durhamunigeordie

The paradigm example of a utility player.

Exactly a winger with pace, and most importantly who knows how to use it properly, is always going to give a fullback a tough time - it's just one of them! Unfortunately, Obertan doesn't do that enough yet, am pretty sure Pardew himself pointed to that fact himself after the Stoke game, however, he did begin to do it more in that game and will hopefully continue to do so.

Cole is of course a world class left back, however, he is only human and it is just the laws of science that if you are a defender facing one way and an attacker knocks the ball past you and runs on at pace, you are going to struggle. Routledge against Cole last season is a perfect example - no football fan in their right mind would ever suggest Wayne is a better winger than Ashley is a left-back, but he caused him real problems that day.

EDIT - Just remembered that this is the thread about Demba Ba, apologies. Demba is good 

That would make sense. The guy is a defesive midfielder who fills in well at right back. He only played in the centre of defence because we exhausted all of our options. Most players struggle outside of their comfort zone.

Am being pedantic here, but not sure that is technically true? Apologies if I am wrong but I was under the impression he played in all three positions for Forest and if anything played more as a defender?

Don't mind him half as much in the centre of the park as I do when he plays at centre back. That's not saying I want to see him anywhere near the side - just that the last couple of cameos have done enough to suggest he is not as much of a liability there. The lesser of two evils if you like. Watching him at play in the middle of defence against Blackburn was embarrassing - him and Simpson were like a footballing version of the chuckle brothers that night.

There was a big ginger lad in front of me with a load of his mates giving it all they had pre-game and for the first half. One of them got hauled out for chucking bits of pie across at the city fans at about ten to three. The city fans quickly picked out the big lad though and just gave him abuse the whole game. All the usual stuff plus a few that were quite funny like along the lines of 'you've got a head like a hippo' and 'you ate all the chips'. He quickly became pretty pissed off with it all.

Yes, indeed. The type I spent two years physically intimidating in the student's union bar on Sundays.

Used to do it all the time up at the College bar in first year. I remember going nuts for the Champions League final against Chelsea. Bar was full of plastic united fans, apart from about 8 of us who had varying amounts on Chelski. We got right behind them, however, unfortunately on this occasion, as they do so often, the Man U fans had the last laugh.

Went round to a house full of Man U fans to watch this. I remember I was late and listened to the start on the radio whilst my mum was driving me over. We were one up when I got out of the car and walked in smugly only to find it was one all - we all know what happened next. Not a good day.

What was worse is that they are all the kind of Man U fans that wear their replica shirts around Somerset and go to Manchester once every couple of years, at which point they proceed to plaster facebook with photos of themselves hugging each other outside Old Trafford. We all know the type - sickens me.

Such lazy punditry. That's the sort of man of the match award you get at a league one game when the sponsors get to chose despite not having watched the game; 'Oh what's that? Who do I want to give MoM to? Erm...who scored?...Yea give it to him, he deserves it.'

Strangely confident about this game.

 

                      Krul

Simpson  Saylor Colo Santon

              Cabaye Guthrie

Sameobi          HBA    Jonas

                        Ba

 

 

Bench:

Obertan

Tiote

Best

Kadar

Gosling

Raylor

Elliot

 

Tiote on the bench

 

Exactly if he's back he will start - no doubt about that.

Isn't he away at the end of January at the ACN? I know that it doesn't make things impossible in todays world, but surely that would make it harder to push through any sort of deadline day move.

Just got home.

 

Plenty of positives to take from that today - Ben Arfa and Sammy in particular going forward. Hatem's touch was noticeably better today than it has been in his home sub appearances. Jonas was a little anonymous, but still thought he ran hard.

 

Colo, Saylor and Simpson all solid enough, although Saylor did his best to give Colo a matching broken nose in the second half. Raylor at fault big time today, however, refuse to be too hard on him given the contribution he has made so far this season. My head says Pardew should use it as excuse to bring in Santon, however, part of me thinks it would be harsh and could destroy the blokes confidence - a difficult situation for AP to deal with.

 

Krul made some good saves but kicking was piss poor all day - when you are playing with just Ba upfront you have to be putting everything on his head. Too much was going towards Ben Arfa in the air today, even when kicking from his hands, meaning Kompany and Lescott could clean up. Something to work on.

 

We didn't disgrace ourselves by any stretch of the imagination and it was to our credit that we kept going right until the end. Came out second half and had a go at them. To get anything from City this year you have to play well, get a bit of luck and not make mistakes. Unfortunately for us we shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times and didn't get the rub of the green. That said you got the feeling that City could have stepped it up a gear if need be.

 

They brought on Adam Johnson, Gareth Barry and David Silva (arguably the best player in the league at the moment in my opinion). We brought on Gosling, Lovenkrands and Perch - that just illustrates the gulf in class.

 

As for the crowd trouble, not good from our lot i'm afraid. I was stood right on the end of the row next to the city fans. There was some half decent banter in the first half, although they were obsessed with singing songs about us getting crowds of 10 thousand which I couldn't work out! They were clearly mongs, however, someone from our side chucked what looked like a some sort of banger across. That exploded and it all kicked off from there. Coins and bottles coming from their lot and a few chairs flying across from our side. Not good at all. Further towards the front both sides were trying to get at each other, with the police and security guards forming a barrier. A fair few chucked out from our side and a decent number, including couples and parents with kids, got out of their straight away.

 

Good post. Did the stewards nab the knob who threw the firework?

Not sure to be honest mate - because of the delay before it went off I don't think they could be identified - I actually saw it go across and it seemed to come from at least a few seats into our lot. It was embarrassing to be honest - it's not often I feel uncomfortable watching us play and for about 10 minutes today I did. I jump up and down as much of the next man at football. I probably talk total rubbish and I get involved with the banter that goes on with opposition fans, but plenty on both sides today were behaving like caged animals. There were plenty around me that were not comfortable with it. From a subjective point of view I would say that there fans were rank and terribly behaved, but objectively we were just as bad, if not worse.

Just got home.

Plenty of positives to take from that today - Ben Arfa and Sammy in particular going forward. Hatem's touch was noticeably better today than it has been in his home sub appearances. Jonas was a little anonymous, but still thought he ran hard.

Colo, Saylor and Simpson all solid enough, although Saylor did his best to give Colo a matching broken nose in the second half. Raylor at fault big time today, however, refuse to be too hard on him given the contribution he has made so far this season. My head says Pardew should use it as excuse to bring in Santon, however, part of me thinks it would be harsh and could destroy the blokes confidence - a difficult situation for AP to deal with.

Krul made some good saves but kicking was piss poor all day - when you are playing with just Ba upfront you have to be putting everything on his head. Too much was going towards Ben Arfa in the air today, even when kicking from his hands, meaning Kompany and Lescott could clean up. Something to work on.

We didn't disgrace ourselves by any stretch of the imagination and it was to our credit that we kept going right until the end. Came out second half and had a go at them. To get anything from City this year you have to play well, get a bit of luck and not make mistakes. Unfortunately for us we shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times and didn't get the rub of the green. That said you got the feeling that City could have stepped it up a gear if need be.

They brought on Adam Johnson, Gareth Barry and David Silva (arguably the best player in the league at the moment in my opinion). We brought on Gosling, Lovenkrands and Perch - that just illustrates the gulf in class.

As for the crowd trouble, not good from our lot i'm afraid. I was stood right on the end of the row next to the city fans. There was some half decent banter in the first half, although they were obsessed with singing songs about us getting crowds of 10 thousand which I couldn't work out! They were clearly mongs, however, someone from our side chucked what looked like a some sort of banger across. That exploded and it all kicked off from there. Coins and bottles coming from their lot and a few chairs flying across from our side. Not good at all. Further towards the front both sides were trying to get at each other, with the police and security guards forming a barrier. A fair few chucked out from our side and a decent number, including couples and parents with kids, got out of their straight away.

Just left ground - on phone so haven't read all the comments but thought he was excellent at times today. His touch looked better than it has and he drew defenders to him when he picked the ball up.

Good to see those working on the club's website ignoring the namechange!

United take on West Brom on Wednesday, 21st December, at St. James' Park with a 7:45pm kick-off.

Tickets are now on sale to Season Ticket Holders and Club Members only. Ticket prices start at just £25 for adults and £12 for juniors (under 18s)

So far we have taken reduced allocations at Stoke, City, Man U, Norwich, Wolves and QPR. We also got fewer tickets for the Mackem game because of segregation, which, as annoying as it seemed, was probably the right decision.

Of those reduced allocations Stoke and QPR were justified - Monday night games on TV etc.

The rest we would definitely have sold more tickets for - that isn't just speculation, that is all but factual based on the majority of those other games not even going to members sale.

Think we took a full allocation at Villa but didn't sell it. The facts that ticket prices were relatively high for this game, it was in the summer, we go there every year and maybe even the relegation memories probably stopped a few from attending this one.

The problem is we do not know for sure if it is us only taking smaller allocations, the other clubs reducing our allocations on the basis of persistent standing or a mixture of the two. I would imagine, despite the 3000/10% rule being in place, that it is pretty easy for a club to turn around and use persistent standing/police advice/segregation issues as a reason for giving less tickets.

If the club chose to take a reduced allocation at Norwich it is almost understandable given the high ticket prices and the distance it is to travel, however, with the benefit of hindsight that was the wrong decision. Surely though the club should be pushing for the maximum available allocations at places like City, Man U etc. on a saturday afternoon? The more support the team has the better and it also looks pretty embarrassing when we have like 1500 at OT given that we often criticise the size of the away followings teams like Fulham, Wigan, Bolton etc bring to SJP.

Gazza's life story with Piers Morgan starting now on ITV

Hate to say it but Jonas isn't always in my side. Tiote sits at the back of the diamond, Cabaye at the front, then Obertan is a guaranteed starter as he just burns defenders for fun, with Ben Arfa on the other side. However, Ba just broke his ankle so Hatem has moved up top with Best/Shola meaning Jonas/Marv get to rotate in.

Still haven't played against anyone other than the computer - it is much harder to beat this year!

After playing around 15 games on FIFA 12 today, I discovered an underlying passion for the Yohan.

Same - just started a career mode on legendary. Cabaye playing at the top of the diamond and has scored 3 so far including a 90th min equaliser against Swansea in the game I have just finished!

Adam Johnson is in danger of becoming the next Phil Neville - appearing more regularly for England than his club.

Obviously I know that it isn't literally the case but you know what I mean!

Unfair dismissal claims are notoriously difficult to bring. More are won on the correct procedure not being followed than for the reason. The fact that Barton wasn't sacked may well have some bearing on it though.

Think it has to be printed as well? Or have I made that up? Still a decent offer though.

Playing devil's advocate a little bit here but do you not think it would be more of a blow to Guthrie if Pardew, having bigged him up, then dropped him for Cheikh, than if he had simply come out and said 'Danny did well, but Cheik will come back into the side when fit'?

Personally I think that Pardew is a good man manager and therefore has said those things safe in the knowledge that Cheik wont be available for the weekend.

I wonder if we'll see a bit of Best/HBA up front in the lead up to Christmas? Or if he'll just go with it once Ba's off on his jollies.

 

Pardew's doing a great job but getting HBA fit and into the side and firing is a big test with us playing so well. Gonna be interesting to see how it pans out.

If you mean leave Ba out in order to let Best/HBA get used to playing together then I can't see it. As much as it would be nice to be able to afford that luxury I just can't see Pardew leaving out his top scorer for any more games than he has to. Of course things change quickly in football, but at the moment it would be madness to do so.

Rang the box office this morning to sort out season tickets and had to choose single seats for my re-location ( my future season ticket seat has been sold in general sale)

 

The lad on the phone said there was hardly any seats left.

 

This will be a sell out, if not very close.

 

Expect it to sell out apart from maybe the platinum club seats. The club have even released those seats at the back of the leazes lower tier that was the old family area quite a few years back. 50k+ is almost certain and long may it continue!