S-Clarke

Clyne is out for a while too apparently, but not confirmed yet.

Still confuses me as to why we belittle the cups. We have a real good chance of a cup run this year, and we should have got a lot further in the league cup. Now with the injuries we're picking up, it looks like they were rested in those games for no reason really. Doesn't look like we're going to do anything this season other than bog standard mid-table (which is progress, don't get me wrong!) but it would have been nice to have a bit of excitement in the cup, but the club don't seem to care about that. Nothing beats a day out at Wembley, no matter what cup it is. It can make an average season look so much brighter.

Well, the goal keeping coach setup is totally different than what it was before, as MP bought his Espanyol crew over. And to be honest, you sometimes can't polish a turd....no matter what you do. If they've got a weakness, they've got a weakness.

That's a bit of a bugger, and here we all were worrying about the yellow he'd pick up....who gives a **** about that now!!! We'd been very lucky with injures up until now, but this is as bad as I can remember for a long time. This high powered game has cost us here.

Gaston just hasn't had a chance this year for whatever reason, he was sporadic last year and frustrating but he did do things.....this year, for whatever reason he has been completely pushed aside. He's not injured in my eyes, clearly on the way out. Obvious cover up. But I like Osvaldo, I thought he had a good game the other night. He gave us more attacking inpetus and had some good movement about him. Personally, from what I've seen...I don't think he's a ''target man'' or a ''play up top on his own'' sort of player. I think he needs lots of things going on around him for him to be effective. At Roma he usually played from the right, left and sometimes through the middle, with the likes of Pjanic, Totti and Lamella all floating around. I think Totti often played right up top. He looked pretty poor at Chelsea, but he was seriously isolated. If you look at it last night, we had lots going on around him with Lallana, Jay, Lambert, Davis...and he looked better for it. Let's hope MP noticed it as well, as I'd hate to see him isolated up top again.

Should be quite easy. Same IP address.

3 posts in a row by the same person, weird.

Still enjoying these fella, good stuff!

Yeah, I thought both Villa's full backs looked very assured actually, and 2 area's they've really improved upon since last year.

Yeah, what a dumb thing to talk about on a football forum!! Idiots...

He does remind me of Welbeck sometimes! Doesn't look capable, and then does something top class out of nowhere! He's defiantly our best outlet in terms of stretching sides though. I am a big fan of Jay though, I think he'll be a top class player for us.

We're missing a bit more depth to the squad, pretty much. We clearly need better backup in goal, and I think we're getting to the stage now where we can look to evolve the 2nd CB position with another Lovren-level defender. Having Fonte, Jos and Yoshida as the backup to CB isn't too bad. Midfield we're pretty much sorted, a lot of really good depth in that area. (Only question mark is over a natrual AMC style midfielder, if Ramirez isn't going to stick around) and as hard as it may be for some people to accept, I think we're also edging nearer the time where we'll possibly look to evolve Lamberts position in the team.

To me it's quite clear who the obvious WUM's are, and it should be to the mods as well. So they'd be struck off pretty quickly. I dont buy any of this forum character bull**** either, they're just an absolute borefest of relentless drivel.

Other way round I don't know, I just think City can blow hot and cold, especially away from home. I still look at Demecheillis and wonder WTF he's on sometimes, looks an awful defender when turned against pace....so if we deploy Jay up alongside him, we can get some joy. I think we're going to have to score a few though.....

It is quite an interesting debate, because you're right - in the times I've seen him, most shots seem to go in, you can call them wordlies, or poor defending in front of him, but he doesn't really seem to make saves. Boruc can pull of an unbelievable save and get us out of the mire, but you just get the feeling that Gazzaniga just isn't capable of that. I still look at the 2nd goal last night and the way he threw his arms all around, a really odd reaction to it. No real strength behind those arms if he did get a touch, they were just flapping all over the show. Someone made a good point a few days back, Boruc pulled off 1 or 2 great saves a match, because we did let teams through at times and they did have shots at goal. I don't know what it is, but he just seems way, way too slow in thought process and positioning.

I don't know why, but I just have a very funny feeling we'll have one of those big results on Saturday. Call it a premonition, I've seen it in the stars!

A pretty stable side to be honest. You can't just dismiss Moyes, he built that side on very few funds over a period of time and provided Martinez with a very good base to work from. His style of football seems to go hand in hand with their players though. And their squad is so much stronger than ours, that's why I think they've got a chance of holding out for a European side. Still got a few years of building until we can have a squad like theirs.

When can someone ban 100% again?

I think that tactic actually allowed teams to tear us to shreds in the PL, not the opposite.

Honest and fair assessment. At least he doesn't try to brush over the results moaning about the officials or decisions, or injuries. I'm sure he'll get right into them over the rest of this week. I wouldn't be surprised if we beat City to be honest, it's what we do...

Couldn't you have just put this in the match thread?

He was alright, nothing spectacular, but then you're not going to get much more from Jack. He's always been a steady eady type of player (bar that silly error for the 2nd). Can't really moan about having him as a squad player, you wont' get much better.

Ah yes, the age old ''pace fixes everything'' debate.......

See, this is why you get people's backs up Barry. It's like you're taking the **** out of ''your own'' fans. What's the point? Some were positive and believed it at the start, so what. Didn't hurt anyone did it? At the end of the day they were positive about the club they support, that's not really something worth taking the **** out of.

No, I don't think so.