Tiresias

If a really big club came in for him I think we'd struggle to keep him, but suspect we should be able to hold on to him against anything below that considering our positive league position etc, and he does have family settled here. Older players tend to be more realistic about moves etc and if they are going to move are more honest about it. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Yeah think it may have to be Ben Arfa or Ba rather than together, or stick Ben Arfa out wide, I agree inferior position, and I've argued against it but not a terrible idea really.

Can understand the confusion, Mackem's don't think there's much more to the game than fouling

Tbh I thought Vaughn would be a great signing for them. Brucie seems to have the ability to coax the worst out of his players. Wouldn't swap for either Tiote or Cabaye anyway. Maybe for Gosling.

Surprised how few calls for sunderland, not really entirely out of the question start they've had Wigan need to go down. They've had plenty of chances to establish themselves, they have tried to play good football at times but somehow never hit on and made any ground. They're boring, and they're a bit of a bogey team for us on top of that . Blackburn seem a model of incompetent ownership, and are never the prettiest club to watch. Kean deserves some credit for breaking Junior Hoilett into the team who was a fringe player under Allardyce. Otherwise though he's been terrible. I do have some sympathy for their fans though, we all know what it's like to have an owner seemingly trying to screw the team over. Maybe they'll eventually do something right (hopefully not by poaching pardew )

He's possibly had to have the nail removed, I've had that and it was maybe bit less than a month but certainly all bandaged up for a while. That said still a month seems a bit much It's also a bit sad considering this covers the manchester games where I expect we'd be hoping to score on fast breakaways out of defence, which is surely his speciality.

Eeep bad timing after actually showing that he is good after all. Oh well, we have the cover there.

Lovely, excited about him

Do you have as many CDs?

Want Vucknic and Abeid to get their first team chances, and Guthrie now looks earned a shot too...starting to think we should copy barcalona and just field all our midfielders at once and see what happens

I was dead against sticking him on wing, but have rather come round to it, at least till he gets his shit together a bit better.

To be fair they seem a lot more generous than RTG...that said that's not hard

Stoke's medical team aren't without credit, they have a good line in buying injury prone players on the cheap and keeping them injury free (see Johnathan Woodgate atm). I am slightly suspicious though that's because these injury prone players don't then have to play against stoke in the league

Pardew spoke early on about changing Taylor's body shape to increase his mobility, i.e. less upper body bulk. He has looked a far better player since so credit to Pardew, not to mention playing alongside Colo must be any central defenders dream. It took a lot of bottle to face the Stoke machine with a recently broken nose and burst facial blood vessel. Well done Stevie boy. Didn't know this, remember someone talking about how a lot of players bulk up a lot in premier league and it can ruin them. Someone said Heskey in his early years looked like a quick agile winger, then he bulked up massively...and became Heskey...Similaly Agbonlahor has apparently had a lot of managers telling him not to bulk up and remain nimble, but he keeps trying anyway. Less sure about defenders who I'd want to be able to not be muscled off the ball, but you don't need to be so muscly i suppose to compete against Silva and this new breed of small attacking players.

Maybe they'd rather give players further from the first team a run about?

Because it upsets the usual media narrative of the 'onest 'arrys 'otspur swashbucking their way into the top 4 despite them not being as rich. How dare we ruin that party despite having cheaper and frencher players! They build up the 'top top' teams so much they can't really explain when a written off team does so well apart from to patronise them and wait for old order to restore itself, once the 'luck' runs out. Because if a team that doesn't have the stars does well what have all the ridiculous ticket prices, television subscription prices have been for?

To be fair I'm wondering if we shouldn't be playing Jonas at left back and Marveaux ahead of him...

Passing has gone astray a bit, that said think he did do some promising sweeping balls up field, begovic bailed them out from at least one of these iirc

You don't think that was the plan though? Gutierrez defends one flank, Obertan releases pressure other? It stifled their crosses in perfectly. Against a team we can pin back in their half absolutely innapropiate lack of penetration if he played like that, and to be honest wouldn't mind seeing Marveaux in for him when we want someone to out and out attack, but you know tactics involve playing players for their strength? I think we well could have lost if not for Jonas. Not sure I remember this happening

Everton are hardly really sinking are they? They're probably in worst financial position of any club in league, have sold and brought in massively cheap, and while struggling a fair amount play well and have a very astute manager. Losing 1-0 to man united, and playing most the game in Utd's half is symptomatic of them right now, strong good footy, with a lack of strikers. I think it's going to be one of those games determined by some magic from a few players of either side, both our defences are pretty strong all in all.

Come on guys the personal attacks are a bit silly, I can see his point, he offered nothing going forward, but was doing a defensive shift and did it extremely well, we all know his limitations in attack anyway, when playing purely defensively he looks a lot better, he contributed a load tonight, completely prevented attacks down his flank, and was in no especial rush to concede space behind him especially once we are away.

Retardation. One of the stupidest things I've read on here since 2004. f***ing gravel for brains tbh. But as usual, none of you will have the balls to back up your comments. I say he did a few things okay in defnce but nowt in attack. Come on then big balls, tell me what he did in attack. If you can't figure out what his job was tonight then that's your f***ing problem. He did exactly what he was told to do and he was one of the main reasons we won the game. Not even sure you understand your own bullshit tbh. Nice avoidance Nice avoidance

Bet we didn't get a free kick for that either. Nonsense, was just some affectionate spooning

It's a good partnership, having a bit of a brute and the more calm measured defending of Colo. Will conceed a few penalties still though. Solid against toughest test however.

Aye with Jonas playing so deep we were almost playing a lopsided 4-3-3, worked great.