Tiresias

I wonder how Ben Arfa plays in his dreams...

Not saying he's anything but a great manager, but Barca was so much his club, with his team, and I doubt he'll be able to quite replicate it elsewhere anyway, whether it be not inspiring the players quite so much or not quite caring as much. A year out may save him from being brought back down to earth. Can see him going to Man U to replace Ferguson if he retires, can't think of a better coach to build a new team with.

Even if they didn't score a long shot, if they threatened to shoot chelsea players would have had to close them down just that extra few yards of space that messi could exploit behind. Chelsea knew they wouldn't shoot though and so could hang back a bit and block the runs.

The first time he fails to score after this run it's going to be doom and gloom on here lol

this season think the general feeling is his desire to keep tweaking and changing the formula let him down a bit (lets not forget still won most games and got to CL semi final), but trying to bring new players into the side that swept all before them last season seems to have lost the balance they had. 3 at the back hasn't worked out for them as hoped and they are narrow and predictable in attack. Losing Eto was ridiculous, and they do still need a out and out goalscorer since Villa got injured (he was out of form anyway wasn't he?) Sanchez who plays as their forward a lot is there to give space to messi behind him, that's what the team is built around, as Pep considered him the only completely unstoppable player. However when the team isn't quite working Messi still isn't enough, they lack a plan b, not necessarily a huge striker to lob balls up to, just someone whose going to shoot and score from outside the box. Guardiola maybe is too puritanica potentially about his style? Well anyway fantastic coach. Nobody can keep it up forever. Except pards *fingers crossed*

That's exactly why I dislike it

Brilliant!

Channel 5 commentators got very confused by Bielsa's false CB playmaker thing, which is to be fair quite confusing but should have done research and known that's how they play, not player being silly

DVD was Cabaye in the showers I suspect player tells agent what sort of clubs he'd be interested in and comes back and tells players which would be interested and narrows it down. Some players will I guess have clubs in mind, I'm a bit surprised he was unaware of our interest since we'd been monitoring him so long, but I guess people do actually respect tapping up rules...

I was just thinking this, Obertan is due a Perchesque transformation

Dreamt I met Cisse. I know doesn't count but got a photo with him and everything

It kinda looks like he's literally blowing him over, his cheeks puffed out like that

League 2 to premier league may be a fair step up, might we be planning to loan him out to a championship club?

West Ham want him back! :frantic:

Within a year I predict this forum will communicate entirely through gifs

We'll win this with some Tiote and Jonas hard work closing them down in midfield, and keeping their wing-backs penned back defending to stop counter attacks and isolate their front 3. Certainly a difficult formation to come up against but nothing to get too worried about, if we play like we did vs stoke we can impose our game.

True. Which is why we're forth (f***ing forth ) and not challenging for the title. f***ing incredible stuff Well I think there were some winnable games but our form dipped at wrong time, though. Hasn't been good enough is wrong phrasing, could be better is all I mean. But exactly, there do seem so many people desperate to say we're not 'deserving' ridiculously. I'd fucking love to beat man city this time round though.

I don't mind them usually, I find a lot of other podcasts full of stupid in-jokes and 'banter' etc. But they really get some of the analysis of newcastle wrong, and it makes me doubt other clubs analysis. I mean Ba doing all the work for Cisse to score? Claiming colo only looks good cos of the team is nonsense, he is the reason when the team isn't working things sometimes still went out way. Was reasonable to point to our big defeats at fulham and totenham as blots on our defensive record though to be fair.

Football Weekly was speaking usual bollocks about newcastle, Phillippe Auclaire saying only reason Cisse scoring loads is because Ba has been doing all the work and as soon as we sell Ba Cisse will be much worse... Sort of a compliment of Ba but considering HBA and Cabaye have pretty much been the providers for Cisse makes very little sense. Odd argument. Some reasonable criticisms, our record against top table teams hasn't been good enough.

I'm keepign expectations down. Worry there'll be loads more pressure that simply hasn't been there and we may well tire ourselves out playing many more games. On the other hand I certainly will be udnerstanding of that this time next season, if we're 8th or 7th as long as we've had fun...

I said some pretty stupid stuff about considering replacing him at end of season with qualifier that there was a better manager available...yeah dumb think it was wolves game that drove me over the edge of fury at how rigid and boring we were playing. Sorry Pards, if we start playing like we did at stoke game in game out next season it will be amazing.

As I posted in collo thread http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/9220732/The-alternative-Premier-League-team-of-the-season.html Krul, Cabaye and Cisse in that team, from the telegraph

He's made me dribble more times per 90 minutes

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/9220732/The-alternative-Premier-League-team-of-the-season.html Telegraph team of the season has Krul Cabaye and Cisse on it