Lush Vlad

Cheers Hughesy Only seen him in friendlies, Europa and that sub app vs Villa, but he's been fantastic so far. Glad to hear he's done well after starting in the league as well.

Cabaye lacking fitness and Tiote missing is massive though. Barring HBA, our midfield has looked really poor this season. Bypassing them doesn't help of course, but we've lacked any creativity and fight so far. Hopefully both play on Sunday, we're going to need them!

Agree with most of this, but I'm not sure he'll be a success. Just don't think he'll get the minutes required and he'll only ever get 70 minutes here and there in cup matches or if someone is out injured. Not ideal for someone that needs to regain form and confidence after so long out. I know it was a bit of a nothing game when he came on, but the 3-1 at Everton last season was promising. He was the best player on the pitch second half that. Played inch perfect balls, on the deck and in the air. Showed good composure, kept play ticking a long, the odd bit of skill and looked pacey. He gave the ball away once all half, but he was looking to play it forward, not just sideways and back. Coincidentally, he also looked quite good against Everton at home before he got crocked. Not shown anything like those levels so far this season.

How did he get on Saturday? Only see highlights and it sounded terrible, so I haven't bothered trying to find the entire game to watch back.

Out according to this: http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/matches/2012-2013/epl.html/reading-vs-newcastle It's the official site so assuming it's accurate. Never used it before though.

Tooth problem! FFS I'd start Bigi, but I think it will be Perch and Tiote, with Anita at right back. Not a lot of creativity in the middle of the pitch. But at least it gives the others licence to push on.

I, I don't get it.

Not there

So frustrating, as I genuinely think he has the tools to be a good player. Just lacks a brain, bottle and confidence, always seems to make the wrong decision. Obertan's games seem to always go like this: Gets up to full speed, then stops when he gets to the full back. Looks to go inside where there is acres of space, then tries to go down the outside. Runs into his man or half beats him with a few nice stepovers, gets a throw or a corner if he's lucky, more often than not picks out the first man with a pathetic 5-10 yard pass/cross. Rinse and repeat.

We've got Bigirimana would work to the La Bamba tune no? Something about he's got got great feet could be squeezed in there as well. Struggling to rhyme words seeing as I don't know any more of the song and it's in Spanish

As others have said, it's only really his decision making in the final third that lets him down. He can get it in on his left, he just usually chooses not to and when he does cut inside, he seems afraid to shoot and usually ends up killing the momentum of the attack. Also, his positioning is occasionally questionable, but he has the pace to make up for that. Really like the lad though, improved massively and I rated him last season, so he's one of my favourites. Not sure on the right/left debate, as he looked shakey and less comfortable when he played a couple of times on the right during pre season. But then it's hard to judge players in friendlies and he'd improve a hell of a lot if he played there regularly. Think he looks fine on the left flank.

The whole back 4 seemed a bit out of position and lazy at times I thought, barring maybe Santon. They were solid enough though. There were two occassions where I thought Taylor was miles away from his man. One for a shot second half and another when the guy failed to connect with a cross first half. Someone mentioned on here a week or so ago that he seems to be standing off and hasn't been as impressive as the start of last season. Tend to agree TBH.

You can score from a corner. Thieryy Henry scored one for the New York Energy Drinks the other night and I remember Carlos soring one (in Turkey I think). As for Bigi's set pieces, can't agree. He just lofted them up and they were absolutely woeful against Atromitos. Last night, they really struggled from set pieces. If we had someone like Marveaux on to whip them in, we could have nicked a goal or two from them I reckon.

Good away point, decent enough performances from everyone bar Obertan, Gosling (ran a lot, but never seems to do much) and Vuckic and plenty of positives to take. Fail to see what so many are twisting and moaning about?

He's not 18 surely?! He plays well beyond his years. Doing my best not to get too excited and hype him up, but fuck me, it's difficult when he keeps playing like this!

Ba was MOTM, but over both halves, Santon was our best player.

They actually searched each other out with passes a few times as well. One where Ba played a chipped/flicked through ball, but Cisse was his customary 8 yards offside

Kind of ended up playing like that against Villa. Hatem always drifts about, but he seemed to be staying quite central and then just popping up all over. Worth a shot I reckon. As I can't see either being happy playing wide left. Neville pointed out potential problems with that before the game, when showing footage from the Swansea match.

Not coming up as that on mine. Think I might sit toward the singing corner for this one. Vary it up. Tickets went really quickly for this. I got mine last thursday/Friday. There were no 2 seats together in the singing corner or in the middle of the Gallowgate. Even where I normally sit in the Upper Gallowgate, most the decent seats were taken. I plumped for Upper East Stand on the halfway line. Never sat there before, always been put off by the seemingly poor atmosphere. Not a huge fan of viewing a game from side on either. But I saw some views from there and they looked amazing, so thought I would go with it. £15 a ticket is really reasonable. According to a few mates, Spurs cheapest seats for the Lazio game are £37! There's actually loads of tickets available. I looked last week and like you said there were hardly any, but I think that was just because they were keeping season ticket seats unavailable to wait and see if the season ticket holder bought their seat. I bought my tickets this week and there are absolutely loads of seats free in the strawberry corner, in the east stand next to the strawberry corner and in the gallowgate (lower and upper tiers). Ah fuck sake, should have waited then O well, should be a good view at least. If we got just shy of 30k for Atromitos, would like to hope we'll get similar or more in for this one.

I'll change my prediction from 3-1 to 11-0.

Yeah I understand the first bit. Just unless they check every ticket's barcode to every ticket's passport no. then it would be quite easy to get around it.

Didn't realise that. Positivity gone

I can't see this voucher and passport thing being enforced when there is more time to sort it and a big away following expected. Imagine 5000-6000 fans at Bruges queuing 2-3 hours or more before kick off to collect tickets? It would be utter madness. How many sales windows would they have to have open? It would take forever to individually tick them all off. Same could be said if we qualified to the knockout rounds and drew a big club like Atletico or Inter. I don't even think we used this method for Atrmoitos did we? The close proximity of the game is a factor as well. I doubt they have got time to process all applicants, apply for tickets with Maritimo, get the correct amount allocated and sent over, then get them all out in the post. Or maybe I am just trying to remain positive as I am gambling on getting Bruges tickets through a mate

Not coming up as that on mine. Think I might sit toward the singing corner for this one. Vary it up. Tickets went really quickly for this. I got mine last thursday/Friday. There were no 2 seats together in the singing corner or in the middle of the Gallowgate. Even where I normally sit in the Upper Gallowgate, most the decent seats were taken. I plumped for Upper East Stand on the halfway line. Never sat there before, always been put off by the seemingly poor atmosphere. Not a huge fan of viewing a game from side on either. But I saw some views from there and they looked amazing, so thought I would go with it. £15 a ticket is really reasonable. According to a few mates, Spurs cheapest seats for the Lazio game are £37!

3-1 loss. Not expecting much from this one. Everton are a really good side at home and with it seeming like Krul and Colo will be out, I just can't even see us nicking a draw. We got murdered there last season, one of the most one sided games (not in our favour) I've been to for the last couple of seasons. We were better in the second half after a formation change. Sound familiar...