Punk77

I think we have a tendency to give away unnecessary free kicks in dangerous positions..

On that I fully agree. Utter s*** defending by Simpson. Inviting Jarvis into the box like the cheapest hocker in town. He must have better faith in himself. Had he pushed out, Jarvis would be forced to make a choice: Dribble or pass. And even if he managed to pass Simpson, the latter would have chased him, forcing Jarvis to cross under pressure. A push could even have led to Simpson snapping the ball and initiating a counterattack. Sadly he picked the worse alternative of them all.. You probably have a few decent points amongst the countless contributions you've been making lately, but even with your new username, few people are going to take you seriously with phrases like "Inviting Jarvis into the box like the cheapest hocker[sic] in town" I stand corrected..Bad spelling.. hooker..

I was thinking the same myself. I don't know the answer. That's why I'm asking. Should Colo have covered Ferguson's man who clearly was in offside or should he have pushed out ...

On that I fully agree. Utter s*** defending by Simpson. Inviting Jarvis into the box like the cheapest hooker in town. He must have better faith in himself. Had he pushed out, Jarvis would be forced to make a choice: Dribble or pass. And even if he managed to pass Simpson, the latter would have chased him, forcing Jarvis to cross under pressure. A push could even have led to Simpson snapping the ball and initiating a counterattack. Sadly he picked the worse alternative of them all..

Are you sure? Here's a picture of the situation: http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4600/colodc.jpg Williamson is circled in red. And as you can see, he was already marking a man. But look at the huge space between Colo and Blake (the black arrow). Every player held the line, except Colo who seemingly was more occupied with marking a player that would have been in offside if Colo aligned himself with the rest. With better positioning Colo could have pushed out and blocked Bank's shot. But hey, even Colo got to have a weakness..

His biggest weakness is that he sometimes forgets to mark his man.Simpson's act previous to yesterday's goal was horrible, but I think it was Colo who should have marked the goal scorer.

Think he means for the money he has been good business, compared to the likes of Duff Martins Owen who were probably earning like 4-5times his wage. Correct. Owen contributed to our relegation, while Loven (on small wages) played a solid part in our promotion campaign. The math is simple..

I don't think you get my point.

He may be s*** sometimes, but again the service he's getting from our midfield is not the best. They're not able to give him what he likes best: through balls. Unlike Owen, Viduka, Martins and Duff, Loven manages to score/play well against the weaker opponents: Bham, Wham, Wolves. That's 9 points he contributed to. Those points are the difference between our current position and the relegation fight. When we also factor that he was free, is on sensible wages and had a big part in our promotion (even when his father died), his transfer suddenly become one of the best deals we've made. We have a tendency to ridicule him. But we rarely acknowledge what he's done for this club. I think he deserves some applause :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

We've not won one single game without Barton. Since HBA was injured, most of the creative responsibility falls on him. And he's coped very well. But on the other hand, his performances were due, which stands in contrast to Tiote. He's been the surprise of the year, playing football like a £50 mill man. But then we have Colo who's played about every game this season, and some of his performances have been incredible. This was probably not expected either. He's had a rough start on his NUFC-career. But he's taken PL with storm this season. Which proves how important it is to integrate foreign players and to give them time to settle in. It's the consistency (never injured) that tilts my decision in Colo's favor. So my ranking is 1. :colo: 2. 3. Barton

Can't wait for Monday. Have just filled up my baby oil cache

With Jonas and Ferguson on the books? Wouldn't a right winger be a higher priority? Nope. We've got Barton. Purely in terms of investment into the first team, left-wing would be a position i'd look at first. Barton should be play CM imo. We need a distributor in the middle. When playing rm Barton has a tendency go too much inside, ruining the width. Had a good example today where Shola was forced to finish from 20 m because neither Barton or Simpson used the wide open space that was available on our right side.

With Jonas and Ferguson on the books? Wouldn't a right winger be a higher priority? Preferably a winger that could play both sides.

King Pudel! He's class. Hope Blackburn go down. Then we could by Samba. Himm and Colo would be an immense pair. Colos technique and Samba's rawness = a perfect match

His awareness and movements in front of goal are immense..No doubt about that..

agreed

Loven struggles against the best. But as you say Willie, he's been quite a handful against the weaker teams. Today Barton managed to give him a couple through balls. . Although he's been shit the last couple of games, he's not getting much service either.

What a victory. Guthrie surprised me today. Wolves did have some good chances though. But rubbish defending by Simpson prior to Wolves goal. He should push. But he backed off, and consequently invited Wolves into our box. He did the same error against Tham too. And maybe Harper should have saved that shot.

Just to prove me wrong, he'll probably score a fat-trick today..

It's not that I have a particular grudge against Nolan. You're missing the point. I've just pointed out that Nolan should not be a regular next season and But I've also pointed out that right now, he must be a regular due to injuries. Some people reply that I must be an idiot since I'm thinking of benching our top goal scorer. And I got bashed when suggesting that his physical form is not the best. Clearly, somebody feels that it's not allowed to criticize players that are are held in high regard. I like Nolan, but it's obvious that his lack of d contributions outside the box limits our play. And I've given ample evidence why.

Mark Hughes? Wayne Rooney? Carlos Tevez? All pretty thick set. TV puts 10lbs on you as well. He is anything but fat and by all accounts is the fittest player at the club. Yeah right

If he isn't ready for the match tomorrow, despite that he had a FULL training session yesterday, I will execute our medical staff..We desperately need him.. Why have you begun pursuing this red herring issue? I hadn't heard our medical staff be mentioned (in a negative light) in absolutely ages until the last two or three months. And later on you're saying it's because we have a thin squad, and of course the medical staff aren't responsible for not signing extra players or giving away the players we did have. By the way, what other usernames have you used on here? Good point. Probably a combination. We have a thin squad, but at the same time I feel that the situation is made worse by our medical team. Eg Nolan is allowed to stay chubby and they did not seriously attack Carroll's drinking . Except Nolan's "health problems" it's of course impossible to prove. Just a feeling I have. And no, I've not used oher usernames on this forum before..

How very relevant. You're right

Yeah. Players that ruled in Wankership, is utter useless in PL: Routledge, Guthrie, Smith, Taylor and Loven. As Ian W says, it's probable that our injury problems could be ascribed to a thin squad.

Disagree. CH had the benefit of being in charge in the early days of the season, before the tough match program started to take its toll. Under CH everybody was fresh and ready to go. He had plenty of players to choose from. As the season develops, injuries and fatigue increased. Accordingly, Pardew doesn't have the same luxury as CH did. He got plenty of injuries, and unlike CH he has just shit replacements. And that also puts and extra pressure on the the remaining quality players. In other words, our current injury situation got nothing to do with CH og Pardew, but more with our squad lacking depth. We're not able to rotate, and that hurts.