Mowgli

More or less right but we knew about the back problem when we signed him on loan. Ronnie was convinced he could get through his back problems without an op that held an element of risk. In the event the problem kept materialising and we failed to make the transfer permanent on insurance grounds.

Its a good point and the preacherman explained how it (should) works very well. My concern I suppose is that whilst some fans don't get it. some players are struggling to as well. But we have to persevere and it will come good eventually. One slight variation on what you say is that the full backs - now wing backs - probably play for like wingers.

So are Man City fans now panicking about their defence, the need for a new keeper, lack of investment and starting to talk about replacement managers?

He was actually very ill that day and was laid up for about a week afterwards judging by his tweets. Another reason he was not named in the Arsenal squad. Had only just got back on his feet I think.

That was the one change I did consider but I think we need to try and keep Jay and Rickie both happy. Jay did really well when he came on as Rickie did coming on against City. I think they are equally good.

Yes puncheon was my MOTM too. Would start Saturday with the same 11 that finished at Arsenal.

Sorry. Man u have a player with attitude and it will come out in time. We did the right thing to stop negotiations. We signed 2 keepers and 2 defenders. Yoshida can play left back or centre back. I thought fox was unfit yesterday and played a fairly static role by his standards. As someone else said our problem was down the right. Interestingly , the programme notes yesterday identified Clyne as someone who was easier to beat with an air ball than on the ground. Despite that he is a class act. Can't find much comment on Walcott and Chambo coming over to the fans at he end of he game. Nice touch

Crikey me. The over simplification of the century! Defences win championships. Games are won in midfield Goals win games You can't read one without the two. Otherwise it would be 'defences get you lots of 0-0 draws and leaves you very close to the relegation zone'. The season starts next week.

Just a hunch but I think we might wear it against Liverpool

That made me smile (I nearly bit)

No - you have to get up early as well ;~)

Breaking News: Teves, Ballotelli Scholes and Van Persie are better players than Fox, Fonte and Jos. Honestly, are we really surprised? We have just come up from Div 1 and these players have been absolute rocks for us. They are adapting to life in the Premier League and are finding it tough. It does not make them bad players overnight. They just came up against two of the top teams in the league that we did not expect to get points out of anyway. NA has indicated how tough it is to get top quality defenders to the club but our defence has been improved despite the comments to the contrary. We have Yoshida who appears to be a top quality CB. We have Clyne who was being courted by Manchester United and chose us instead and we have one of the UKs hottest prospects in Luke Shaw promoted to the first team squad. Clyne, in particular, is so good that you start to realise how much of a step up it is for the others. They really need our support right now as they adapt and work on their game. I still have confidence that they can do a good job in the PL. I would rather see us develop the talent that we already have as opposed to the computer simulations style tactics of just buying in new players cos they look good on paper. This is the real world and they are real people. The time to judge is after ten games or more and if one or other CB fails to make the grade, we may have the January transfer window to secure an alternative. In the meantime, we hopefully get stronger in defence as they adapt or we simply resort to the Mike Channon philosophy of football- it doesn't matter how many goals you concede, you just get the ball up the other end and knock in one more than the opposition. Not too optimistic for Staurday but I know the players will give 100% as they have done against the two Manchester teams and I know it will be a good day out. Any result there for us will be absolutely fantastic and no less than the team deserve based on their performances so far this season.

Yes sir we really did leave 5 pints unattended on the side with a number 36 against them to show they had already been paid for.

V Interesting quote from Sean O'Driscoll on SSN - Billy Sharp had been mooted at this club for two or three years and the family made it happen for us

There were a lot of rumours about why he was sacked but the one that had most credibility was the breakdown of communications between pardew and the sports science team. Pardew was pushing them very hard in pre season but none of the players complained as I recall. But the sports science team felt the intensity was putting their longer term fitness at risk and he chose to ignore their advice. Didn't SRL pick up a niggling injury as a result?

I assumed that was a tongue in cheek product as I thought of the players you mentioned as well as Song, Hadji Diouf, Pienaar, Kanu, Yakubu. I am sure there are many others. If it was not tongue in cheek however.....

I think that is a mis-quote. What the player actually said was that a lot more of their routines- including running - were with the football so they did not develop their fitness in isolation from ball skills. This corrects the tactics used bt wgs but criticised by the likes of anders svensson who felt there was no point in being fit if you did not know what to do with the ball when you got it. It's all about balance and what we have now that wgs did not have is polar electro fitness monitoring which adds science to training regime. We also have dieticians, psychologists and the like to take it all to a totally new level of professionalism. A lot of posters seem not to understand the difference between fitness and stamina and the role that proper rest - by virtue of days off - has in preparing body for a intense period of match play

Fonte had his best game of the season so far against Manchester United. Statistically he was was the better of he to centre backs. Watch the game again. Without fonte I suspect the score would have made the win much more comfortable. Not saying Yoshida isn't good - I've not seen him play. Just that now is not the time for a knee jerk reaction

Ah but which horses mouth? Adkins? Cortese? Sharp? Dobbin??

Oh if only life was that simple. I think the days of Chairman and Manager bashing it out between themselves are long gone. Les Reed, Andy Crosby and Dean Wilkins - probably Nick Harvey too - would all have been involved in the decision. And they will all take collective responsibility for the outcome, because they are professsionals. Personally I did not want to see Sharp go. I think he has something quite different to offer compared to the others and he is great at holding people off in a tussle. Lambert does the same but I've not seen it to the same extent from anyone else. In 4-3-3 you need 3 strikers and 3 back up strikers. Even assuming you play Gaston in the hole behind the front three, you would still have 7 strikers to pick. Still. We know what Sharp can do. We really do not yet know the full potential for Mayuka or Lee (or even Gaston come to that!). It may be one of them fails to fit in or make the grade this first part of the season in which case Sharp can return to first team contention with bags of playing time from Forest.

Sadly I missed the game on sunday but on reading the post match comments from fans I fully expected to sit down and watch the sky recording and see some nightmare displays from the likes of Guly, Kelvin, Fonte and Mayuka. To be fair, Mayuka and Guly did not do much but were only on for 15 minutes in an isolated attack. Kelvin was maginificent on occassions and got away with a couple of wayward passes out to his back four. Could not really fault him for the goals. But it was Fonte who stood out for me. He made some great tackles blocks and clearances so I was a little surprised that people zoomed in one on or two flappy moments. By that stage of the game I think most people were flapping anyway -be they playing or just watching!! So on balance I think I would stick with the same starting 11. Puncheon - as others have said - had his best game in a Saints shirt and is developing a wonderful understanding with Clyne. The only change I might make is Jay Rod for Davis and then have Davis come on for JWP when he is knackered. Interesting that NA has temporarily abandoned his policy of redeploying Lallan in the middle; it would be interesting to see how Jay gets on there. One other comment I wanted to make was about fitness. I don't subscribe to the view that is questioning the fitness of our players. I think we have got to the correct level of fitness. What I suspect we are seeing is NA instructing players to push themselves even harder, knowing that he has his impact players to bring on from the bench.

Take a look at the match day thread. No one crucufied NA at the time - only after the final whistle. Most people could see what he was trying to do. In this instance it did not work. It does not instantly make him a crap manager It's as silly as saying those inspired subs against Man City make him the best manager in th world. MOTD2 and Sky pundits both generally felt Scholes was the difference - along with the obvious class of Van Persie. On balance we may just have to concede that Manchester United are a decent premiership outfit who might just be capable of turning a game in the last few minutes - irrespective of who they are playing and irrespective of subs. Fergie time has got to the point where it actually gives them a psychological edge. Try enjoying the game for what it is - a beautiful game. Sunday was a match we could only dream about two years ago. If we continue to play as we did Sunday and in Manchester, we will be fine this season.

Classic

We're playing 4-3-3. That means 3 strikers up front. That means a good back up in each role, not just to cover injury and dip in form but to replace tired legs. That means six top strikers. We have Lambert (Sharp), JRod (Lee) and Ramirez (Mayuka) and then Puncheon and Guly who can play pretty much anywhere. We cannot really afford to offload a striker of Sharp's quality.

I suspect they would prefer we call back a goalkeeper that we loaned out. But kelvin is fine (so is Kevin). Garza would not let us down if called upon.