Stottie

Spurs are terrible, but still, great result. Pardew, what a jammy bastard.

We won the second ball, fifteen yards inside our own half.

Shite!

Wasted set piece.

He does n'all. I thought the same.

Dem subs. It's Luis van Pardew! Red card and Pen!

When we finished fifth, our goal difference was a statistical outlier for a team finishing that high. According to the stats people, a 99% unlikely result. Anomalies do happen, but they are very difficult to replicate. In ordinary language, it was a fluke. Google "Newcastle United Regression Factor" to see the stats analysis, but only if you like numbers which lots of people don't. Possibly the best proof is the youtube vid of Papiss's goals from the second half of the season. It was like RVP on steroids. The flicked volley one is my personal favourite. Fwiw, I don't think that Swansea game itself was a fluke. They had meaningless possession and we let them knock it about miles from our goal. It was almost textbook and a classic example of why the tikitaka and Barcelona comparisons were inappropriate for Rogers' Swansea, because Guardiola's Barcelona would work into scoring positions and score. In that game, all Swansea managed were shots from distance from Sigurdsson.

What a plonker! Full marks to sackpardew.com by contrast.

English goalkeeping strikes again, first thing he had to do as well.

Interesting number-crunching on Falcao here from the Washington Post. He takes penalties, and if you subtract them, his record at Athletico was similar in open play to Soldado and Negredo in La Liga. I found the article after watching a fan highlight film of him at Monaco which showed a few penalties and not that many goals from open play, certainly not 55M worth anyway. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2014/09/02/here-is-why-manchester-united-is-taking-a-risk-with-falcao/

FFP, they can't afford to keep him basically. Owner has been going through a very nasty divorce apparently. He couldn't pay her off with the James Rodriguez money?! Wow, that's got to hurt.

Why do Monaco want rid of him? He's only been there a year.

200m if you add in Felliani and Zaha from the previous summer. The Glazers may be taking money out of the club, but they're clearly not bleeding it dry.

Great player but its hard to see where he fits alongside Rooney, RVP, and Mata. Mata out, Januzaj and di Maria in and forget about wing backs might be one way. I bet loads of planks on Red Cafe etc. think they should just drop Rooney. Ozil arrived with a similar pedigree and hasn't set the league alight, so di Maria might take some time to settle. He's coming into an unbalanced team for a league record fee and the pressure to produce, most probably in a formation thats new to him, will be very big.

I think Fergie shunted him wide in 2012-13, the season they got RVP and pretty much walked the league. Prior to 2012-13, Man U had got goals and assists a plenty from Nani, Valencia and Young, but most of it seemed to dry up and lot of their width that season came Citeh style from Rafael and Evra. They also bought Kagawa before that season, so there was some kind of shift in philosophy toward more of a play-it-through-the-middle style. Welbeck's a good player, and he needs a move. 12-15M doesn't seem that mad, but he doesn't seem to have enough of a spark about him to be successful under Pardew. We need someone more capable of doing it on his own.

Micah Richards could be a new target for the floated set penis!

Looked pretty good. Set pieces were way better than normal. Colback was great. Dummett, Perez both came very close and Sissoko should have scored. Riviere needs more support and to be more patient.

Considering Joe Hart's had nothing to do, that wasn't too bad. Riviere's alone and is trying too hard. There was one break we had with Anita and he completely stopped after giving it to Cabella about 40 yards from their goal. It looked like he must have had orders. We've had a lot of the ball though and are not being overrun in midfield against a very strong team. Undone by a moment of class from class players, as much as anything.

Lose by more than one and we're bottom. Looks inevitable from the lineups.

I reckon Januzaj offers more than Mata if you're playing RVP and Rooney. Get di Maria and stick him on the other side!

It was him that Andy Carroll headed the ball over wasn't it in that win at Arsenal.

That looked like our defending!

Maybe a good move to play Routledge rather than Gomis as some of the predictions went. Are Man U playing 3 at the back and if so, who's the third center back? Whatever they are doing, it looks well worth Swansea having a go.

On the subject of Stoke of that vintage, the Demba hat-trick against them was well sweet.

They even made their pitch narrower so he could hoy it closer to the goal. They had to use a wider pitch for their Europa league games because UEFA had rules that the Premier League didn't have at the time.