OTF

Not his fault he gave a pointless free-kick away that lead to a goal. Or that he continually failed to mark anyone. He goes hiding. It's Pardew's fault for putting him out there. It truly is remarkable how many chances he has been given to prove how poor he is. Tends to excel.

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If Colo is fit I'd go with Kadar as the other option. Should be a lot sharper. With Colo out I'd try Kadar with Willo. They just played a half together in the reserves and kept a clean sheet. From .com "Tamas Kadar put in a good shift at the back, as well as prompting attacks." On Williamson: "At the other end meanwhile, centre half Mike Williamson made his comeback after a three month absence due to injury and inevitably looked off the pace during a 45 minute run out, suggesting that an involvement in this Saturday's first team game isn't likely."

Hopefully we get a chance to find out a little more about him on the pitch over the weekend. Centre back pairing??

For me it comes down to the fact that there is nothing to lose by playing Kadar. Simpson and Perch were given a chance and failed miserably. Perch has been given an absurd amount of chances given his performances. Other options must now be looked into.

Who here rates Williamson? He's never looked any good for more than an odd game. Arms all over opposing players, and for someone as tall as he is he lacks a physical presence. Miles better than Perch or Simpson at CB, but still not good enough to be first option after an injury prone Steven Taylor. It's criminal to only have 3 actual centre backs in a premier league squad. We've got four out and out strikers in our squad - Ba, Best, Shola and Lovenkrands, plus option with Ben Arfa and Sameobi. That's a position where it's widely accepted that we need to strengthen, even though it's acceptable, at a pinch (or tacticallY), to play with only one striker. In defense you can't get away with having less than two central defenders.

We didn't play any CBs.

I still think he'll be preferred to partner for Colo though. Unless, Willo can step straight back in. Absolutely pathetic if true.

What he does next will be telling. It's clear to all that we lost a very winnable game because the defenders that Pardew selected were not up to standard. His options are extremely limited, but certainly other players could have been played there. Players who would be playing in their preferred position. Of those that played Perch was clearly the worst. If he remains in the side then Pardew needs to be held accountable. At the end of the day you can't blame Perch, he's just not good enough and is well out of depth. Thankfully January is just around the corner. Pardew should be stressing the priorities clearly to Ashley. They are defense and up front. If Ba was to pickup an injury we'd be in big trouble. If Pardew asks and Ashley doesn't deliver then the manager can't be held directly responsible.

Pardew surely must be mistaking effort from Perch in training for ability. After watching this game you'd surely think he won't make that mistake again. There absolutely has to be better options amongst our ranks, actual centre backs who have some presence and ability in defending set pieces - the basics of which are similar in reserves and youth matches. Particularly with defense when you play people out of position they get found out. Even more so when they're lightweights. Points dropped in games like this will quickly undo the quality start that we've had. Ba's two sublime goals should have been enough to win us this match. Shambolic defending that there is literally no excuse for. They're supposed professionals.

Perches deserves a permanent-Red card for whatever he just did. Ferguson on, CT firming up.

Alan Smith. What? Why?

Just looking at Perch on the pitch pisses me off. He must be bad if I haven't had to mention Simpson who is a ghost on set pieces and pretends to defend by just staying goal side the rest of the time.

Gives away a free-kick for no reason in a dangerous spot, and then marks Boone and jumps up uselessly leaving a man open. Pathetic that he's in the side. I really wish he was a scapegoat, but he's not, he's just shit. To top it off he also makes shit decisions. Pisses me off that he's in the side if you couldn't tell. Our defense is fucking embarrassing, making all of their players look like Drogba on set pieces.

Perch is useless.

Ba is brilliant. He doesn't deserve to be on a losing side, and if he had some semblance of a defense he wouldn't be in danger of it.

It just gets better and better. Yellow at worst though IMO, but effectively same result. In no rush to see Gosling back in the side. Try something please Pardew.

Abysmal pass there from Gosling, and unsurprisingly the defense is disorganized noone marking anyone.

And another set piece goal. Highlighting the lack of depth.

Exquisite goal.

Midget backline concedes from corner. Shock.horror.not

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Not sure what you mean by that. If we win, then it shows we have depth but if we lose, we lack depth? Yet the depth of a squad is not affected by a result. I think you mean its a test of the quality we have in depth. In which case i agree. I'm saying that's it's my opinion that we don't have depth, and I think the result in this match could serve to highlight that. The only way that it might not is if they're just flat out not very good, which could well be the case - I've not seen enough of them this season to comment. With Colo in the backline my confidence will increase tenfold. Hopefully other players coming into the side see this as their chance to impress so will be giving their all. At the very least it should be interesting to see firstly who Pardew goes with and secondly how they perform.

Should have bought a 2nd/3rd choice CB tbh. Williamson moved down to fourth choice. With Steven Taylor it's a given that he'll be out for a large part of the season with injury.

Ground control to Major Dick