre. Ergo he's too talented to waste, better as a winger than not on the pitch at all and better than the dross that occupies the RW atm. Unreal how his thought process works!

Think the stands need to let it be known we want to see HBA in a game like this, we should be taking it to them, kitchen sink and all, Ryan fucking Taylor, is that a joke? It's the perfect game for him to show what he's made of. Pardew you gutless, spineless tw@t!

Totally not biased, HBA is clearly a gifted player, yes he has a temperament, but did that ever stop sir Bobby from playing Robert or Keegan playing Ginola, if someone can tell me what Obertan has produced in the games he's played that constitutes him earning the right to keep his starting place over Ben Arfa then I'll shut up.

They've been waiting for this all season man, f***ing wankers. Bet the penalty shout gets missed out of the highlights too, but we should see the Collo tackle from 12 different angles, at 3 different speeds and end up having him banned for a few dozen matches.

Put this one in the archives and move on, we're still 3 points clear of the Scousers and only 1 point behind 4th, knew this was coming like, totally expected a loss here but not quite so effortlessly!! Bring on Wolves, Tiote, Cabaye and if Pardew has half a brain HBA. Lets get that GD back.

Maybe it's our great master plan, let them whoop us today, ergo 'appy 'arry gets the England job, spuds hire Steve Bruce and next year we slaughter them!

Annihilation, will never live this one down and against that twitchy faced twat too, this just confounds my hatred for these lot, despise them. What a gutless, piss poor, awful display by us, bet Cisse's wondering what he's done to deserve this move. Fuck this I'm off to boil my head in piss, much more entertaining!!