leffe186

He'd have been better off kneeling down and heading it.

Oh dear

That hair though, Mike. Can't see past it.

Scottish Cafu, innit?

Dummett offers more because he hurt Suarez that one time. I've not seen Dummett for a while - is he better now?

So are we ever going to see Haidara start at LB? I genuinely cannot fathom that decision.

Get it out of the way. Villa and Newcastle too - two birds with one stone.

I met the Xisco fan club at Barca B vs Cordoba last season Did you buy him a drink?

Apparently we've sold Chiriches to Roma.

Naah, not really, we look about the same so far. If we don't get one or two of the guys Poch wants - and Schneiderlin and Musacchio seem to be staying put for now - then I think it's business as usual. Nobody really great, but enough class to be sixth or seventh fairly comfortably. We'll get gubbed by the big boys but get enough points to be in the Europa again.

Against, or our line-up? Limassol, they put Zenit out in the round before so are no mugs. A few guys are getting their first game in post-World Cup. We look exactly like we have done for two years, though. Really? Did Zenit get knocked out and go into the Champions League qualifiers? Sorry, no idea what happened there . They beat Zenit in one match but got put out 3-1 on aggregate.

Against, or our line-up? Limassol, they put Zenit out in the round before so are no mugs. A few guys are getting their first game in post-World Cup. We look exactly like we have done for two years, though.

Classic early season European away match. Awful pitch, awful ref. I'd probably take the 1-0 defeat right now.

It's on Limassol's site if you have 8 quid.

Is Vorm injured? I would have expected him to be on the bench at least. Couldn't be registered in time. He'll be in the squad if we go through.

Our team tonight, FWIW: #THFC team: Lloris ©; Naughton, Dier, Vertonghen, Davies; Bentaleb, Paulinho; Holtby, Townsend, Kane; Soldado. #COYS #THFC subs: Friedel, Rose, Dawson, Chadli, Dembele, Sandro, Lamela. #COYS

Short term pain long term gain. Short term?

Clive Allen got 49 for us, but that was a while ago.

See if you can get zero for the rest of the season, quite a challenge. Can't you just look for long-term injured players?

Can't hear anything over here, smug grins are silent...

Seems to be a lack of trust and communication right throughout the defense, even Krul looked nervous and hesitant coming off his line that lead to a few close calls. Just watched the goals. The first is Williamson's fault, Dzeko is Coloccini's man. Colo has to come across with Dzeko, and as soon as the ball gets behind Willo he should have bust a gut to cover Colo. Instead, he gets in his way. There's an argument that maybe Colo does not communicate well enough, and obviously that someone should have tracked back with Silva, but i'd say Willo is more at fault than Colo.

Not that I'm that fussed either way, but the way some people have talked about Mbiwa in here is weird. He's 25, and played nearly 200 games for Montpellier - not to mention he's actually been at Newcastle for a while. It would hardly be rushing him in.

I do agree that a set 11 would help, although injuries regularly fucked that up for us last year (as usual). Trouble is, it's hard to have a set 11 with so many competitions. We had 1 player with 33+ apps in the Prem, Liverpool (for example) had 5. Then you look at the rest - only 15 more Liverpool players were used as starters, making a total number of 20. The total number for Spurs was 28. Liverpool clearly benefited from having a settled side. They played five additional games, we played 15 - as, I think, did Man U. The trick is to develop a style of play that the squad can slot into. Ferguson was terrific at this. It remains to be seen whether Rodgers and Poch can achieve it.

I think Soldado was just the wrong type of player for how we seemed to want to play. There are a lot of things I like about him, but I've said elsewhere that a battering ram like Bony would have actually made more sense. It does look as though Poch does not think Soldado is the guy he's looking for, too.

Tbf I don't recall him playing on the right of the attack at Spurs much. That's where he played for Roma, quite a similar role to the one Ben Arfa occupied for us during our brief 433 stint. He would create problems due to his excellent dribbling ability and technical prowess and because of Totti he would make a lot of runs beyond him into the box. Never thought he's looked very comfortable as a central player, he likes to drive into central positions rather than start there from what I have seen. If I was Spurs I'd actually consider a change to a 433, but they would need someone to better to fill the LW void and a better CM. Are you thinking Lamela on the right up front? I think Poch may be thinking along those lines too, and that's why he's looking for Schneiderlin to be the man in the middle. We have umpteen players who can be buzzing around Schneiderlin in midfield, and LW would likely be Townsend/Lennon/Eriksen/Chadli. In other words, yeah, maybe we need a better LW . Like I said, it's looking more and more likely that Eriksen and Lamela will not quite dovetail - although Eriksen is arguably the best option of the four above.