Papa Lazaru

We have played far worse, the games against Leicester and Swansea on TV were absolutely appalling. This has just been average, lacking taking what chances have come our way and one clanger from Harper that gave them the lift and early start they needed. Bristol have certainly been the better side, but without us giving them that goal i think it would have calmed down and we'd have established a hold in the game, but we didn't and now we have alot of ground to make up! It really won't help Best's confidence at all to sub him now, but i would, just get Ranger on and have a go at them, if we score an early goal this game is far from over.

If you don't take your chances you pay for it, Nolan should have equalised and not long after they get their second. Then Guthrie should have brought us right back into it just before half time. But it all started with a shocking effort from Harper on the freekick, i'd expect any keeper to stop that one, but to be fair to Harper its the first real clanger he's dropped in ages, but it was a bad one! And as Dr Gloom said, Best looks like a player with zero confidence, he doesn't pull the triger when he should and the longer this goes on the more he'll struggle.

Tend to agree with people saying they've been punished horribly with whats happened and will regret it for the rest of their lives so adding a prosecution to that is maybe a bit far. But i don't think its ever acceptable to be leaving kids of that age alone, especially when you're away from home, it would be bad enough leaving them unsupervised in your own house. You choose to have kids and there are sacrifices that come with that, annd one of them is having to look after them all the time when they're too young to do that themselves.

Another job well done tonight. That first half hour we could easilly have had 8 goals on another day, scored the 2, one disallowed, one of the woodwork, one of the line and various saves by the keeper! Not surprising that at times later on we took our foot of the gas a bit and coasted along, but still kept creating chances. Enrique and especially Colo were on a different planet to their opponents and taking the piss at will as they eased through the game. And yet again Routledge as he has several times before played several perfectly weighted through balls to the strikers. He's a winger but he can thread a ball like a top playemaker when he gets the chance. Both strikers in great form as we head toward the finish line which is all you can ask for. I'm always surprosed by the sheer volume of stick Carroll gets on here at times, nobody is saying he's a world beater or that he'll storm the prem but he's often unplayable in the air, is scoring with both head and foot and plays people into the game well alot of the time.

So were we tbh. It also helps that they get a phenominal amount of penalties whilst on the basis of our recent games against them seem immune to having pens given against them! But Forest can no longer function away from home, haven't they lost about 6 on the bounce away now, they're going to drop of the pace massively at this rate.

He was in this division, then for some reason he's just disappeared and totally lost his form. I'd definitely have given it to Enrique, but a midfielder who is still well known and has scored alot of goals is always more likely to win than a left back who will still have the stigma of being a foreign toon defender so assumed to be shit! I think Nolan's goals will have ultimaely been very important in our promotion so he deserves alot of credit, but as people have said his all round play isn't good and he's had some shocking games this season.

Amazing finish that, you won't see a curled shot hit better than that one. It was always going to be him or their hate figure Bellamy who got the equaliser.

Jesus Christ that's bad even for a mackem!!! First half city were absolutely piss poor, second half better but they've mised two sitters and to be fair the mackems probably deserve their lead. Still plenty of time for the mackems to throw it away though!

However sadly for you i'm neither Renton nor Leazes and was merely pointing out to you my view not theirs and mentioning the fact you should be capable of discerning the difference between the terms big club and successful club.

Being the way they are you could imagine the club selling them and the daytripper fans buying them, everyones a winner!

Really, really, lemon squeally. Who is bigger in your opinion then ? Wigan, having sold one of our best players to them ? leauge tables leazes, it's all about those damn league tables. Not crowd size, not misty eyed memories, not nothing but league tables. I'm sure teams like European double champions forest have old timers who still consider forest a big club. Ask yourself which fans, Wigan or us are watching the better teams / better football week in week out. you are talking successful here, not the size of the club. Did that make Wimbledon one of the biggest clubs in the country when they won the FA Cup ? Don't talk tosh man. I agree comletely with LM on this. We are a top 5 club in terms of potential, that fact HAS to be recognise by any person that owns us. Are Sunderland 'bigger' than us because they are in a higher league? Are they bollocks, they are just currently more successful at this present moment. Left to CT's management, we'd be the best run club in the conference. I always find it funny how hard some people find it to work out the difference between the terms big club and successful club, its not difficult and a dictionary would sort it our pretty quick. We are big because of the big ground, big crowds and even now still big finances in that list of european clubs which had us in the twenties or similar, notice the word big, not successful. When it comes to success we're a fucking mile away from it and have been for some time! Nothing deluded about claiming to be big, we're not claiming to be successful or world famous like a manu or barca, merely big which we are, simple as that.

Really, really, lemon squeally. Who is bigger in your opinion then ? Wigan, having sold one of our best players to them ? I didn't know you rated Bramble that highly!

If they win, will it be a coincidence that the two most powerful men in the UK will have gone to the same most expensive school in the country, or will it say something about privilege in the tory party? If they win, it's down to the electorate surely? Yes, but what's your point? Do you think its an indication the tory party are the party of the priviliged or not? My point is that a party decides who it wants to lead them and then it's up to the electorate to decide which party runs the country. Brings me back to my opening point that we're desperately in need of electoral reform. In short, Cameron & Osbourne can't 'buy' the right to run the country - it's down to its subjects to decide. Votes can of course be bought and the media can have a huge influence on elections. But that's by the by - I was simply making an observation that the tory party is a party of privilege and once elected will of course look after their own. It amazes me how so many people can't see this, but there you go. Always amazes me as well, they will never change, they are what they are and will always look after the same people. You can sum them up that one of their aims on being elected is to reverse the ban on fox hunting!! Don't worry about the economy or crime, lets get posh people back watching foxes be ripped to shreds Dave! Doesn't mean i think Labour are any use either and i wouldn't vote for either of them, but anything other than the tories is the lesser evil for me.

I either see us giving them a hammering or because its their big game and for the first time this season their crowd will have turned up and even made a noise they will be fired up and snatch a win from us. So either a comfortable win for us, especially likely if we score early, or a tight win for them if they keep us out for a while.

Maybe it would but 50k to a guy who served us well wouldnt do much harm. Seeing as alot of players are earning near that each week these days. I don't think clubs should start paying money to old players per se as it would never end, though they could put on some sort of events for them perhaps where payign fans would provided them with some cash. But i do think current players on their obscene wages could maybe put even a tiny contribution toward helping out the old players who are struggling. I mean a load of them on thousands a week, could chuck in a grand and they wouldn't even notice.

As people have said, its no dilema. He's the only one with a chance of being a premiership midfielder in the middle, he still has it to prove at that level, but with a good partner in there he might make it. Out wide he's lost, lacking the pace and inclination to stay wide though he does chip in with the odd assist there its not where he should be playing. Our best midfield (with no signings) would have him in the middle with a fit (and slightly less mad) Barton though how likely that is to happen with Barton is anybodies guess. Out of Nolan and Smith i'd pick Nolan because both of them will be chasing shadows in the prem but Nolan might score o a goal or two whereas Smith will be picking up suspensions for fun!

A thoroughly enjoyable day out at the match today! Defence and keeper had a nice day off for 90 mins, shame Simpson had that one moment of switching off near the end. But Williamson and Colo like Taylor and Colo are a good pairing with Williamson attacking the ball and clearing the headers and Colo sweeping up and playing the ball out. Midfield showed yet again that Guthrie has to play in the middle, the team is better off and he is better off as he lacks the pace and inclination to stay wide when stuck out there. In the middle he shows alot more promise. It may only be Barnsley and 10 men at that, but we played some really nice, confident attacking football with the whole team getting involved in it. And we had some well created and well taken goals to ejoy with Jonas' being the pick of the bunch.

As shit as the mackems are doing i think they are going to be very lucky and only be competeing to avoid one releagtion place. Portsmouth are down without doubt and i think Burnley will join them. With the upheaval and loss of Coyle and now their home form going, which was all they had i thinik they're pretty fucked. So the mackems will scrape by for yet another season of mediocrity i suspect. The problem is we'll be doing the same as them next year if we don't spend some serious money!

Good to see refs never change, he knows the rules, he knows that is without question a red card offence by Vidic, but its manu so the rules don't matter. And nobody will call him to account for it afterwards either. And he's got the usual one way yellow card which only gets awarded to manus opposition and not them.

Thats what i thought when MOTD froze the action, his leg was bent as it planted into the pitch and Shawcross was yet to make contact.

In this case it definitely wasn't a shocking challenge from Shawcross, just bad luck what happened to Ramsay, and unfortunate too for Shawcross who looked gutted himself. However it does always piss me off when ex players and managers etc bang on about how "No proffesional ever goes out to hurt another fellow pro" absolute bollocks. I agree that most players out there don't set out 100% to end a players career, but they all to a man know fine well the risk involved in certain types of challenge and that if they choose to do it they could easilly break a leg. And there's no defending that. But in this case i don't think you can blame Shawcross, though i thought Pulis acted like a complete prick in the interview i saw him defending it. And thats quite impressive to be right and yet come across like a bellend.

Its not just Nigerians either, you can't tell me that Nolan, Smith and Butt are under 40 with the speed they sometimes play at!

I think deep down most of us think its going to be Roeder all over again and a sacking some point through the season or just a very poor season. Now it won't all be his fault as with Ashley in charge he isn't going to get the money he needs to make the squad what it should be, but he will i fear be found way out of his depth. It would be great if he proved us wrong though, because he will be here under Ashley as he's cheap. I'd much rather be wrong and have us doing well though!

I've said this for ages now, we've been very lucky with injuries to Butt this season...in that he's had alot of them. Especially at the start of the season because i suspect sadly the management would have been picking him alot of the time and slowing our team up even more than they play without him. The difference when we can play Routledge, Jonas and Lovenkrands is obvious as we have some pace to get at teams, when only 1 of them plays it stands out and if that player goes on a break nee fucker can keep up with them!

As much as i think Ashley and Derek are complete idiots i don't think even they would see finishing first by a few points say or being second by a similar margin as a massive difference and change their plan for the prem because of it. I think however we get promoted they'll do a poor job in the prem!