Dickie

Vital 3 points, could and probably would have been more straightforward had Mbemba not done that - we were always going to be nervous, and them full of confidence, when they pulled one back because of how our respective seasons have gone. Wijnaldum different class and that was a cracking debut from Shelvey. Another good performance all across the defence as well. I thought Mitro had a canny game - its a pity he can't finish yet but he's a very young lad to be playing up front on his own and he's not shirking it. He'll get better I reckon.

Aye fair enough - when I was suggesting putting de Jong in for Perez I was forgetting that would mean shifting Wijnaldum out wide. We don't want to move him out again after the game he just had. Looks like de Jong's probably had his chance for now then - Wijnaldum is certainly the better bet if their competing for the same place. I'm looking forward to seeing Shelvey play - it must be the first time in years that we've bought a good player who hasn't been an unknown quantity from a foreign league (I'm not counting Colback and Williamson as good players).

I'd like to see de Jong come in for Perez as well. As others have said he's looked shot recently and I thought de Jong was unlucky to be dropped. He had enough quality touches in the couple of games he played to suggest there's a quality player there if he can get a run of games. He is slow but you can get away with that in his position if you're good enough. He also seemed to have a good influence on the team - we played well those couple of games. With him, shelvey, sissoko and wijnaldum there should be a canny bit of quality on the ball there, if admittedly not a lot of pace. No idea what saivet does so it'll be interesting to see where he fits in. It will be a hard game - 2-2

Aye that's my worry as well. Plus almost all the other teams down there are either getting results and/or playing well. In years gone by when we've either gone down or looked like going down I've always looked at the table and though "there's bound to be 3 worse teams than us at the end of the season". Although I think our performances under McLaren have on average been better than for a good few years, I am worried that there doesn't seem to be any totally hopeless teams around us, apart from Villa.

I'd say there's not much between them. Anita was a strange one from the start, mainly because of his size. Athleticism seems to count for so much these days and neither colback nor Anita have any at all. To get away with being Anita's size and still be able to have some influence on a midfield I think you have be unbelievable technically and positioning wise, and I don't think Anita is either of those - he just seems to be fairly neat and tidy, pretty "meh" really. I think we all assumed he would have some pedigree, coming from Ajax, but I haven't really seen it. With the two of them together it's shocking. However I don't blame mclaren for that, I don't see what other options he's had really. We know that sissoko can't play there (even if he thinks he can) from last season, the game just passes him by. Plus he's probably been our most consistent threat while he's been playing on the right - I can understand why mclaren wouldn't want to lose that

Centre midfield has been absolutely dire for a few seasons now. I agree that neither Colback nor Anita are good enough, they've got no ability to get us on the front foot when we've got possession and, for two supposedly defensive midfielders, they're consistently very easy to play through. Colback is slow as owt and doesn't seem to read the game that well, which I think is a big reason he gets so many yellow cards. The sooner neither of them are first choice players the better. It's a pity like because it's always nice to have local lads in the side, but it looks like Colback's never going to be good enough. I didn't realise he was 26 until just checking his Wikipedia page either - I'd assumed he was still 22-23 so was giving him the benefit of the doubt in the hope he could still develop. My hope for Shelvey is that he will help us to use the decent amounts of possession we've been having in most games this season more effectively, take some of the onus off Sissoko and Janmaat to create chances, and get the ball into Wijnaldum's feet a bit more often in the opposition half.

How the fuck is mike dean still getting away with this after all these years. A He's an absolute disgrace and always has been. Good performance, but not for the first time this season. We really haven't been getting the breaks, but I'm happy that the new lads should be coming into a team with a bit more confidence now, even though we're still bottom 3. People are right about wijnaldum - he got on the ball a lot more than he has done for most of the season and showed how important he can be for us. Colo absolutely class, but as a defensive unit we're still very soft at times and usually get punished for it. Anyway, onwards and upwards hopefully!

I think this is a decent signing for us. I've only seen bits and pieces of him playing for Swansea but from what I've seen he's got the quality to pick a pass and contribute the odd goal from midfield at this level. Looks like there are question marks about his character, let's just hope he can sort that out up here. 12 mil seems like a lot of money but if his attacking quality gets us the goals that keep us up it will be worth it.

I'm not expecting great things from this lad but who knows - as with all our signings these days he is a total unknown quantity. Saying we need proven premier league quality is all well and good but the fact is we're a club with zero ambition, currently in the bottom 3 with a very real possibility of going down. No top class players are going to want to come here in jan, just players desperate for a chance to earn premier league wages. I expect this guy to fall into that bracket. I just hope he can give us a bit of dynamism in midfield and make it a bit harder for teams to waltz through the middle against us cos we've been crying out for that

I thought we did quite well today, mitrovic missed a couple of sitters which would have won us the game. Everton are a good side, we couldn't get near them first 25 mins but everyone stuck to their tasks and really matched them from then on. With a bit more luck we'd have won and be a few places higher. Anita and colback are incapable of getting us on the front foot through the middle, and Perez was very ineffective. Could really do with beating west brom

There were 4-5 pavel is a geordies in the corner during the game but I didn't get the impression it spread much to the other stands. Did it come through on the telly? Hope it was audible for pav and his family

Totally right - I would say the performances for the most part this season have been a lot more encouraging than for the same period last year, bar the Bournemough/Leicester/Palace run which was unmititgated pap. However last season we were absolutely woeful long before Pards left and Carver took over - I am sure Pardew is quite happy that that fact was immediately forgotten by most of the media. That run we went on last autumn kept us up in the end and it seemed to come out of nowhere - it certainly didn't coincide with any more convincing performances, just managing to scrape the wins from what I can remember. We need a left back and a proper centre mid and we'll be OK. The thing that has me worried is that, although the quality of the league as a whole this year is even worse than last year, a fair few of the teams down the bottom seem to be showing some signs of fight (look at the Norwich and Bournemough results). For all the promise of the performances, we need to pull away from the bottom quickly cos if we're in the bottom 4 or 5 by February sort of time the pressure will start to build.

I think I'd be keen to see wijnaldum in the middle at the expense of colback or Anita vs Everton, with thauvin on the wing. It leaves our centre even softer than it already is, but it's not like that colback Anita partnership has been hard to play through anyway, so we're not losing too much. He who dares wins and all that

Haha pards, utterly mediocre manager and total wanker. We were mid table when he arrived here, mid table when he left. We all know that Ashley's mis management of the club is more to blame for that than him, but what is indisputable is that the football he had us playing was absolutely shocking and he consistently behaves like a snide, obnoxious knacka. We finished 5th with krul, coloccini, cabaye, ba, ben arfa and cisse in the form of their lives, very similar to what's happening at palace now. The funniest bit is him saying he plays attacking football

Brilliant!

Difficult conditions for thauvin to come on in, but he looks like he's got a good cross on him. I also liked the look of de Jong, it's a pity he missed that sitter cos he was involved in some quality moments here and there. Mitrovic for me still seems a bit of a fairy - for the size of him he's very week under a challenge, but hopefully he'll learn. Id like to see de Jong and Perez start the next game

I was thinking exactly the same thing the other week watching Everton - palace. First time I've seen delefeou but he looks like he'll have a field day down our left

This might sound like I'm making excuses for the players, but i think it's hard to criticise too much in conditions like that. That amount of rain, and the effect it had on the pitch, is a great leveller. Furthermore, any sort of preparation that mclaren has done completely goes out the window because it becomes a completely different game. Yes it was a game we should have won but there were definitely mitigating circumstances, and we still had the chances to win it. Can't fault the application of anyone bar possibly sissoko. Anyway, 7 points from 3 matches, there's every chance we can beat Everton if we get the same effort and a bit of luck. I can't remember a more unlucky united manager than mclaren by the way - I hope his luck changes because he seems like a canny bloke and a serious professional, unlike some of the charlatans who have darkened our doors over the years. We need a new left back

That was my impression as well. I think for a while most of us thought Jenas and Dyer had the makings of a really formidable midfield but they both started to disappoint before Robson went. They both had a habit of going missing when the games weren't going our way, which could definitely be excused for a 19/20/21 year old like Jenas, especially under Souness who had an incredible ability not to get the best out of players, but from what I saw he continued to be like that at Spurs under different managers. Loads of ability but I don't think he ever had the heart to be the top player his ability and athleticism initially suggested.

That was one of the funny things about Bramble for me - his passing was often absolutely brilliant. He often did 60-70 yard balls off either foot, straight to Robert or Solano's feet. He was also prone to knocking it straight out of play but I always put that down to carelessness rather than lack of ability. In fact he had really good all round ability, it was his concentration and common sense that used to let him down. I remember a run of games, must have been a good 7-8 in a row, would have been between 2002 and 2005 but my memory lets me down, when he was absolutely flawless, and if you had been watching him for the first time without any context you would have sworn he was a world class centre half. Can't remember what brought an end to that particular run but no doubt it was some calamity or other.

Aye Hamman looked a great signing for that season - he was class, and went on to prove what a top player he was at Liverpool. I remember being gutted when he left

Rob Lee scored loads of goals for us and from when Keegan moved him inside til about 97 he did everything - tackled, great passer, supported attacks and scored goals from midfield. Great work ethic and he was one of the hardest tacklers we've had in the modern era, which sometimes people don't appreciate. I can't remember ever seeing Keane get the better of him when we played Man U in those days, and I was a fan of Keane as a player

I agree with this. I've enjoyed this season so far more than any for a good few years (bar 2nd half of the year we finished 5th, when ben arfa and cisse were quite unreal). What a difference it makes that we're trying to play football again, hasn't always worked, sometimes quite spectacularly the opposite, but I think most people can see what maclaren is trying to do - for most of the time under pards, allardyce, carver and souness ( not to mention kinear) you couldn't even guess what the intended game plan was supposed to be, if there was one. It also helps to have someone who seems to be a decent bloke in charge after 4 years of pards.

Kluivert and Owen for me in terms of my hopes when we signed them. We've had plenty worse players but they were both big let downs. After watching viana in his first few games (including that tie against zeljeznikar or whatever they were called) I really thought he was going to turn out to be a top drawer player for us and it never happened. Coming to us possibly ruined his career, although he might well have just been too soft to succeed anywhere at the highest level. Pity because he was a quality passer. I watched him a few years later at braga when he'd resurrected his career a bit, he was still quite good when he got on the ball but soft as shite. Duff was another disappointment for me - hardly ever did owt for us with exception of one half in the Europa league. With duff, Owen and kluivert you can always argue they had shocking managers like. Jenas was another one like viana - arriving and showing do much promise for his age, especially in that debut against arsenal, shame he turned out to be a pea heart. Slightly more obscurely I remember thinking mark robins was going to be class for us for years and be England's next right back after watching one of his first games (vs derby?) after we signed him Edit: just looked up mark robins and it turns out I meant mark Robinson, that's old age for you