Village Idiot

Just pictured him faking a French accent as he calls Mike Ashley to put on the bid.

I laughed

Went with draw, feeling strangely optimistic today.

I really wanted to do a FM thing where I'd play the game using the board's tactics and lineups instead of Pards' - something somebody suggested in the summer -, but I'm way too short on time right now. I did something similar in another board using PES.

Watched you a lot the season you came 5th (and the year in the C'ship, weirdly). But last year it was a bit... hard. now I don't know what to think I was so positively p*ssed off after the Reading game that I took a breather of NUFC live games Oh wait, I did watch several of the EL games too. Anzhi at home, Benfica at home, and a bunch of the ones before that.

Watched you a lot the season you came 5th (and the year in the C'ship, weirdly). But last year it was a bit... hard.

Think I'm going to watch this. Last game of yous that I watched was Reading at home IIRC.

I love the way the Madrid press are painting Levy as some pantomime villain. How dare he.

I'm 35, playing Super Mario :foreveralone:

Not saying we do it, because Pardew doesn't know how to do it effectively. Just saying we have the players for it but not the manager who is savvy enough to see it. Also City's team is mostly technical more than pace (Navas aside) if you are going to get away with it against any big team in the league its probably them. Yeah, I agree , I don't think its a bad thing when implemented correctly but we certainly wont do that. It's failed when we've tried it before, take your point on City though. The gap in coaching expertise is what worries me the most about tonight tbh As I have witnessed too many times, Agüero does know how to take the p*ss of a high defence line too.

They're linked with a €30m Michu bid over here too That makes even less sense.

Why do Arsenal want Cabaye?

Spanish teams often do it at home (we do), would love it if they started doing it away though. Think it's a class gesture to applaud the fans of your opposition.

That's always been his main asset tbf. Very intelligent player when looking for space. Spurs looked extremely flat, very much like last year. Still think they haven't replaced Modric effectively and their attacking play has a noticeable lack of guile, I personally don't rate Dembele much and Paulinho isn't that kind of player either. Haven't seen enough of Holtby, though.

Isco is another attacking midfielder though, they have more pressing areas to address.

I love how any starting XI conflict can somehow be solved with a 433 and shunting somebody to the wing

Well, you can defend and defend, Levante were truly abysmal tonight, certs to go down this season going by what I saw. They lost all that intimidation and swagger that defined their character these past seasons. Loved lots of what I saw tonight, not just the goals but the team's attitude, the high pressing... we missed that. We'll see if we keep it up throughout the season, Atlético this wednesday is a good test.

Bale and Ronaldo are so similar. Put them both in opposite wings would be detrimental imho. It would make them more unidimensional. If they sign up Bale it will end up with one of them playing upfront imho.

I still struggle to see Bale fitting in there. Ancelotti likes narrow systems but they are getting back to the point where they are putting square pegs in round holes in order to fit all the talented players they have.

Osvaldo's great, and as you say he never gives up. Quite remember several games at Espanyol where everybody was walking on the pitch, one or two goals behind and he'd still chase every long ball directed at him. He's pretty talented too, he's more of a second striker to me rather than an all-out goalscorer.

And Chelsea signed Hazard's bro too

My all-Spanish FF team is sinking fast; all of Cazorla, Mata and Azpilicueta benched this week

Tbf I think this is Chadli's second game for Spurs, needs time to blend in but I thought he looked pretty impressive against Espanyol. The problem with Tottenham is that they still have no substance to their attacking play, and now they can't resort to passing it to Bale. Soldado's usually great at finding space for himself, they need to get avenues to exploit that.

Completely different position. Cleverley is our starting centre midfielder. Kagawa plays in the hole. And that's the problem. Oh and I'm not sure winning the league by 11 points is a problem. Thanks to Cleverley I guess? I do watch Manu - not as often as you, of course - and I have never seen anything to me that suggests that he's anything but decent; not somebody I'd start for a club challenging for the CL. Add to it than your other midfielder is Giggs... and you really have a big gaping hole in there. Carrick's class though.

Completely different position. Cleverley is our starting centre midfielder. Kagawa plays in the hole. And that's the problem.