shurlock

#noplanb

"Maddeningly short on actionable details" was George Tenet's exact phrase.

ITK

More than the dullards who are unable to separate his performances from his tŵàttîśh antics at the beginning of the season, assume.

Carroll's injured and likely unavailable. They're decimated by injuries. And rhe rest of the side is looking pretty leggy (presumably Song was rested against Villa for our game). If there's a game that couldnt be better timed, it's tmrw.

The fact is Tadic was dropped for a reason, a decision that was fully vindicated. Perhaps the likes of Fitzhugh Fella who get plenty of **** on here for their views aren't completely off the mark.

I know longy makes up for it in technique, close control and vision.

League or league+cup?

To be fair, Arsenal CBs are as mobile as ocean liners, so it was the perfect game for Pelle to miss through "injury".

Cuco Martina #circustricks

No chance

Arsenal would get that all day long.

#squaddepth

For the rest of us, helmets, does £5 get us a Xmas message from the king helmet?

It's not just 7th or 8th as if points are distributed continuously down the table. It's that while we were looking from the outside at the top 6, we put quite a gap between ourselves and teams in midtable. Kind of what Everton has done for the most part.

A loan for Chambers would be awful, if true - thought last summer when it was discussed there was a suggestion of guaranteed game time as well.

Come on Wadey, that's helmet talk.

So have Sunderland and Norwich, I think. We should just bite the bullet and get Dirk Kuyt in.

Nonsense.

I guess Les believes in bespoken profiling in the same way he believes in not loaning out academy players.

We simply don't have or cannot afford players who look up and play the ball forward more often than not. More realistic perhaps is a player who can run with the ball at speed from more central positions and get beyond the attackers. Also a bit more movement between Tadic, Pelle and Mané wouldn't go amiss. But by definition, less talented players take more touches, have a more limited passing range and need more time on the ball to see things develop. As for Davis, he's not meant to be a no.10: Koeman would rather a utility player who can track back and link midfield and attack than a truly offensive-minded AM. That's Koeman's trade-off -as it indeed was MP's. Unless you can find a no.10 who takes his defensive responsibilities seriously or is extremely consistent, that will continue to be the case as long as compact, pragmatic football is the order of the day.

You're surely not singling him out for the palace goal, are you? And don't say the odd journo has done so.

We're not Swansea, though. None of the numbers support your idea that we're obsessively focussed on keeping possession. We're bang in the middle of most possession-related categories. We're equally happy to go long and hit Pelle early, if need be. That's not to say, there aren't problems with our attacking play. But passing for passing's sake is not really a major one. It's not surprising: you like your football nice and basic, "in the mixer and down the channels" and judge everything else accordingly.

Imagine him doing a Fan's Forum special.... [video=youtube_share;sEbyR1yajv8]