Lush Vlad

I thought I heard his name being chanted, what is the song? I do love this guy, he is vitally important to the team and had a terrific game today. oooooh Gutierrez... from Buenos Aires, he's spirderman He's our superhero playing on the left or right, wearing black and white and he's fucking dynamite oooooh Gutierrez Thought it was something like that? That's the problem, nobody knows the words to the last line, so it just sounds shite. Thought Jonas had a terrible first half. Much improved second though.

Where do you get these stats please Ethi?

Even before his goal, he looked sharp as fuck. Good movement, workrate, bit of pace and got in scoring positions all game. I didn't realise the header was such a decent chance at the match, watched it back last night and he should have burried it like. Then about 5 minutes later BOOOOOOM I was sat directly in line with it, was in all the way I thought he was exclusively an off the shoulder/poacher type, but he really impressed me. Brought the ball down under pressure, I remember him trapping a few long Krul punts with ease. Did reasonably well trying to hold it up and back in, no mean feat against the human horse Dunne. Also showed a bit of skill and his link up was far better than I imagined. Take into account he doesn't speak any English, has trained with the squad once or twice and isn't even used to the league yet. The future certainly looks bright Oh, he does make some mad offside runs!

Reading between the lines, Pardew STILL doesn't see him as a winger. He's being a stubborn twat about it and it's one of my main gripes with him TBH. There has been loads of games where he could have come on out wide, or even started there and AP hasn't used him. You hear him in interviews when he is talking about the strikers, he always mentions Ben Arfa. We changed formation to that 4-2-3-1 to accomodate HBA. Whilst I actually quite like the formation, we didn't have the players to do it and I wasn't sure why we didn't just play 4-4-2 with him out wide? The only thing I can think of, is we were missing Cheik and Ba, yesterday we were missing Cheik and Cabaye. Perhaps because of us missing two key players, AP thinks of Ben Arfa as a luxury player and doesn't want to risk him. If he still can't get in the side for the Wolves game, with Cheik and Cabaye back and hopefully available, then the writing is on the wall, he'll leave in the summer. Starting to sound like your typical knee jerk fan, but he's too talented to sit on our bench and I doubt his ego will allow it. I feel a little sorry for him, he has played as a no.10 in some the toughest games of the season (Man U, Man City, Chelsea) and then got dropped. Played in this new system without Ba or Tiote, had a couple of poor games and back to the bench again. I just feel like we haven't actually seen enough of him to even make a fair assessment, we only see him off the bench when we're chasing games and he's not had a run in the side in a fixed position. I thought bringing Obertan on yesterday was the right decision, but Obertan and R.Taylor are not better options out wide in the long term. Would understand if HBA left to be honest, so far I think his talent has been totally wasted by Pardew. Might just be being massively paranoid, but I don't think AP is particularly keen on him. Usually the first to get hauled, often left sat on the bench and seems to get praise, followed by 3 slight put downs or critiscisms, which doesn't seem PArdew's style with any other players

Pleased I'm travelling up for this one now. Think he'll get 20-30 minutes off the bench. He better start Ba.....

Was a striker as a kid and it shows, superb going forward, bit dodgy defensively. Might try and dig the interview up but he said Mourniho stuck him at left back when he was 18 or so and he had never played there before! Have to agree with others, I'd like to see him at right back and I reckon we will at the start of next season.

Squad player, nothing more, nothing less. Although if he starts at centre mid with Guthrie on Sunday, I think we'll struggle. He looked really poor there I thought. I see him as cover for the full back positions and right wing, he is terrible in the middle of the park.

Benin have a WC qualifier away at Ethiopia as well, so SAFC will be losing their best player that week. Will Ba even play for Senegal in a meaningless friendly? Hopefully he stays in Newcastle, or goes and doesn't play. Can't even see the Ivory Coast friendly on FIFA's website?

Said for a while now, when playing this strange 4-2-3-1 with players out of position, I would have loved the 3 to have been Obertan, HBA and Jonas. All could play anywhere in that 3 and the fluid pass and move style might actually work. Instead we played Jonas pretty much exclusively through the middle, a back to goal striker wide left and Hatem wide right. On the goal, being 100% honest, I thought he would score and wasn't that nervous surprisingly. I know it's a bit different doing it in a friendly, but he scored a few cool finishes in various highlight reels for Man U and I remember being impressed watching them. He's just got to produce for more than 5 minutes now and he'll be a good player for us

If we ditch the ridiculous high line and try and play football, we will win IMO. Especially seeing as barring injury, we will have Tiote, Cabaye and Ba back, oh and that Cisse lad, but he's shit according to them

Just remebered we gave him a new contract in the summer. FFS......

Noooooooo. If he does, I will actually cry. We've been a bit shit lately, but we all knew we've not got the biggest squad and the standard of football would drop during this period. Add to that Colo missing a game, Cabaye missing over a game and a half, plus playing against Fulham when clearly half fit. The 4-2-3-1 for a QPR for an hour and for a half against Fulham, it looked superb, was impressed we actually played some football. I wouldn't like to see us bin it completely, just not suited to the current players available.

Sessegnon has certainly been better this season. Think I'm right in saying he is nowhere near as highly rated in France though? HBA is more talented IMO. Oh, did Sess have ayear out through a leg break and ankle ligament injury as well?

We need Cabaye and Tiote in midfield, plus strikers that actually move to get the best out of him. I don't think he gets any help whatsoever from Simpson either, Colo was the only fucker trying to link with him. Don't get me wrong, he was bloody terrible, but I would have moved him behind Best when Perch come on. He showed the odd flash of brilliance and did track back and work hard, something that can't be said about the sloth.

Wow, just wow. The worst 90 I have seen from us all season, yet we won 2-0. Chuffed for Obertan, Krul and Colo had a few moments but were otherwise class. Starting to get really worried though, the midfield was terrible, the back 4 all over the shop and too high (again) and the movement up top was non existant. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of terrible performances tonight, Simpson, Williamson, HBA, Best....... But scapegoat time, Shola is a fucking disgrace, how he keeps getting 90 I don't know. No workrate, no intelligence, didn't challenge for headers well, didn't hold it up. He literally offered nothing, can't wait to see this sloth out the team. Same problems every week, we will get torn apart Sunday I reckon, even with the Demba's back.

Ergh reading this thread has made me even more pessimistic about tonight. Now also thinking he won't start and we'll see a flat, one dimensional 4-4-2. You bastards :lol:

As someone else said, he needs a break. I tend to agree, only missed one game through suspension and an hour or so of the QPR game. Rushed back after 2 or 3 injuries and is probably still getting to grips with the league. Couldn't come at a worse time though!

It is hilarious. I can think of loads of players MON signed for us where people - and the press - said "he'll get the best out of them" The likes of Steve Sidwell, Nicky Shorey, Curtis Davies, Marlon f***ing Harewood, Heskey, Zat Knight, and Heskey, none of which he managed to get anything out of. MON will get Sunderland better results than they're used to, but the flip side is that they have to accept his transfer policy is lazy, myopic and very predictable. I read yesterday he has the ability to turn shite players good. Where's the evidence of this?

He didn't actually say that did he? :lol:

Mental if we let him go. Would actually be prettY fucked off. Currently our third best striker FFS.

Dead in the water then. Shame, I was keen on signing him TBH. Just think it is risky as fuck going now until the end of the season with a class centre back, an increasingly dodgy one and a championship defensive mid/full back as our options at centre half. Not even agreed a deal with Watford and guessing we never upped our bid anyway. About 0% chance of this happening.

Surely we would have upped our bid to somewhere nearer £2.5m? Or are they that desperate to get some money in? Their finances aren't great are they?

Has there been confirmation of our appeal? 6pm today was the deadline wasn't it?