CanadaSaint

With his history of clangers, this forum would be in permanent meltdown. In fairness he's made some absolutely stunning saves as well, but he's much more a reaction keeper than a box dominator.

I know one thing. If NA and co. aren't telling Ramirez to shoot more, they deserve a kick in the groin. That's exactly what we thought we were getting when we bought him - the ability to cut in and split a defence with a pass - or rocket one at a top corner.

Robinson needs to shed about 20 pounds, but he's needed to do that for five years+ so I can't see us changing that too much. I can't see Villa letting Given go to a relegation rival. Back to the drawing board.

I'm not surprised. I couldn't see Spurs letting him go.

Not much point having a post match thread if we're not going to talk about how people played today, is there?

I hope to god that they view a quality keeper as a high priority because that put us behind the eight-ball from the get-go. And a quality CM is critical IMO because I get the serious willies whenever Davis is playing, and Schneiderlin works his butt off without injecting much real quality.

They really ground out a result, which was good to see, but I thought we had enough to have won it. Good to see the Ramirez we thought we'd bought start to show more of his high-end talent. The horrible Sunderland result doesn't look quite as bad after they beat City.

THAT's the guy we thought we bought!

Fulham set up to hold on and they didn't. If there's a winner today I think it'll be us.

Fulham shutting it down so hopefully one way traffic.

I have no idea how he got there but his pace through the gaps could really "do" Fulham.

I can't believe I'm going to say this but the kind of player who could give Fulham fits is ... Mayuka.

If we can get one I think we'll get two.

We need some more pace up front because Fulham are vulnerable to it.

When other teams have a good wide threat down their left, one of the biggest factors during our good run - the Clyne/Punch combo - is negated and we struggle. It looked like NA spotted that and brought Punch over to join up with Shaw at the end of the half, but that effectively displaced Rickie, so he needs to change something there.

Shoot, shoot, FFS shoot!

Agree 100%. Whatever flow we're able to create often dies on his foot. And he has a nasty habit of telegraphing a lot of what he does, to the point at which it leads to interceptions and breakaways.

Anyone know what our record is when Steven Davis is in the side?

I am so not liking the sound of this, even though I agree with the idea of keeping player fitness information under wraps.

I'll do an update after tomorrow's games but it's not going to look good - Wigan and Reading both lost games with zero-point targets, and anything Villa get at Chelsea tomorrow would be a bonus. Meanwhile we lost a "six-pointer". Thinking about it, maybe I should leave it until after Christmas.

To be fair I thought we had it just about right in the first half, barring our frustrating (and potentially fatal) reluctance to shoot when the chance or half-chance arrived, although I do have my doubts about Mayuka. He sometimes looks like he has a million pound engine and a 50p brain. I have a lot of time for NA but O'Neill is a canny manager and his half-time adjustments were excellent. We tried to respond to them but Sunderland took away most of our creation space, and some of our most potent tactical threats of recent weeks - our full back/winger combos - were undermined by Sunderland's own wide threats.

I'm not sure that we do need another striker. What we need is for those we've already got to shoot when they get a chance or a half-chance. I love our build-up play but we keep it going 10-15 yards too long. Today it looked as though Sunderland "had the book on us". We had a lot of possession in the first half, so they concentrated on denying us space in the box rather than denying us the shooting opportunity.

He almost looks like a player wondering if he made the right decision to come here - perhaps because he doesn't really fit into our playing style (he's more a cog in the wheel than a focal point), or because he doesn't fancy playing on English winter days. Whatever it is, he needs to start making a contribution - for our sake and his own.

Exactly. In this league you've got to score when you're on top, and in order to score you've got to shoot. As I said earlier, over-elaboration around the box is a killer for us.

I'm really beginning to wonder if Ramirez fits the way we play, talented as he is. He never seems to play the kind of role that allows him to do the stuff we saw on his highlights reel - cutting-in and shooting, taking guys on inside the box etc. Them losing Johnson will help us, though, because he's created a reluctance in us to go for the overlap down the flank.