rogerbarton

Anyone seen Erik Pieters' Twitter? He's been cheering us on the last couple of games, under the guise of it being his mate Tim's club. From what I've seen of him he'd be a good acquisition who could go straight into the left back slot. I still think Santon is going to need time to settle and perhaps become our right back. Another point regarding any summer transfer activity, what are the rules about quotas of home grown players? Cos if we want to keep improving it's the likes of Simpson/Williamson that we'd want to improve on. Steven Taylor's the only English player I could see a first XI regular, with the likes of Raylor, Guthrie, Shola, Best, Sammeobi, Gosling more as back up.

I'm just not sure what Guthrie's role is a lot of the time. He has a good range of passing but can often be seen playing a dreadful ball out of play and he plays some good balls into the box but he doesn't actually do that much work defensively. Gutierrez, on the other hand, could be the perfect box to box player for me. We've seen his defensive work covering on the left and he made up a hell of a lot of ground earlier in the season with Raylor. I'm confident he could do a good job in that role in the middle. Then you obviously have Tiote the destroyer and Cabaye as the playmaker behind the front three (and ahead of Jonas and Tiote). A 4-2-1-2-1 if you like...

Just to draw attention to the comment on The Guardian from a Liverpool fan about their woes - was a very good read:

I thought Cabaye was good yesterday like. Got involved in a lot of the play and made some great passes, in fact there was a stat that showed that he made more passes than any other game all season yesterday. I'm definitely gonna have to see a lot more from Perch before I see him as a first teamer as well. As for Pardiola, I know a few West Ham fans who all say he's the best manager they've had in donkey's years. One big 'Ammer says he had them playing the best football of his lifetime. He was obviously good at Reading and Southampton too - it's just Charlton where there's maybe a question mark

No matter, he's just been publicly humiliated at the stadium of his boyhood club, i reckon he's probably feeling pretty shit right now. Or he's out on a large one snorting coke off some bird's tits round Kevin Nolan's old pad

Mike seems like a lovely ditzy bloke

Quality! Just wish we'd smashed one in past Enrique as well. Let's just bask in the sun and enjoy this one.

Yeah, was going to mention that Carroll's done nothing to endear himself here. He's gone the wrong way in responding badly to the boos and pissing us all off with some pathetic behaviour. Still feel a bit sorry for him if anything to be honest, though, unless he scores second half

Ya Simpson and Perch have been playing a blinder, pity about williamson and jonas, though. We still look shaky at the back cos, let's face it, that is not a great back line, but at least Perch has given his all and got a few fantastic interceptions and tackles out of it. I think Jonas might have to give way. We look as though we could be comfortable but we're just not quite cos we're a bit shaky when they've got the ball. Enjoying it so far though

- Andy Carroll looks like the pissed off kid picked last at PE who's huffing and puffing around everywhere being shite - Papiss Cisse, what a player - Ben Arfa skinning Enrique whenever he wants - Never seen Bellamy this shit against us - Perchinho, take a bow

Bellamy back makes things that bit more difficult for us I think, especially with our back four today. I hope the Welsh knob gets injured early on. The battle can be won in midfield today, Cabaye, Tiote, Guthrie vs Gerrard, Spearing and Shelvey and we should be a threat going forward too.

I've gone for Wolves (look doomed), Blackburn and QPR. No matter that Blackburn have pulled out some wins since Christmas, I'm still not convinced by that defence and Kean is no mastermind. QPR have managed a couple of good home wins but have splashed the cash on some wasters and, essentially, I think Wigan and Bolton have enough about them to pull it out of the bag (maybe I'm just hoping). I didn't go for Villa cos they're a few points ahead but they do look pretty dire and I think Insomnia's out for them now as well (not that he was doing much before). Would fucking love it if they bit the dust. Just a shame we couldn't be there to wave the cunts off.

I remember Beckham scoring the winner last time we played them competitively!

Watford? Having lived in Hertfordshire (yeah i know) for a fair while, I wouldn't advise parking in Watford to get to Wembley anyways

Kolarov floated a couple of great crosses in at the end there that I thought Mario might have bashed in. I didn't want the mackems closing in on us so glad of that one. Arsenal losing as well ought to be good news, or am I being too optimistic?

Yeah, glad to see it happen. Got a couple of West 'Ammm supporting mates who despise the bloke for exactly the same reasons as we did. What's more, they're paying top half Premier League wages so they might be fooked if they don't go up

Been a good afternoon of football. Tuning in to see the grandstand finish at Citeh

3-2 Chelsea now. Lee Mason fucking up again

Whoever Eric Lichag is, he's just created one goal and scored another in the space of a minute for Villa against Chelsea. If it stays 2-2 we could go above them tomorrow...

Chelsea winning against an inept Villa, Arsenal drawing at QPR. We could do with bad results for those two to throw things wide open in the CL race. Who are Spuds playing this weekend?

There can't be a geordie alive who could forgive Thatcher for what she did. We live in a society dictated by her dreadful politics and this lot are only trying to worsen the gap in inequality with masqueraded bullshit like regional pay. She was not a friend to football, indeed she was not a friend to very much, except a wide open market, silver spooned toffs and big corporations. There should not be a minute's silence for her, she was completely unrelated to football anyway and I'd hope everyone concerned would have the good sense to see that.

That said, the system last week was well suited to a counter attacking game away from home.

He can't possibly drop Ben Arfa after last week can he? West Brom was by far and away our best performance in a long time, it looked like we'd found a system that worked. I take your point about the CB pairing and needing to crowd out the midfield a bit more but Tiote is back.

I have to say that article offers absolutely nothing of value whatsoever. (A bit like this post.)

Fantastic quote from Andy. I'm glad to see some of the more knowledgeable and friendly Scousers making an appearance here, some good mates of mine are Liverpool fans but even they have a very inflated opinion of their club which is why the rest of the football world is sometimes a bit narked with Liverpool supporters I think. Without Colo it's going to be a big struggle, the guy's a class act and we don't actually have a proper centre back to replace him with. You've got to say that we needed a back up CB in January even if it was a loan player, I'm sure we could have got someone half decent in for next to nothing. I will be interested to see who plays there with Willo, but I'm guessing Perch and, no matter how much he's getting a bit of a bumming of late, he ain't good enough. I expect a 4-3-3 like last week and if we pass it around like we did then we will be great going forward. Looking forward to the game, hope Benny and the Dembas can come up with something special and keep us on the front foot.