shurlock

Would say only Shaw, Morgan and possibly Clyne are genuinely top four material.

Don't know what your point is - RK and MP worked with different resources and situations, making direct comparisons extremely difficult.

Agree - MP got the best out of a numerous players - in the process, adding to their market value. Had he been part of the transfer committee that reinvested the money or worked with the same players as Koeman (ones he inherited from that windfall), think he would have got more out of them than Koeman has done (as way of a true comparator, though obviously an experiment that's impossible to run). At the same time, think MP's structure is more sustainable than Koeman's pragmatism, though that probably has short-term advantages over MP's approach. None which is to say that Koeman hasn't been very good for us and MP is a **** for the way he strung us along.

Agree but you're overcomplicating things. Teams will struggle at times, not because they're set up too rigidly or are unable to play a different way; but because the other side is simply better or set up to frustrate. Even the best sides have difficulties when the opposition plays very compact which can neutralise multiple styles of play. Often, the difference comes down a moment of individual quality rather than a game plan. Not enough credit is given to the opposition in these circumstances; instead, we get clichés about a lack of plan b.

City's support excellent. You've got incredibly low standards, then

So? Tackling stats mean very little in isolation. One might argue that the best defenders don't need to tackle as much - they anticipate and deal with the danger earlier on and in more controlled ways without the risks of making tackles. His attacking play is OK not great - don't really see him overlapping and getting past and behind players the way Clyne did (and Bertrand does). Clyne's high standards certainly dropped, though that was more offensively than defensively and I'll take a RB who can defend over one than can attack any day. And Clyne wins that everyday. Agree Bertrand's not been great in recent games - along with VVD, has been getting caught out of position, though that may be due to team instructions. His play and distribution out of his defense has also been loose. But all things considered, he's been better than Cedric who's improved but currently still well short of what we need - despite the happy-clapping on here.

Before, virtually from kickoff.

Really? Cedric was awful last week, notwithstanding the shaky protection in from of him. I suspected he would get dropped. The reality is neither Cedric nor Yoshida is good enough for RB at the moment. No worse than Bertrand? That's not quite as bad as saying Clyne's not being missed -a common refrain on here- but it's still nonsense.

City's support was garbage. Not sure why you're singling our lot out for criticism.

Didn't we beat Ipswich in an absolute cracker under Branfoot? Score changed three times in the dying mins, IIRC, with Le Tiss scrambling in the winner with virtually the final kick.

Verbal, the m**gboard's very own Nick Cohen. Do you have a drink problem to match?

You're much better as the gok wan of football kits.

Good post.

Nothing like a steroidal increase in household debt to keep the party going. Plus ca change...

Problem is I'm streets ahead of you, pal. Kowtowing is widely used as a metaphor -google Osborne and kowtow if you don't believe me. The reference to Chinese business couldn't have made things any clearer to the reader. Everyone apart from you,it seems

What are you talking about? What's over the top politeness and quirks got to do with the logic of the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant deal, among other things?

Did I say that?

As embarrassing as Osborne and the Tories simpering kowtow to Chinese business.

Tadic is fine; he's an important source of creativity but can be a flat track bully and rarely changes a game. Likes the ball to feet, to stand a man up and deliver a cross. Not really the type that will pass and move and exploit space - something I think the side is crying out more for.

There's a boy-next-door-role in some unspecified sitcom with James name on it, if the whole football thing doesn't pan out.

You may say it but it doesn't really flow from the rest of your addled logic - your argument, it seems, is that the more teams dominate, the less they need to go chasing goals. By extension, this applies more, not less to top sides. Don't the top sides dominate games more than we do? True, moments later, out of thin air, you conjure up the statement that the top top sides will snatch the odd victory at the end of games. Now if you said the top sides have more firepower and so other things being equal are more likely to score (though this isn't per se a point about last minute goals), then fair enough; but that's a new argument - and you might want to slow down pal, get your thoughts straight and make this clear. Of course, it's also mind-numbingly obvious, though, I can appreciate, it might seem a revelation to you Anyway, as a matter of fact, there are plenty of occasions last season we needed goals, whether it was to save a point or turn one into three - in fact, we ranked mid table when it came to failing to score in games. Contrary to your cute little effort, there was certainly a will; alas there wasn't always a way...

The whole idea of fergie time must have been a figment of my imagination, then.

Not at all. Quite the opposite in fact, if you believe Whelk. You want to rethink post 1004?

Just a shame that the poll's methodology is being taken apart now - might have helped quite a few helmets on here when they were gleefully and unreservedly throwing around similar numbers a few pages back. Page 10 makes for particularly pretty grim reading Still, it's good to see that some have since quietly repented, even if they'll never admit it Now for the rest of the tits that take such things at face value...

What's going on in Xinjiang (north west China) is quite different from the campaign against ISIS, another example of why general references to Islamic extremism are as misleading as they are unhelpful.