Stottie

"Beardo never scored enough goals". What a ferking mong

He'll just have to hit another free kick then. Though HBA could well be our best chance of getting one in range.

Pass, move, triangles, ... it can't be that difficult when we're near full strength.

After Spuds I thought the first thing we'd work on was not losing possession easily. Think again. Terrible ball retention throughout the game. Really woeful.

You can blame our midfield for the pressure our defence came under, but you can't blame them for how poorly the defence dealt with it. It was only a simple ball into a space in the box to Saha for number two. He lashed it in unchallenged. It was woeful defending.

I think any semblence of sympathy people have for Liverpool and Dagleish after Hillsborough will be gone. My sympathy now is only for the families and those who were at the actual game. I agree with Grant in that I thought Dagleish would have been above this.

He reacts slowly and is much too slow to recover. I think Taylor would have cut out at least one of the crosses for the first two goals where Williamson soon fell behind the play. Taylor would also have made a better attempt at blocking the third. The pen shout showed we still had a glimmer at two down, but it was game over at 3-0.

Mate, we were losing the ball everytime we went upfield any-case with no support for the front 2. You are more likely to lose the ball if you lump it long than someone trying to run with the ball. I agree with this. Also Ben Arfa usually loses it with three of them around him. Some of the other lads lose it against one opponent.

Ah well, only one game, and one with players out who'll be back soon. Move on and hope the goal difference doesn't matter, I suppose. Spurs were excellent and exploited all our shortcomings brutally. They pressed us into losing the ball cheaply and then played very incisively. Spurs created little at Liverpool, so I thought we'd be looking at a 2-2 or 2-1 to them beforehand, but they played far more openly and expansively. Full credit to their full-back for being that high up the pitch in the first five minutes to score. Some of the space they got from then on will have been from us chasing the game.

I'd fancy Carroll in the air against Rio and Evans meself. Assuming they could cross it to him.

Bollocks. Hard to bear Besty. Hope it heals properly for you.

Being knocked out twice in games where ManUre players were sent off for petty retaliation doesn't help. When it comes to big games, the margins are fine.

Lads, eight games since we didn't score, which includes all the ones without Ba and Man U home. No-one has beaten us this season without scoring three goals. Spurs barely had a shot at Anfield several days ago. With a decent finish from Carroll or Suarez, Liverpool would have won that game (god forbid). Adebayor hasn't scored in his last seven league games, all starts. Don't let the doom mongers get you down. Unless we set up negatively for a draw as we did at Anfield, we could do well.

Barton getting Song banned was one reason for the Arse's poor start and the 8-2.

Don't let him eff up this thread man! It's been going all season!

Pretty funny how Given dived for the goal. He didn't get within four feet of it. It was like when you put the smallest kid in goal.

I think we got some lucky results early in the season, Fulham missing point blank headers at SJP etc. but things have pretty much evened out since. We're not completely outplaying teams as you may expect a team with our league position to do so, but Ba doesn't need lots of chances to score. For a wacky stat on our defence, of the 31 goals conceded, 21 were in our 6 defeats. No-one has beaten us by scoring less than 3 goals! In the other 18 games played, we've only conceded 10 goals, for a 12 win, 6 draw record. Perhaps you could say our defence plays well three games out of four.

Well said that man. We usually do well against them. Colo was inches away from winning it against them at SJP. It would have been a fair result in a "took our chances" kind of way.

I dunno what happened to Villa but they outplayed our long ball first half and then started playing long ball themselves, taking Keane out of the game. If it was a half-time adjustment from Pards that made them do it, then credit to him. Couldn't understand it myself. With the game opening up, taking off Zog was a gift too. Great finishing from the Dembas. Fantastic work.

FERK!!!!!!

Outplayed first half but nearly went in a goal up, so I'll take that. I thought Colo was at fault for the goal. He should have left Zog to Simpson and not chased the ball. Warnock was definitely out of control there, so if that's the rule, that's red. Early days, but Cisse looks promising.

Huth never a sending off. No studs showing, not two-footed, just a bit late. Sending off is bad enough, but three-game ban for that is absolutely crazy.

Does anyone think the Scousers making a big thing about the 50-50 in their game with Cabaye set the stage for this? Jamie Redknapp and Joe Cole as pundits were all over it. Cabaye is a bit tasty, as was clear as early as the Mackems game, but its only really the Scousers that have been going on and on about it. They'd be better off telling Glen Johnson to stop flying in two footed.

I only saw the ITV highlights but they weren't as bad as I expected having read some of the ratings on here. Things didn't go for us in the Blackburn league cup game either. Both are disappointing considering what the team has shown in the league and that a number of potential winners were already out at the time.

They needed Shola coming in with a scissors kick to finish it off.