littlelunchbox

oh wow shola is coming on

shutting up shop? cabaye playing as right wing now. back to 4-4-2

f***ing useless, keep hold of the ball and the opposition can't hurt you, not rocket science why can't we keep procession of the ball?

jonas is no long term leftback for us, he can't attack the ball with his head, seems reluctant to defend with his head and rather use his foot.

usual shit from us, played well for 15mins, after getting a goal, and then crawled into our usual shell again, inviting the opposition back into the game. still not enough movement from our team and can't keep hold of the ball long enough and giving away procession. we created some chances, Cisse had three very good chances. scored one.

i think .cock got it wrong, jonas at left back? really? then why not play santon at left wing. i mean thats how they pan out anyway, santon bombing forward and jonas covering his ass .

yes leicester! HONOUR GOAL!!!!!

perch is left back obviously

the backline is pretty much how i would start as well. people surprised santon is dropped, really???

he definitely does, but right now we got guth, cabaye, tiote so it's obvious it's dificult for the boy to break through. but i think our wide positions are the place where we are a bit stale. Wouldn't mind seeing Gosling there and see what the boy can do. He hasn't had a fair crack yet.

this boy is suppose to be a winger and can play in defence , apparently, when not injured. can't see why people would slag him considering he hasn't done nowt for us to really to judge. apart from a few subs appeareance, and getting sent of for a two footed tackle. is he any worse than Obertan? surely he deserves more opportunities.

sorry lads lol i had two windows open , wrong thread

Your views on Santon are hardly well balanced. So I'll take your less over the top views on someone who is vastly inferior imo with a pinch of salt. Theres no sugar coating it with simpson. 'Limited' is the nice way people are putting it these days I believe. you obviously only like to pick and choose what you read. When 'limited' is subjective. to say simpson is limited when it comes to playing around the opposition's box,yes. but is just as good as saying santon is limited at defending. i have no problems with santon , just want the lad to be playing in his best position which is a winger. Never accedited 'limited' to you btw. Having read some of your views on Santon as a defender in comparison your views of simpson (attacking aside) I still can't agree. He's as flawed as Santon arguably is. so you don't even recognize that simpson is at least decent at defending? then i have nothing else to say to you.

thanx

Your views on Santon are hardly well balanced. So I'll take your less over the top views on someone who is vastly inferior imo with a pinch of salt. Theres no sugar coating it with simpson. 'Limited' is the nice way people are putting it these days I believe. you obviously only like to pick and choose what you read. When 'limited' is subjective. to say simpson is limited when it comes to playing around the opposition's box,yes. but is just as good as saying santon is limited at defending. i have no problems with santon , just want the lad to be playing in his best position which is a winger.

what? when exactly do you need 11 techinical players to play football. get over it.

wtf, people are going way over the top with the slagging of this lad, yeh we know he's completely shit after he crosses the halfway line but put that aside, speaking purely on defensive skills, he really isn't bad at all. put it this way, defensively he is the most solid fullback (left and right) we got in the entire squad, i know that may be a shock to some, but it's a fact , not that it's saying much given how shit the rest of our fullbacks are.

as much as i have hated the defensive play and longballs, i'd take pardew over houghton anyday, appreciated what houghton did for us, but i think pardew is a better manager all round.

it makes sense if we had Best in the team, he seems to be the only man in our attack in the entire squad that can bring a ball down and keep it. Ba is not that type of player despite his height and build, and he's definitely not a number 10 which pardew seems to want him to play as when we got 2 forwards in the line up, it didnt work when Ba paired with shola, doesnt work when he gets paired with Cisse. Ba is a poacher and is exactly the same mould as Cisse, one man up top with HBA in behind is the way to go, or one man up top with 2 wide players beside him one on each side, (4-3-3)

i agree in the long term down the line he will probably end up as a central mid player. but currently and most of the game he played at rennes he is known to play out wide and likes to cut in. definitely not a traditional wide player who hugs the touchline and crosses the ball.

very simple, or you would think it would be. a manager looks at his current squad, see the strength, play to their strength. So we look, and quite clearly quality defenders is not what we got in abundance maybe just one. We got good quality midfielders, good strikers. what shall we do? rocket science?

No offense, but this is bullshit, OK, you might not be able to play as tight and risky, but other teams with poor "footballers" manage to play it from the back ten times more often than us. Haven't seen many less effective than the likes of a partnership of Williamson or Simpson on the ball like. They're either following an instruction to the Nth degree or they genuinely dislike having the pressure of having a football at their feet. Like I said earlier, it's hard to know whether they are incapable of making short passes or feel pressured to hoof it because the manager makes a big deal about not taking risks. We've seen how reluctant he was to play Ben Arfa who is the ultimate ball loving footballer. Sometimes I think he'd rather play with 9 men so there'd be less people to pass to. The manager needs to have confidence in his players to pass the ball otherwise players like Simpson and Williamson will always play safe. problem is , we hoof it even when there's not a threat. that's inexcusable. we dont just play long balls because it's safe, simpson does it in the last third of the pitch all the time, no threat what so ever. willo does, even colo does it when the opposition's strikers are near the kick off spot. i havent got a problem with pardew wanting to play defensive, or cautious, but being defensive shouldn't equate to hoofball, a team can still be defensive and cautious by passing the ball around.

last game i saw him play for us, he looked really slow, whether thats done to not fully fit or injury , i don't know.