Hughesy

Would be a shame to see him go to be honest. Even if he shouldn't be starting every match, he was beginning to return to form last season and when he's on form he is a good player.

Just watched some of HBA's skills on youtube. Don't know why I did it - feel a bit depressed now.

I think Hba would have more chance of replacing Gillespie than solano.

Bellamy and Dyer were consistently better than him (when on the pitch). I don't think Hatem would've got into the Keegan side. He'd take Solano's place in the Bobby side but by no means would the team be more geared to him than Shearer, Bellamy or Robert. Not sure consistency is a fair comparison tbh. HBA's consistency levels would undoubtedly be higher under a Keegan or a Robson and Dyer wouldn't have been as consistent (which wasn't exactly one of his strengths) under Pardew.

Is Stifler Jack Colback's mum?

How did you come to that figure? I can't imagine our wages have gone up much that much from last season.

Suppose so - it was also hard to think an underperforming team, as not many teams outside the top 7 have 'expectations' to underperform to!

I really don't see sixth as underperforming, more like par. Most fans of the top sides have completely dismissed us. In theory, it should be us and Everton duking it out for sixth and seventh. I think it's more that I think the gap between the top 5 and yourselves might be bigger than it has been before. That's more my point really.

It is ridiculous that informed observers of the game (by which I mean journalists etc) can be so blind to the facts. It's as if their memories don't extend beyond the current transfer window.

Never fails to amaze me that journalists never have a clue about a deal like this.

No way it is an easy victory. As others have said, the Premiership in 2002-05 was a better league than the one in 95/96.

Pardew really is an embarrassment to be honest.

Have we actually not got any other options? Why do we always do this?

Agreed.

Are people pretending to know the full facts of whether he was actually overweight or not?

I reckon Robson's team edges it. In an epic 4-3 victory.

Yep - absolutely ridiculous to think that we might be going into the season with just Riviere, an injured and out of form Cisse as our strikers. Unless they are hoping for big things from Armstrong, Campbell and Perez?

You must have enjoyed Euro 96 surely?

I think it's fair to say that a lot of nations (not just Ireland, Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland) like beating us as I wouldn't say the English are very well-liked globally. I doubt that any team would raise their game against us though.

I found out the other day that Walter Samuel is Jewish. A little known fact.

Yep - I would say that Nolan was a fair bit more overweight than HBA. I'd also say that Nolan's weight issues were often discussed and criticised on here. That's not my point - my point is whether Nolan was fined by the club for it and it was used as a reason not to pick him. The answer to that is that it wasn't. That was my point as well. It never seemed to be an issue with the club although the fans regularly discussed it (as do West Ham fans). Nolan, as much as I was never much of a fan, has a much bigger frame naturally than Hatem. He was captain, leading goalscorer for most of his time here and basically ran the first team prior to Pardew coming in. I bet you that their body fat levels were very similar.

Exactly - examining how crucial a goal is and then adding weight to it retrospectively is a bit pointless.

Absolutely convinced that if you looked through Lampard's catalogue of goals, you would find goals of that calibre in there. It's not about the calibre it's when they are scored that's the point here. Lampard to be fair to him has done it at crucial times too. But that feeds into the argument that was going on around Messi - I don't know how you can judge a player on moments in a match of particular importance that rely purely on chance and/or the performance of your team mates. There is no reason whatsoever to think that if a similar ball had dropped to Lampard in a FA Cup Final as it did for Gerrard against West Ham, that Lampard might have scored the exact same goal.