OTF

Nice passing in the leadup there.

Half time stats. Parker 5 tackles and 5 interceptions. Nolan 1 tackle 0 interceptions ...but 1 goal

Agree. His footwork has been tidy spare for one time where he mucked it up (that I remember). Using his body well and his short pasing looks crisp.

He's never been very good at defending someone with the ball at their feet, falls for every feint and overcommits often. His positioning is better than Perch though. It's hard to tell but this Obina looks to be quite quick, not the player you want to be up against in your return to first team action after a long time out. They've looked poor since they scored, but unfortunately we've also dropped off a bit since getting the equaliser.

Chris needs to get some of our attack directed down our right hand side, if only so that they can't stack our left hand side where pretty much every attacking play is coming from at the moment. Even if we just spread the ball out to Barton and Simpson then have them move it back through the middle via Tiote or Colo and Willo. Even with their defense loaded on our left Enrique has put in a number of dangerous balls and Jonas is getting into dangerous positions. Carroll is throwing his body around nicely and Shola's touch with his feet for the most past has looked decent. Nolan's defense and first touch is very ordinary. Not very mobile but he's getting into the right areas to clean up crosses/corners etc. If he didn't have Tiote playing 'alongside' he'd be more exposed but as it is it's not so bad. Having said that when Hughton inevetably brings Routledge on I wouldn't mind it being at the expense of Nolan bringing Barton into the middle.

Goose step from Tiote! Commentators get it wrong again. Simpson needs to adjust to the fact that this isn't a reserves match and he's horribly outpaced by their left winger.

Horrible attempted jump block tomfoolery from Perch... I mean Simpson after he gave the ball away up the pitch. Heh. At least he made an effort to get back.

Jonas is a cert for drawing two defenders. If Enrique can hold his run he should be able to break into space for Jonas to slip a pass out. Unsurprisingly we have nothing on our right and most of their attack is coming down that side.

I'd disagree, it's because our midfield keeps giving the ball away putting them under pressure. Yeah, we're giving it away needlessly but we conceded because of poor communication between our central defense and they do look worried against the size and mobility of their forwards. Our midfield is passing a lot better at the moment.. ish.

Totally Classic Nolan With that kind of intuition, it's almost like they live together...

and we're behind Our central defence is looking very very poor.

At least on our benxh he can't score against us

Wish we could say the same about Perch.

Barton right mid, egads. At least we'll have relatively equal footing on which to judge Simpson against Perch. Enrique all good Dickhead whoever started that rumour. It will be interesting to see how much running Nolan has when he's played in a central midfield position. There should be nowhere for him to hide here, and if he's got the fitness (ha!) he should have crumbs to clean up from knock downs from both Shola and Carroll. Here's hoping the two of them don't keep making the same runs.

Yeah, the new site is horrible for finding anything.. may be that there's nothing worth finding on there anyway. I too am anticipating the team news, particularly in light of the admittedly dodgy suggestion that Enrique has picked up a serious knee injury.

TBH it's Kevin with a just for men rinse right before he posted about shagging a 20 year old.... Noone told him it doesn't count if she doesn't know about it.

Hope this isn't true. He doesn't seem the type to pickup I juries in training, not serious ones anyway. If it is then Ferguson looks a decent attacking left back, and Kadar is a good solid defender who should be comfortable on be left. Neither a patch on Jose though!

Hope we don't see a thread like this in a few weeks time for Danny Simpson.

and.. On the left. and... and...

Peter Beardsley isn't management material Tom. Seriously. He isn't I think he's talking as an assistant/trainer.

Shits me a little that they use Chelsea and Manchester United, though the three of them would probably be annoyed to see how they're rated - probably only Enrique would be justified though. To be fair it's a different game playing with much better players - passing so much better and more reliable. Newcastle were pretty poor from the get go, but you can make them a fair bit better by switching the players around.

Not the only one to blame, but clearly the player most at fault in my opinion for both goals. If we had a competent right back they wouldn't have scored either goal. Blaming Barton for the goal is a bit ridiculous. He may have been at fault for turning the ball over, but he's not to blame for the goal being conceded. Otherwise by that logic every goal could be blamed on the person who turned the ball over. When it comes down to it the most important bit is the part in bold. No player is going to always be passing perfectly. As a defender you need to be able to anticipate when your team may potentially lose possession. If you make a run up the pitch you need to ensure that your area (and/or player) is being covered by someone else. Usually for a right fullback that would be the right midfielder, but it is plainly the defenders responsiblity to coordinate with the midfielder to cover the run.

Do you play or have you ever played football yourself? As a right back your primary responsibility is to defend, not to push so high up the pitch that you find some space but leave yourself in a position where you can't (or won't) recover to perfrom your primary duty. The funny thing about possession is that it always comes to an end. Where you are when it comes to an end is all to do with defensive positioning. If Coloccini, Enrique and Williamson had all plowed their way deep up the field into space do you think they would have been doing what they were meant to be doing when the team is in possession? The space that Perch moved into only served to create a ridiculous amount of space for N'Zogbia a player with a vast attacking superiority. Therefore, it's moronic to move into space as James Perch when doing so will create space for Charles N'Zogbia. Perch's failure to defend cost us dearly on two occassions and almost again on a third. If you fail to see that Perch is clearly out of his depth then you're an idiot, or you're just being argumentative for the sake of it. Perch went missing, and we conceded. He pushes so far up the pitch because he feels that doing so will mean that he won't have to actually defend against anyone, because that will show him up as a poor defender. Unfortunately for him pushing up highlights him as a poor crosser and as a fullback with horrible positioning. On top of that the first goal, and another ocassion where someone skipped by him effortlessly on the dribble showed him up as a poor defender. So we saw the trifecta of incompetence for a fullback from Perch - Wasteful crossing, horrible positioning and crap defending.

You're joking or have no idea ChezGiven. Either one. Perch was apparently 'marking' N'Zobgia on the back post for their first. Had an eon to get in position. Didn't help that Williamson backed into them, but Perch still should have had the much shorter N'Zogbia marked out of having a chance at scoring. The second one you see Perch in acres of space on his own making minimal effort to move back even after we'd turned the ball over. No urgency from him whatsoever, N'Zogbia plainly runs into the space that Perch should be filling, but he's not there is he? Why? Because he's a coward who decided that seeing as he can't actually defend he'll push as far up the pitch as possible, then when anything happens at the back hopefully one of the defenders who's actually there trying to do his job will get blamed for it. He almost cost us another goal as well, but thankfully N'Zogbia wasted that chance with an ordinary pass that Tiote got back to clean up.

Wrong thread mate: http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?showtopic=482