Ghandis Flip-Flop

To be honest I hate the potato faced twat for a million reasons. His decision not to wear a poppy however isn't one of them. I find the current poppy fascism a bit bemusing to be honest. If you truly believe that the guys you're remembering tomorrow did lay down their lives for freedom, then surely you can't take issue with someone who exercises that right? Just to add I'm a currently serving Airman, I don't think there should be any pressure put on people to wear a poppy if they don't wish to do so.

Bloody auto correct, I meant Blatent patently

After all of the complaining about Suarez diving is it any wonder when yet again Olsen gets away with what was a patent pen. I think I'd dive all over with minimal contact if the officials I played with were so myopic

That's what I'm saying tho, that acceleration seems to have deserted him the last few games. It was particularly noticeable against Danny Rose where he seemed unable to beat him.

Am I the only one who thinks he looks a yard off the pace? I know what people are saying about him being tired from all of the defending, but in the last 3 or 4 games he seems to be lacking that burst to beat players. Is it just a case of him being up against very quick full backs? I'm sure he had a better explosive burst in the first few games and second half of last season.

Makes me playing alongside Mickey Cross and John Egan from the Terriers at Longhirst on a Thursday night back in the day, look a bit shite lol

After seeing Pienaar's first booking today I'm more convinced that it was only a yellow. I notice the studio pundits weren't foaming at the mouth with rage at what to my mid was a far worse tackle.

I definitely think it was a harsh decision after seeing Pienaar's first booking. The same commentary team weren't after his blood whilst reviewing what was to my mind was a far more dangerous and wreckless tackle. Apparently yellow was the right decision for a two footed scissor tackle but not a slightly late lunge. They kept going on about what might have happened if Fletchers foot was planted, well the answer to that was simple Tiote wins the ball as it was off the floor. Really wish we had neutral punditry in this country.

Where have you read that from? Sky Tyne and Wear and Northumbria Police on twitter

I see Northumbria police are investigating racist chanting directed towards Ba now too. Amazes me to think some of them believe this classy club bollocks too

Bearing in mind that Svumderlands starting centre halves at that time were titsup shambles, duck face jnr and Turner I'd find that highly unlikely.

It's no great drama's I paid by PayPal so I'll get my cash back. Was just asking but it would appear the net is full of stories of their demise or at least of shocking customer service.

Has anyone actually received a home shirt from Soccer Triads yet? I only ask as I preordered one about 3 months ago and still no news of it being dispatched.

could it be Guti at LB and Fergie at LW? I know we played Guti there last year quite a few times.

Per-ordered one a while ago so hopefully will get it soon, apparently they only got their stock this week, so hopefully they'll dispatch it soon

Any fluent French speakers care to translate Ba's recent tweets? He normally does the same as Jonas and tweets the same message in English soon after, but hasn't in this case.

To be fair the defenders were getting away with pushing and barging left right and centre today. Ref needed to stamp it out early IMO. Definitely think the second one from Clarke was a penalty

Thought the officials were absolutely shocking today. The number of times they allowed their backline to consistently foul without penalty really annoyed me. It's not surprising that Jonas lost his rag and dragged that lad back for his booking as he'd just been blatently fouled twice on the edge of Villa's box. The fact that the bookings came their way in the last ten minutes was a pisstake too. Having said that it was another disjointed performance from us with seemingly no actual attacking threat apart from Ben Arfa. Just hoping we are starting slowly like last year.....although I think a few players are playing like they know they're guaranteed a place as long as they're fit. Cabaye, Ba and Cisse appear really complacent and disinterested at the minute. I hope it's just while they're getting up to speed match fitness wise.

I think not paying over the odds or being held to ransom is fine. However at a certain point we should simply move on and persue other targets instead of playing a potentially dangerous game of bluff where we could conceivably end up with no one. I'm sure Debuchy isn't the only right back in world football who would improve our first 11 and would be prepared to come to us.

It's been mentioned before that Ashley is following the Lyon transfer model of accepting everyone has their price and accepting that 'Big Fish' will come along and poach their best players. However the big difference is they have their replacements lined up and sorted before their crown jewels are sold. We really shouldn't find ourselves in a similar position to the Carrol January window as the masses of cash in the bank can't play for us during the following 6 months.

Good point. I think we're about to find out if Ashley is the real deal or just not that arsed. This is said in every transfer window, we know exactly what the policy is. Yep was going to say it but couldn't be bothered, as you said that line must be posted every single window. Yes but in other recent windows had we just finished 5th in the league and only narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification, something which would increase the profile of the club and massively increase its revenue?

Well if we're talking context the team worse than us paid £15M for a midfielder from a team which also finished way below us last year. And from reading between the lines we'd be pissed off if we sold either of our Midfield duo for less than £20M. Now I was always of the impression that strikers tend to cost more than midfielders even when not taking into account the young and English factor. So getting a striker we know a lot about and who has been successful for us in the past for less than we'd be prepared to let our midfielders go for wouldn't be such a bad deal no?

I'm pretty sure they've had experience of buying a good goal scoring midfielder who did well at Fulham only to be utter garbage for them before. (I know Malbranque came from Spurs, but the point still sort of stands)

Ok he's been a bit indifferent with the exception of Norwich away when he foolishly got sent off. He's still young hasn't played a lot of football in over 2 years, of course he's gonna be rusty. I for one didn't think he did much wrong in his sub appearances towards the back end of last season. I would also say that our passing on a whole wasn't great tonight and Gosling wasn't the only one guilty of playing at half effort. Yet he still got in a few scoring positions which was more than can be said of a few other players who've played more football in recent times.

Could it just be that being a big unit meant he was quickly knackered whilst playing in 30deg+ temperatures? God some are quick to write off kids based on one poor performance.