OTF

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But unlike Raylor he won't chip in with goals (3) and assists (4). He's worthy of a spot on the bench at the minute, but once Cabaye and Tiote are back it's Guthrie I'd be going to to replace either of them in midfield.

To keep things properly in perspective in his last 300 minutes of premier league football he has scored twice and got two assists. He's judged differently because so much more is expected of him.

Embarrassingly poor at CB earlier in the season. Has done well as a late sub in a midfield role closing down and breaking up play. It's clear that Pardew likes him, must be willing to do whatever he asks. Should never start though, isn't premier league standard.

He did, undoubtedly have a shit game. Turned the ball over too easily. I saw him on a few occassions running hard to get back to defend so that was at least a good sign. The Aston Villa game should give him a better chance to perform, and no doubt after a poor showing and early shower he'll be keen.

If he'd missed the target or fluffed in completely maybe. Had to at least force a decent save - did MUCH better than that and placed it nicely past Robinson. Couldn't really have asked for a better finish.

Guarantee if you put Messi in the teams that we've been fielding of late he wouldn't look half the player he does at Barca. I'm not saying that Ben Arfa is as good, or even anywhere near as good, more so that he's the type of player that need to have a good understanding with those players around him, or else it's too easy for the opposing team to double up on him and keep the pressure on all game. When that gets tried with Messi there's so many other players who are more than willing to exploit the resulting extra space. Part of why Messi was relatively ineffectual for Argentina. People absolutely need to give Ben Arfa a proper chance to settle, otherwise what's the point of bringing a player like that to the club? It's a known that he'll take some time to gel. As we've seen he'll still produce the odd bit of magic in the meantime. I think we'll see the best of him in games where the opposition are more focused on their own attack that their defense. Would like to settle on what position he will play best for us in....

Will be exciting times with those two up front. A shame that it won't bein front of either Cabaye or Tiote, but Guthrie is a capable player. I hope that Pardew persists with Ben Arfa as it would be great for him to form an understanding with our two front men.

Good on him. It's easy to forget that he's only 22, so could be a late bloomer in terms of his ability to read a game and make the right options.

The Christmas Tree gong of doom has sounded. oh noes Had a bad game, happens to that sort of player. Has been moved around positionally, and hasn't had much of a run in the team - certainly not enough for him to truly settle. Can't compare him and Obertan, as Obertan had a lengthy run to prove himself.

Fantastic result from what was a less than fantastic performance. Though with the personnel we had unavailable that was hardly surprising. These are the things we learnt or reaffirmed today: - We're not the only team that can lose a game on the back of a deflection - Hoilett is a cheat - Coloccini makes a MASSIVE difference to our defense - Perch can do a job in midfield - Ryan Taylor doesn't like cheats My analysis of our players performances Krul - 8.5 (7.5+1) - Made some good saves, and considering the amount of corners they had he did very well overall. A few times though he came out when he shouldn't have. Scuffed the odd clearance and had some communicative mishaps with defenders. Penalty save was key to the victory, so +1 for that. Coloccini - 9 - Defensively at the top of his game. Even when he was beaten for pace on a few occassions he managed to win the ball. Good distribution as normal, but spent most of the game defending, putting on an exhibition. Williamson - 6.5 - Showed up a few of his fralties in that he's not at all subtle when he fouls, and is pretty poor at drawing fouls himself. Put himself about ok, and was solid enough. Simpson - 6 - A great goal line clearance was largely cancelled out by him conceding a penalty. At first I thought it wasn't a penalty, but on review he never had a chance of getting that ball and stupidly initiated contact with their player. It was soft, but by the rule book a penalty. Santon - 7 - Looks shaky when on the back foot as he's not particularly quick or agile, but is good in possession and getting forward. Defensively he should improve with more games. Jonas - 7 - Help up posession quite well and as usual did plenty of running. I though he passed the ball quite well in this game, and managed to get out of some tight spots despite not having the best support from his teammates. At the same time he wasted a good opportunity and made a couple of ineffective crosses. Guthrie - 7 - Had a lot of work to do, and did a reasonable job of getting it done. Has been invaluable through this period with Tiote out, and now Cabaye suspended. Ryan Taylor - 6.5 - Took a chance and scored a goal. Did ok in the midfield but was a little anonymous at times. Covered the ground he had to, and can't really be expected to master a central midfield position when he so seldomly plays there. Ben Arfa - 5 - Looked disinterested at times - such as when he just let the ball run into touch to avoid heavy contact. Showed some good skill in their box, before undoing it all with a heavy right foot touch. Was well off his game, one to forget. Shola - 5 - Lacked effort.Managed to win some headers, but failed to do much else. Had no running in his legs and should have been off IMO. Best - 6 - Came closer to scoring for them than us, and found himself offside way too often, but compared to Shola at least he covered more ground. Is quite good at using his body to shield the ball in posession, but seems to take so long to do anything with it that he's a sure kill for a counter attack. Perch - 8 - came on and did what he was instructed to do (I'd imagine) closed them down, broke up play and was solid in posession. Possibly his best showing for us in what was a very ugly game. Is suited to this sort of cameo role, though I thought he could have replaced an innefective striker. Lovenkrands - 7.5 - Wasn't out there for long but made sure to do lots of running while he was there. Good vision to make the right pass with the right weight for Obertan to run into space. Obertan - 7.5 - Scored. Wasn't out there for long yet still managed to show the best and worst of himself. The best was the nice pass and run to find himself breaking into space and the very tidy placed finish to score his first goal. The worst was his worm burner crosses that have no chance of beating the first defender. Goal will do him good now that he's back from the toe injury. A handy player to have on the bench for situations just like this. Individually there was some pretty mixed performances.

Wish Santon wasn't so poor defensively.

Far from it in fact...

Now that you're expecting it you've gone and f'd any chance of a win...

The 1.4tsi twin charged is the same engine as in the Polo GTI (at least over here). De-tuned in the 118tsi (twin charged), but with a chip will put it around the factory output of the Golf GTI. Doesn't look as nice, but is a lovely smooth drive when paised with the DSG. Nice interior also. You could have the same car as my Mrs I won't say what I drive so that I don't incriminate myself.

'twas just his family GP tbh, moved to Newcastle last year and he continues to see him. Had some sort of boil on his foot. The good news is that it is responding to treatment.

He can go fuck himself. I've never really got why some people hate him so much. I found it surprising that people expected him to stick around when we went down. Even if you accept that, on purely footballing terms, he'd be good for us this season. The club sold him, like he would have stuck around for MUCH lower wages. If the club didn't sell him then he would have had to stick around on the lower wages - no choice. That was a good sale anyway, he's massively overrated.

Slow news day. Really needs to be some big moves in the market to have that domino effect further down. Financial fairplay?

Oh ok. Well The team have fantastic players in it. Up front you probably have one of the best strike force. The defense is good too, but Mangane is back from injury. The problem is the midfield. There's NOBODY there . well actually the best midfielder is on the bench( Dia). the coach selected only 3 midfielders four the tournaments. he is playing with pure strikers on the wings. It's like you guyz decide to play Ba on right wing and ask him to create actions. Everybody saw this coming but the coach didn't want to listen. But it's good they're out because they were too conceited thinking they would beat anyone even without a midfield Interesting. I suppose the best part is that you don't have to wait very long (less than a year) for the next Africa Cup of Nations, so you would hope by that time there will be a new coach who will make the most of the players available - plus the players themselves will have been humbled by this experience and will be keen to get some respect back in South Africa.

Swansea 0 Chelsea 3 Spurs 2 Wigan 0 Wolves 0 Liverpool 2 Everton 0 Man City 2 Man Utd 2 Stoke 1 Aston Villa 2 QPR 1 Blackburn 1 Newcastle 1 Bolton 0 Arsenal 1 Fulham 2 West Brom 1 Sunderland 1 Norwich 0

I always wondered why this sort of thing hadn't happened ealier as it was clear he was so far down the pecking order that he'd essentially never be used in any sort of meaningful way. I assumed that Smith's pride (and the 60k wage) meant that he didn't want to drop down to a lower league. As much as he's not a very good player, you can tell that when he is on the field he has a competitive nature and so must be missing playing in actual games. Could have done it bloody ages ago, any money reduced on his wage would be better than paying him a king's ransom to train having to look at his ridiculous hair style as a constant reminder of the 3 million pounds wasted each year on his wage. Good news is that we've already lined up his replacement.

They looked shite to me and scored a dodgy goal with one of their rare forays into our half. Can only blame ourselves though, that we didn't have enough to beat them despite a bit of luck going their way. Sadly it's utterly predicatble.

The good news is that we've been elevated to the level of giants, the bad new is it's to make us look worse in the 'media'.

This is what the FA Cup is about, thankyou ladies and gentlemen.

That was a handball.