Crab Lungs

As evidenced here, he is defending style is very South American.

I get the distinct feeling that a lot of the people who are voicing strong opinions about Caceres either way have probably never seen him play before.

Can totally understand the longing for the traditional heavyweights of yesterday to be restored to the top flight (Leeds, Wednesday etc) as I miss those days too. However, can't really begrudge or belittle clubs with similar ambitions and finances as us as small clubs because we're in that very same cluster of best of the rests. FWIW, quite enjoy Swansea being a top level club (Bournemouth still seems a bit weird though, as does Boro as it's been a while).

Boro and Sunderland Just not director on the third... It'll be touch and go for Hull and Leicester. Hull are improving and Leicester should have more than enough about them if they pull their fingers out. Not sure on Palace but it's way too soon to write off the Big Sam effect yet. Bournemouth looking very light defensively but I just think they'll do a mid 90's us and rally, win a few difficult games and survive.

Excellent win after the first 20 minutes which by contrast, were poor. Forster was his usual wobbly self but the defence and Romeu, once the team got a stranglehold of the game, were superb. Stephens and Yoshida looked incredibly well-drilled and dealt with Defoe superbly. Like others said, Stephens mugging off Defoe was a huge highlight of a very capable performance. At times, we did play some lovely stuff; neat triangles and incisive passing and I'm finally starting to see the point in Redmond; he's definitely getting better, gradually. I think he'll be an up 'n' downer in terms of performances but given the team I'm actually starting to think he's going to make me eat a huge slice of humble pie. JWP and Davis were competent but with only Romeu as the power-base, against more tougher, robust midfields we'll be trampled over (as already witnessed) this season. Romeu definitely needs a solid partner and Clasie also isn't the answer. J-Rod can f()ck off if he's going to whine and whinge about not getting on; he's hardly warranted the starts he's already been given and has been a huge disappointment. Puel was correct to introduce Hojberg and if J-Rod can't get with that it's about the team and not him then maybe he should move and we should cash in. Sunderland in comparison were embarrassing; they'll be better off going down, gutting the team and bringing in a manager with a solid tactical philosophy and enabling them to build from scratch. They are just a complete waste of space whilst they're in the top division. That said, I'm not going to complain too much - they're normally good for 4-6 points a season!

No, Forster has been well protected until this season... now his frailties are completely evident since we're defensively weaker. It's no secret as to why we kept so many clean sheets - superb defensive screening. With the exception of Arsenal away (twice) and a few other games, he's rarely called into action - god forbid he actually be a busy keeper like Heaton or we'd probably have shipped 10-20 goals extra. If you look at the seasons in which he received excellent defensive shielding, we're one of the teams with highest interceptions, blocks and least shots on target - that's not a mistake, that's because we had the likes of Lovren, Fonte, Alderweireld, van Dijk, Wanyama, Schniederlin and latterly, Romeu (doing it on his own). The bottom line is he's not a great goalkeeper; his kicking is poor, he's never, ever commanded his box with any sort of confidence or authority and is very cumbersome and slow at getting down to shots. He's capable of the odd worldy game - but so is every, single f()cking keeper in the world; that doesn't make him any good cos he plays well every once in a while - though this seems to stick in peoples minds more than all his poor attributes.

I sincerely hope we are not paying him that. I'd rather pay Stuart Taylor that wage.

Ahhhhhh, back in the day when midfielders could do four or five things as opposed to be a specialist in one.

JWP: "We must put this right" Yeah, we've started really well. Such fire in the belly.

You're not wrong, we've been crap. However, some of the specials on here seem to think a shot into row z x 20 and a cross into no one in the box translates as a gilt-edged chance so therefore we've been battering teams. At least the stats are finally proving one thing though... Forster doesn't save anything unless it unintentionally hits him

Not sure if he provides height - he's 5'11

Nope. Sadly, Seen enough now. I'd go balls out for Marco Silva and just as importantly, BACK HIM financially

Is it an interesting possibility though?

I don't think Nigel would go there.

He's generally not that great a shot stopper... his highlights reels mainly consist of him being hit by the ball cos he's so big and in the way (which, btw, is fine because he's keeping the ball out of the net). However as goalkeeper and I'll reiterate this again... it has nothing to do with confidence and everything to do with how well protected he's been in recent seasons. He really isn't very good. McCarthy is the most reliable we've got in terms of ability.

Maybe after we get humped at Chelsea for their title winning party in April they'll tear up his contract and give him to us.

Totally mismanaged

If only. Wouldn't say no

Vvd Bertrand Rodriguez Long They'll be off

Christ, god knows why he'd want to join this sh1tstorm

I counted up 36. Not sure if that's enough.

Steep learning curve for Jack... lost Carroll and looked off the pace yesterday. We'll know a bit more about him by the end of he season and whether he can hack it or not. He's very much learning on the job.

People who keep quoting shots and crosses as 'chances' really, really don't understand football.

Yup, but you can bet your bottom dollar if he did return, Sir Leslie would be one of the first booted out the door

Yeah, I think you beat me to the punch about Silva and you've seen his teams first-hand; I only got intrigued a couple of seasons back when he joined Sporting then latterly Olympiakos but I've always been impressed with how his teams have played. Problem now is that's he gone mainstream by joining Hull so I'm worried he'll have plenty of suitors come the summer... which makes it a bit more difficult to get him here. That said, I believe he was interviewed in the summer, as was Garcia, Pellegrini, Giggs among others. And we ended up with Claude Puel. FFS