BigWalrus

Last night was frustrating. We were poor, but we also could have been 3-0 up and put the game to bed (Perch's header off the post and a pelanty when Shola turned Phil Neville). Then they scored from a free kick that should never have been given. When we got the ball on the deck and passed it around, we actually broke them down reasonably well. There are a couple of Everton fans at work and neither thought that they played particularly well. We suffered yet again from a mis-shapen midfield. Marveaux looked dangerous at times going forward, but he plays far too far up the pitch to link effectively with the midfield. When he dropped deeper to receive the ball, we managed some half decent passages of play, but when he sits so far up the pitch we had little option but to lump it. Obertan is so one dimensional it's untrue. He hugs the touchline. He doesn't come back to help Santon whatsoever. He doesn't make any attempt to link up with Santon. There were a couple of times last night when Santon progressed forward, looking for an outlet in front of him, but Obertan sat so far up the pitch that he had no choice. Then we have the problem of Cisse on the right. He's all about instinct and getting to the ball first in front of goal, not playing wide. He worked hard enough, but he's not a right midfielder in the slightest. Not only did he struggle to contibute down the wing, but he offered nothing to protect Perch at full back. These factors combined to mean Tiote had his work cut out in that middle area - he covered the entire width of the pitch over and over again in the first half, and it was no surprise that his game became tired and sloppy in the second. We had plenty of possession last night, but if the midfield doesn't effectively link with the attack, we're never going to mount any sustained pressure and force mistakes. I appreciate Pardew will have his reasons, but I think he got it wrong tactically last night. Shola is fine as an impact sub, but his role should end there. I would have played Cisse up front, supported by Marveaux and Obertan still, but with Bigirimana in midfield to provide a little bit more steel. That said, I don't envy Pardew's job to pick a side, as we have a hell of a lot of good players out. Take players of the quality of Ben Arfa, Cabaye, Jonas and Steven Taylor out of any side outside the top 4 and they'd struggle. That's 3/4 of the midfield which propelled us into Europe last season and we are missing them massively.

All very good points.

The clubs figures are to be audited by independent firms. Any related party transactions are identified and flagged up. If there's anything significant in there, UEFA will be made aware of it.

Mike Ashley is down by about £140m and has taken nothing out. Llambias is paid a salary in line with what any other MD of a company of NUFC's size would be paid (about 3 weeks of Ba's wages). We, the fans, have the cheapest season tickets in the league on average. I'm no Mike Ashley apologist, but he's not milking the club at all.

The assessment is made in 2014, but it looks at the financial years ending in 2012 and 2013 and requires a break even position over those years. Man City in particular will struggle to overcome their huge losses - this is despite them taking a massive hit and writing off player contracts left right and centre in a bid to take an early hit in 2011 before the rules came into play. I have no doubt that clubs will try all sorts of creative ways to side step the rules and find loopholes, but the idea / hope is that UEFA will grow a set of balls and put their foot down. Clubs have to submit audited interim and annual figures to UEFA for review and that includes detail of the make up of income and expenditure. (ie not just a single figure). Using NUFC as an example, if Ashley loaned the club £50m, it would appear as a liability. This is fine, as long as it doesn't make the club technically insolvent. However, you can't simply write off a loan in a set of accounts when you're the one paying it back, and this is where the FFP rules are pretty clear as any write off is excluded from relevant income / expense. That would mean that the additional spending would be unfunded and create a loss making position. Who knows how hard line UEFA will be though. They've put a lot of money into developing the regulation and it will cost a lot to implement it. Opinion seems to be divided between those who think it could really mess up the likes of Chelsea and Man City and those who think UEFA are infested with corruption and it'll have no impact at all.

To be fair to Iron Mike, he was pretty much our best player in the last two home games.

Williamson has as good a chance as anyone else against Fellaini. Imagine Anita against Fellaini!

Yep - we need to hope that we can score more than them, as our full backs could be terrorised by them.

You can't just "invest" money in a football club. Ashley would have to lend money to the club, which eventually needs to be repaid. Chelsea have tried to get round this in the past by converting the loan into equity, but that's massively frowned upon and will still be treated as a loan for the FFP regulations. MA could stick in another £50m to bankroll a couple of big players and boost the salaries of the squad by another £1m a season each, but we'd still not be able to compete with the rich boys and we'd still fall short of regularly qualifying for the CL. As a result, we'd have more or less the same income but be hamorrhaging cash. It's not our strategy that stinks, it's the Premiership in general. It is inherently anti-competitive. We simply don't have a chance.

Take your £85k and half it. Our top earners are on less than £50k per week and they're pretty much exactly the players you'd expect.

Harry Redknapp! You just know there's some dodgy deals going on there to keep things ticking over. I know he's moved on now, but he built the bulk of that squad.

Coloccini is no longer our highest earner and nor is he on anywhere near £85k now

If Anita is doubtful, we have to assume he's not going to make it. Back four pretty much picks itself, other than the full back situation. We could go with any combination of Santon + Ferguson / Tavernier / Perch, but none of them really fill me with any confidence. The need for Perch in midfield (IMHO) probably means we'll have to go with one of the other two. In midfield, I reckon Perch, Tiote and Bigi sit in front of the back four, with a front three of Obertan, Marveaux and Cisse. A further option would be to play Shola and Cisse together, but I fear we'd be over run in midfield, especially if Obertan and Marveaux both start. If Anita is fit, we have a few more options, but we'll just have to wait and see. I bet our bench is weak as piss though! Who knows? I'm not expecting much to be honest - a draw would do for now.

The FFP regulations are designed specifically to stop that happening. Clubs should be self-funded, not reliant on a sugar daddy.

That's not how you run a football club though, unless it's a Chelsea-esque plaything.

Yep, if they can't agree on a new deal with the clause removed, there's not a lot that can be done. It's likely we wouldn't have signed him if the clause wasn't in there in the first place too. The alternative would have been to offer a much higher basic, but for someone with such a dodgy knee, this would represent a huge risk.

I can see us attacking them from the off, before conceding a goal after about 10 minutes. And we all know what happens when we concede first.

Also the weakening of the euro over the last year or so has made it even cheaper for clubs in the UK buying from Europe. Both in terms of transfer fee and the wages they need to offer.

QPR is perfect for his advisers. More chance of going down, which would mean another transfer and another sign on fee in 8 months time.

I agree that Ba should play too. For someone who allegedly wants away, he's been nothing short of brilliant for us this season.

To be fair, it's easier to go all out attack against the likes of Man Utd and Arsenal, as they're not particularly defensive minded. Trying to do this against the likes of Stoke or QPR would be a different story as they'd sit 10 men behind the ball and wait for us to commit too many bodies forward. I know what you mean though, it's almost as if we find a special way to play against the big teams, then drop back down to normal against the smaller sides.

Aye, totally agree. I know it's far from this simple, but Jonas gets injured and we concede 11 goals in 2 games.

Simpson won't get a better salary elsewhere. He might get a signing on fee. He's one of the thickest footballers I have ever come across and I won't shed a tear when he's gone.

That's the modern game - all about managing lactic acid. If he busts a gut to get back, he then needs another minute to recover. All top level players are specifically instructed to do exactly the same. The idea is that a midfielder will cover.

Absolutely - Silkman is a nasty piece of work. I just mean that there's more to Robson than loveable old man.