OTF

Wish the parrot in the commentary box would shut up.

Was good work from Lovenkrands to keep the ball alive. Actually had some physical presence amazingly.

Saylor!!!!!!

The front looks fucking shit FTR.

Ithink the kit would actually look pretty good if it had proper stripes on the front.

Anyone else wondering why the club would come out with this information?

Enjoying it. The voice acting and the facial mapping is fucking amazing so far ahead of everything else that's it's a different game altogether. It's not prefect but the only way you could be disappointed is if you went in expecting something completely different. There's loads of reviews and what-not out there so if that's the case you've got no excuse IMO.

Sell the Diamonds and live on as Rushden FC tbh.

Silly condition but as there is a big financial impact it's worth a shot to motivate the players and hopefully reward the staff with part of the spoils.

Someone with size who's dangerous from set pieces, and someone with a bit of pace as well.

Alan Pardew "we need a wide player and striking options, that will be priority in summer"

For us I remember Milner crossing better with his left. Too oft overhit right footed attempts.

Good that at least the northern rock is no longer a flapping big bit of plastic.

You can see the look they were going for, but the fact that there is no stripes on it is inexcusable IMO.

It's a fair point, but I think Bassong is overrated a little and was when he was playing for us. His pace was a godsend in our generally slow side but he had the same grabby problems as Williamson. Taylor needs to get in better shape as well. As a professional footballer there's no excuse for not keeping up your fitness when you've only got a shoulder problem.

It will be tough for us to attract a better defender than Taylor I think, particularly at the end of the market that we operate in. He's had a lot of injury problems lately so providing he can put them behind him a good run in the team alongside the improved Coloccini should be a fair way to judge his long term viability. Let's not forget that when we last saw him play consistently it was behind either Nicky Butt or Alan Smith in the defensive midfield role. It'll be a different story behind Tiote.

Was good once upon a time, but for whatever reason he's been on the decline the last couple of years.

The writing is on the wall and is plain to see, however you want to try to reinvent it it won't change. I honestly don't care, I've spoken out in the past to try to help you because for the most part your heart is in the right place, but like a child you can't take anything on board. That's it for me, no malice or ill-feeling.

Not the happiness league which is obviously the only league that's important.

Hot and cold player anyway. Was on fire against us unfortunately.

What comments specifically? My take on what he said was that he wanted a move to a bigger club and that wouldn't be possible from Newcastle where he wasn't being played often and when he was it was not in his preferred position. All completely legitimate reasons for moving. Chuck Joe Kinnear on top of that and I'd be looking for any way out. That wigan were a bigger club. That's precisely what I believe he was misquoted about. "After four years at Newcastle, I want to reach a higher level of ambition. I don't think that is possible here." Fair enough to say that after being consistently played out of position, and infrequently played in general. "My objective when I left Newcastle was to play for a medium-sized club, before bouncing back in a big team. "I hope that will be the case next season. Everything comes to he who waits." Again fair enough. There was a perception based on some misquotes at the time that he was saying that Wigan were a big club (or a bigger club than Newcastle). That wasn't the case at all. He was saying that he ultimately wanted to move to a big club, and the best opportunity for him to do that would be to firstly go to a lower profile club where he could play in his preferred position. Doing so show what he is capable of and allow him to possibly catch the attention of a bigger side. Personally I don't think he's currently good enough to play anything more than a bit part at a high profile champions league side. Even a bit part might be stretching it because he has quite a few weaknesses. That's more or less my impression as well, but statistically he looks a little better than that. He's scored 9 goals effectively from midfield which is a very healthy total especially in a struggling side. In addition he has 5 assists, though he's their corner taker so I guess it's not really that important a statistic. In the Wigan side he's has taken the second most amount of shots. 38% of them are on target which is quite decent, and he has a pretty impressive conversion rate of those shots on target (scores from every 3.2 shots on target, or from every 8.4 shots in general). Of course analysing statistics like this doesn't even go close to giving a true indication of his worth. Fitness/Injury wise he has started 31 games and been a substitute in 2 which is pretty good (Jonas, Colo and Enrique are the only players in our side to better that).

What comments specifically? My take on what he said was that he wanted a move to a bigger club and that wouldn't be possible from Newcastle where he wasn't being played often and when he was it was not in his preferred position. All completely legitimate reasons for moving. Chuck Joe Kinnear on top of that and I'd be looking for any way out.

Seeing as you responded to me directly I feel I had better give the courtesy of a reply. Your opinion, in my opinion, appears to be whatever you read from the Chronicle or other NE news source. They print an article about a promising young player, and you start singing the praises of said player. An article about our chief player scout leads to you praising them. The club comes out about having to sell Carroll, you agree. You seem to grab on to 'ideas' very quickly and assume that everything you read in the media is an indisputable fact, as a result your 'opinion' can change quite erractically. To save you time, before you go off on a fact finding mission I'm sure there will be isolated cases where it hasn't happened, so please don't bother. Of course you haven't claimed to be an expert on football, noone here has done that. What you have done however is started threads on players abilities, such as the infamous 'Enrique on the wain' (sic) thread where you were left without a shred of dignity. That should have been the icing on the cake, but it wasn't. Instead you have continued to impart your knowledge of the game upon the rest of the forum by heaping criticism towards players like Jonas. I'm guessing somewhere along the line you picked up on the frustration that others felt towards some of the missed opportunities and poor final options that Jonas took after having got himself into good positions. You've taken this and run with it, to a point where you've used him as a scapegoat on numerous occasions. Eventually when others were commenting on how he's been one of our best players of late you've given up on that tune. Once that ship had sailed you've been bigging up players who you have seen very little of - Ferguson and Lua Lua being the two most prolific on that count. If you didn't feel you had some knowledge of the game you simply would not make such claims. As for your quoting articles from the club and local media I really don't have a problem with that. It may be good for people who don't follow these sort of things through twitter feeds and the like. It would be nice for once if you posted something and either had a different opinion, or just left it be and let the article speak for itself. I'll leave you with this saying; better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

If only we could give the Tree and this guy their own section of the forum (that noone else can see) where they can 'discuss' to their hearts content.

For me he's still one of those players who has a very good highlight reel but may effectively need to be carried by other team members. Just on the small amount I've seen of Ben Arfa he's a vastly more technically gifted player (ie. doesn't have his head down when running with the ball and can pick out team mates with a variety of passes). I think for the money Wigan will want for him it wouldn't be a wise move. If it's the same price as we let him go for then fair enough. I honestly don't begrudge him leaving us originally as he was played out of position and rarely given a chance in his preferred area. On top of that he had to deal with Joe Kinnear. He was widely miss-quoted when leaving regarding ambition but I'm sure he's a little wiser about everything now and probably has a better idea of his own level.