Tiresias

No no, well done on Stoke getting into Europe, it is an achievement, I'm just upset at how the press go on and on about how the measure of a team is how they go up against the Stoke style of play, and yet I bet if Italian footy is brought up the same pundits will criticise Italian footy as boring and defensive. Stoke have a good thing going for them results wise but it's not pretty to watch.

I think the skepticism of doing that well comes as a reaction against constant bollocks media reports about how stupid and over optimistic toon fans always are. Over expectation can be bad for a team, I think being underdogs can always be a good thing for the morale, and creates an us against the world atmosphere in a team. Assuming great success before achieved however could decimate morale when it turns out they can't quite achieve it. I am optimistic actually of progress made, and say we come 9th, I don't really think anyone wouldn't have taken that at start when morale was a bit low. We then have a great base to build on, we'll be able to attract more players as we can say we're pushing for a Europa league place, and then we can kick on. Not to say we shouldn't be WOOO LETS GET IN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE attitude, that can be great fun if taken right, if it doesn't burden team with expectations of actually getting to champions league, for now we should be swashbuckling exciting plucky and over achieving, rather than for now harbouring an enduring myth of deserving a top 4 finish or anything.

Gutierrez is better against strong flanks where he can contribute defensively and shield the full back. Obertan looks less good at this but better at giving a weak full back a proper hard time.

Hopefully we're scouring pretty hard for a successor, (and more CB cover obviously), he's going to start slowing down sometime. A rock now and could be good for a while yet, but we can't afford to be left caught out by him starting to get injuries etc.

Oh excellent we're playing monday. Yeah play close to full strength, though wouldn't object to Marveaux starting, but Tiote and Cabaye hopefully there.

Chelsea look like a team waiting to click but will do at some point. I do rate Villas Boas and I love how he responded to being accused of being naive in his attacking play against Man U (was this from the same journos who fawn over boring defensive Mancini?) by saying he was trying to play proper entertaining attacking english footy. Spot on, critiquing a manager for having a right go at Man U is ridiculous. Arsenal aren't going to make it to top 4 this season I doubt, the main other contender is Totenham, whom look pretty good but I still have reservations about. Stoke oddly I think will sadly be competing there too. Our squad is too thin however to be competing at that level all season to be honest, and we haven't really seen how we do against the better premier league sides. Raylor will be ripped a new one if he's still at left back, and I imagine Simpson will too. I hope when we don't really come that close to 4th Ben Arfa doesn't instantly get disillusioned and want to leave. (Sorry to be a bit pessimistic) To be fair on him, wasn't he back in france most the time while out injured? Yeah should learn English though, suspect will since rest of French contigent seem to be trying now.

Another should win, another shouldn't underestimate, on their day good side, but on current form should be confident.

The pundit worship of Stoke's style of play as some kind of proof of the premier league's quality, it's not that I don't admire the genuine challenge they put up, but if you were a stoke fan wouldn't you get a bit...depressed... I hate the worship of players who aren't good enough too because they're 'passionate' 'brave' and whatever toss. England's brave captain John Terry never gets any flack for the world cup, he's a dumb brick of a player who can be solid etc but objective worth of players is thrown out the window all the time. The Sun valued Barry at £26m comparing him to Xavi who was £25m. Are they mad? The press worship of premiership players has got in the way of right criticism of how overpaid a lot of players, and how crap our current crop of players are, and how little we do to bring in in new players. Capello, as much as i think he's been pretty bad, got it right that English players have got no mental strength at all, pampered overrated idiots who'd rather be anywhere but playing football. I hate Sky monopolising coverage, I hate the quality of punditry of MotD seemingly being the most either obvious, or dim insights known to man. Ok rant over. Needed that out of the system.

If I'm feeling generous, he's probably told he has to say that lol. What should be saying is that seems to have spent money reasonably well. Hell would have been happy if Cabaye had cost a lot more than he did.

Krul looks like a nice bloke, purely on his looks, may be completely wrong, just looks like a good mate...

Stepping up, which is great, have to admit unfairly wrote him off in the past. Still think we need a striker obviously, but it's too his credit he hasn't let all the 'toon need a striker' comments get him down.

I've always found him weirdly likeable even if he's obviously not quite good enough, but not for want of trying really. Our squad is thin so really any backup is welcome for now, but once we've got some reinforcements in should be let go to some championship squad, how long is left on his contract? I don't like letting such players languish on a bench, seems a bit cruel.

Didn't he buy Vaughn from Blackpool? I rate him quite highly, excellent passing, did very well playing the fast and good attacking football for them, pity he went to Sunderland then lol

Yeah going to have a tough run for a bit, but I am generally happy with the points we've taken so far, ultimately everyones got to play everyone at some point and we've got a good run of form and confidence going, I can see us troubling spurs, they never quite convince for me, I love their attacking play and such, but they can be quite naive. Modric is a great player though, and Bale against our full backs (apart from Santon perhaps) is frightening. Adeybayor and Van Der Vaart is strong too... Can see us scoring too though against their backline. My heart says we'll have an upset but my brain says 2-1 to them.

They may now field a full strength squad to get revenge on us for the drubbing, so can see it being a tough one if we don't

aaah ok that explains why his passing is down. To think only so many games into season and he's being man marked.

Looking at chalkboards stats Cabaye had a quieter game than against villa with less passing, but despite this still was extremely positive in his passing. He did however complete more tackles than Tiote whom out passed Cabaye, and yet only had one successfull cross into the box, which resulted in the goal. Not to say Cabaye had a bad game, these two are f***ing magnificent.

Our best team will be after the subs to be honest so 2-1 is fine if nervous scoreline, hopefully get another soon after break, hope Cabaye gets on the scoresheet

he deals with wingers at all?

On present form we're not relegation material, but if Colo gets a long term injury I think a lot of people will collectively shit themselves

They are a bogey team for us, before everyone gets carried away. We need to turn good form into goals, hope we do, this is a 'should win' game, but I'm not going to assume a walkover, they did beat arsenal 4-3 which rather demonstrates they do have goals in them, which till that game didn't think they did. Even if they were against arsenal.

Mike Ashley's surprise appointment of Sammy Ameobi to manager, and Pardew to no. 9 striker is yet to prove convincing

Can see why French clubs can struggle to keep hold of players really if that's all accurate, heard at time about Laurent Blanc comments but wasn't true if it was widespread or exaggerated or something

Jol has a terrible reputation in Europe for awful man management, so would be skeptical

I'm still undecided about Pardew, it's very easy to excuse all the bad things of his reign on Ashley, but that's also not that unreasonable. He seems reasonably competant, got our defence working pretty well, but he hasn't had to rebuild that. I like he wants pace, we were in danger of becoming fatally sluggish last season, and we'd have got slower this season if we hadn't had this influx of youth. I like that he has struck a fair chord between not rushing tactical changes so as to leave players not knowing what they're doing, rather than switching formation every week, and also making the changes, we do seem to be shifting to a much more midfield orientated team. I also don't know if he's the kind of manager who will when down at halftime make a bold change to take the game back. Has he really had to make any bold decisions since he came in? His half time team talk at arsenal last season must have been good to be fair to him. There is a worrying slickness though, he always seems to say the right things, he's competent but yet to prove himself someone who will drag us long way up the table. However of course getting rid of him would only do damage, and definately no cause, but the long term contract may be a mistake. I wonder if he's going to prove a great manager to rebuild the team over the next few seasons, but then we may want someone to then get us to achieve better things. I also don't know yet what he's like when things are really bad. If we pick up some injuries and start on a bad run, he needs to be able to turn us around...before he gets sacked only making things worse...