acrossthepond

Extra cringeworthy is that "Suarez Is Not A Racist!" tagline they all have with their avatars.

Merry Christmas to all!

The only good news is that nobody seems to be buying into their bullshit. Nobody except Poyet, who keeps babbling on about "In Uruguay we say these things all the time" and the dippers themselves has a good word to say about the rat-faced scum and that's how it should be.

Atrocious.

This sounds like a job for a creative forward who can unlock defences and play in our in-form striker. Do we have anyone like that at the club?

Jesus Christ man. Victimisation complex in full swing here.

Another tosser who will soon get what he deserves.

Left-wing do-gooder Guardian reader doctor student za-za. That's you told.

Someone get that man a 'word for the day' calendar.

It means "little black guy" and not in a nice way, either. I reckon Suarez did it - he just has that scummy look about him. He bites opponents, flagrantly dives, and is a cheater and lowlife in general, so I have to say I don't put racially abusing other players past him at all. Reckon it'll be reduced a bit on appeal but at least he hasn't got away with it, I suppose.

Santon was great. Ba is an animal. Best looked decent in the first half. Colo is as good as ever. That's about the only positives that can be had from that game. No Ben Arfa was inexplicable and inexcusable.

Anyone else's money on Smith? "Seasoned professional" "tough tackling" "indispensable experience in the middle of the pitch" blah blah blah.

Aye. Have to say I wasn't really ever convinced by the sound of this lad, but I was pleased that we were set to get someone in. Perhaps someone upstairs finally wised up and realised we're going to need a non-African striker in January, or, as is more likely, Fat Mike's pulled the plug because "the money" is needed somewhere else (never mind the transfer profit he has made and continues to make.)

And as for Obertan, Sammy did more after he came on than Obertan did in his whole 80 minutes. You can see Sammy wants it, even if he's not very good. Obertan is shit, has a pea-sized heart, and is generally like playing with a man down. I know it's early yet in his career but if he doesn't want it now, at 23 having failed at a big club, when will he ever want it?

Kadar cannot be worse than James Perch. Cannot.

Oh fuck off.

The winner of "most unnecessary foul ever" goes to James Perch...

That was fucking well done.

I think this is what they term a capitulation.

"Ba in loads of space but Obertan's delayed the pass." What a surprise.

So glad we didn't get him. Is Beckford still with the Toffies. Back in the Championship, we were linked with him too! Went to Leicester after a shit season in blue. Gash and always was, dodged a bullet there in a big way.

Brilliant goal from us, farcical goal from them. It just about evens out with the obvious Santon handball that Mr Malarkey () missed though. We've looked pretty poor in the first half and we need Obertan off. I reckon Pardew will take Shola off for HBA though, considering the former's on a yellow. Wtf was that music playing when they scored, by the way? Mickey mouse East Anglian shiteaters, hope we put six past them this half.

Fair point like but Perch isn't a CB, so I'm not including him. If you want to include Kadar, fine, I don't think he's going to make it much further than Huntington/Ramage/Edgar did, so that's a fair comparison. 6 to 4, then. Not to mention that at present we have only one RB, one LB who might actually be a RB but doesn't play anyway even though we blew the 'hefty' fee of 5m on him, and a right midfielder playing at LB. I think the going price quoted at some point for Ridgewell was 5m. I'd rather get him for 3-4m but 5m isn't too stiff a price to pay for someone who can cover at CB and LB, two noticeably weak areas for us. I also don't rate Williamson as a 'good' defender. He looked decent whilst played alongside Coloccini last season but put Bramble there and he would've looked good too, much as when he was paired with Woodgate.

Yet the defenders we had play for us in the final season before Ashley bought the club were... Taylor Bramble Craig Moore Onyewu (loan) Carr Babayaro Ramage Huntington Edgar Any others I've left out? Your arguments are like two ships passing in the night. I agree with what you're saying, which is that our top choice defence so far this season (R. Taylor/Colo/S. Taylor/Simpson), is far better than any four players selected from the above list. But Leazes is saying that if 'your man' Fat Mike were actually running the club in a competent way, rather than gambling on us having no major injuries, he would've invested in cover for positions where we were thin. He's also right. As shit as they all were, we had six CBs in the list you've given above. This season we have 3. Our first XI looks like gold, but scratch it and you find brass underneath. There was no reason for it to be that way. We had 35m to spend in the summer. For 8-9m we could've had Ridgewell and a cheap right-back, for example. We hardly had to break the bank, but the squad would've been so much stronger. I don't think many would like to swap our defence then for our defence now. But I also think that the failure to invest in key areas of the team shows Ashley's lack of ambition and reveals his fundamental plan to be "make as much money as possible while spending as little as possible." We've seen it so many times before - gambling on Kinnear, gambling in January 2009, gambling on Carroll, etc etc. Not buying defensive cover was just another Ashley gamble. We'll see if it pays off (for him, at least - is there absolutely anyone who calls himself a Toon fan who wouldn't prefer that we had spent the money on new players?) But let's not make out that it's some sort of brilliant plan and he's doing so well. He's a chancer. It's working...for now.

Fuck me, couldn't listen to more than a minute of that. Obviously the puppets aren't the only muppets being featured on that show.