Papa Lazaru

We're playing QPR at home not away to Barcelona, you play your best footballers for that if you have any ambition at all as to your place in football, especially when they've had a massive lift from scoring an goal of the season contender last match. Do you think Keegan would keep Ben Arfa out of the team of get his best players out there and go for it. If Ben Arfa had been poor last match or the players keeping him out we're on fire then fair enough, but that's not the case and he's rightly going to be pissed off.

For me the top 3 now are definitely the best 3 teams and when you watch them i agree with Alex that Spurs are playing better than manu. That said fergie and that lot just know what it takes time and again to grind their way to the top regardless of form so you can never rule the bastards out sadly. I can actually see all 3 winning it but think Spurs will fall short due to lacking the title winning experience and man city need to get Silva & Baliotelli back and hang on till Toure and Kompany return as understandably they aren't the same side without those guys. But if manu do manage to scrape their way to a title it'll be a pretty poor title winning side imo when you compare it to their past teams.

Guarentees one set of complete cockends are out, good stuff!

The thing with Ben Arfa is not just the technique he has but its the fact he can do these things at such pace, he can run at full pelt yet weight a perfect pass to a player in his stride without a seconds thought. Adn the goal speaks for itself obviously but he played well all match. Yes he lost the ball the odd time when he could have passed, but he did it near their box and did it trying to open them up. As for the match, at 1-0 down i was very confident we'd win because i knew Kean would employ his usual moronic 2nd half tactics of 11 men behind the ball, getting further and further back with time and begging the other team to score, just took us longer than i thought! Really liking the look of Santon as a footballer, and straight away him and Jonas seem to have a good link up, with Jonas the right foil for Santon as he is great at getting back to cover for a fullback who likes to attack alot.

Cracking second half and would have loved it if the keeper had come up in injury time there and pissed on fergies chips, but just fell short! With 11 men all match they'd have won it though, manu's midfield is nowhere near what it used tobe.

I think if O'Neill came in now he'd have a similar positive effect that he's had down the road. That could last the entire rest of the season and into then next. I think he then wouldn't really be backed the way he'd want to be backed in the transfer market and then he'd fuck off again. In the meantime, results would have tailed off again as he began to get disillusioned. This could take in a 1 year period of management or 2 years, doesnt make much odds to me. You're beyond naive is all it boils down to. To be fair i don't think O'neil would fuck off because if he'd agreed to take over here he'd know fine well what he'd let himself in for as would any manager nowadays, so really the question should be simply would people rather have started this season and the next few years ahead with Pardew or O'Neil. What's the point in living in that alternative reality? He probably wouldnt have taken over at all if he'd had the conversation Pardew had with Ashley. If you think otherwise I think you're being naive too. That said I don't even accept your basic premise-O'Neill is one of the biggest whingers in football management bar none. Listen to his interviews when they don't win. He thinks absolutely everything is against him so I could see him fucking off on a whim at any time he was refused a transfer he wanted. I didn't say he would have taken over, i said if he had then he'd signed up to what goes on here, and i'm not being naive just pointing out the OP was setting up a hypothetical question and nothing else as to whether people would take O'Neil or Pardew. And i've heard plenty managers whinge as much or more than O'Neil, most of them do.

Rightly so. Indeed, deliberate attempt to sell papers by scaring fans a player was being sold, if he claims he's a toon fan and puts his name to that he can fuck off!

I think if O'Neill came in now he'd have a similar positive effect that he's had down the road. That could last the entire rest of the season and into then next. I think he then wouldn't really be backed the way he'd want to be backed in the transfer market and then he'd fuck off again. In the meantime, results would have tailed off again as he began to get disillusioned. This could take in a 1 year period of management or 2 years, doesnt make much odds to me. You're beyond naive is all it boils down to. To be fair i don't think O'neil would fuck off because if he'd agreed to take over here he'd know fine well what he'd let himself in for as would any manager nowadays, so really the question should be simply would people rather have started this season and the next few years ahead with Pardew or O'Neil.

To not even have another out and out striker on the bench was mad considering Dzeko was abysmal, he brought on Silva and Aguero but they were creating for somebody miles off! He watched Fergie fuck up with his team selection, was given all the momentum to stamp their authority on the title race and he went and played a weak team himself!

Don't think you understand the difference between playing at home and playing away and we gave Man Utd and Man City much more of a game than we did against Liverpool.. Which makes it so annoying Pardew didn't play it the same way against the worst of those three sides! Ben Arfa played well against City and won the pen against manu, but doesn't feature against the scousers! I honestly - and I really hate to say this - think the Anfield crowd played a signifcant and very positive role in Liverpool winning that game. As I imagine did their frustration over Suarez and their lack of wins despite chances created. Many factors played a role in our performance but we really seemed to be intimidated. Concentration levels were poor and we gave the ball away far too much. It was loud on television. Could well be, i know shit refereeing often used to fire up St James to levels that got the team flying and i think Gerard's appearance obviously changed things, but its starting to get annoying the refusal to play Ben Arfa saying he's not ready or up to speed when he never will be if he doesn't play and he's being kept out by players who aren't as good a him!

Don't think you understand the difference between playing at home and playing away and we gave Man Utd and Man City much more of a game than we did against Liverpool.. Which makes it so annoying Pardew didn't play it the same way against the worst of those three sides! Ben Arfa played well against City and won the pen against manu, but doesn't feature against the scousers!

I'd want us to attack more than they did 2nd half as nine times out of ten they'd have lost that match, but O'Neil did what he does best, organise and energise a team that looked piss poor under Bruce.

Man city want shooting with shit for this match, the mackems spent 45 mins begging them to score and they were shite, with Dzeko abysmal, then the mackems score with an offside goal. Shows what happens when you get a manager like O'Neil in for Bruce sadly, he's proven everywhere he goes at making his teams organised, hard to beat and effective, don't know why people thought he wouldn't do much there, he knows what's required and as this game shows he also has the luck you need.

He's going to score past us, you can see it a mile off. Can't buy a goal at the moment, looks shot of confidence and luck so we'll roll into town and he'll get a spawny one past us, or a screamer set up by Enrique just to rub it in. No idea what result we'll get from the match but i'd bet a lot of money on Carroll scoring.

We're run by fuckwitts so sadly this isn't a shock in the slightest, but it doesn't change what a disgrace it is. If you take out Ba we currently have: Best (championship player) Lovenkrands (finished) Shola (only turns up once in a while and is often injured) Ranger (back here injured and not good enough and mental!) Absolutely hilarious if they think that's good enough, even if you count Ben Arfa as a striker because he'll play him off the main attacker we're woefully short. And lets wait and see if we get anywhere near singing the centrehalf we need, or the leftback as well. And that's before anyone leaves from our squad if the right offer comes in.

I'd be worried if Merson thought we were the bigger club as the guy can barely string two words together, he's somebody who makes other footballers look like intellectuals he's so thick, so if he thinks Villa are bigger its clear they're not! As for that quote from the Villa fan it was the sort of deranged, laughable post you only expect to see on the mackem's board, where no surprise there is a massive thread based on the merson quote where the sad fuckers have got overexcited as usual talking about us!

Expect them to start bottling the derbies against North Korea then!

Pardew has got too obsessed with his belief he can't play out wide which is simply wrong. I agree his best position is behind a striker or in a free role, and i know Pardew wants wingers to do certain jobs in attack and defence but there are times when he can stick him wide with the option obviously of cutting in just to get another flair/creative player in the mix when we need to turn a game, like today.

Missed opportunity today as Swansea were so there for the taking but we just didn't step up a gear and take the 3 points. Good to have a clean sheet with Colo back and pure class as ever, with Perch to be fair alongside him playing well. Santon i liked the look of, but it wasn't one of our better games. Also Pardew cocked the subs up as he left it too late and then didnt do enough. The first sub should have been by 65 mins as we had gone of the boil and weren't troubling them and really it probably shoul have been two subs at that time. One for Best who had offered little/not had much service and one for Obertan who was infuriating as ever and hiding at times as well which is unacceptable.

Be ready to challenge for europe and finish above us nailed on now And you can bet most of there chat on the forum will still revolve around us, it always does!

Exactly. Playing for a draw when they were able to get a win. Too cautious. Well Kean has just turned the mackems season round there in 45 mins of idiocy basically, don't know why any managers (because he isn't alone) think a whole half of standing on your 18 yard box and humping the ball clear will let you win a match.

Suicidal tactics from Kean second half, he's put his whole team back in his own half for 45 mins and expected the mackems not to score even once when you give them the ball for the whole half and try to cling on. All he had to do was play like they did first half with a bit more of a defensive outlook and they'd have been ok. They were robbed of being 2-0 up by the ref though.

He was woeful today, not just the final delivery but as people have said, he hides and doesn't want the ball and when he gets it he has no idea what to do. There was times he had it when i just knew he'd keep goign further wide with it to the line until they took it off him, no thought about doing anything with it. He spent alot of the time in the middle of the pitch when he was needed wide and when he was wide he refuses to use the pace he has and knock it past the defender and have a real go at them.

Mike Dean is a cheating cunt, plain and simple, they should have had 85 mins with ten men and it would have been a very different result. These are the sort of decisions that are a disgrace, after all the fuss over our pen at manu, that was just an honest mistake, it was a bad one but the linesman thought he'd seen a foul. He saw Ba was through on goal, he saw Luiz was last man, he saw it was a foul and he knows categorically its a red card, so he's a cheat. But because its us and not one of the "big 4" the ref won't be demoted and it won't be everywhere in the papers like the manu one was. As for the game i agree whoever said Pardew made a rare mistake today in his tactics, he left Raylor who isn't a proper LB with Lovenkrands who isn't a winger to protect him, so they had a field day down that side at times and we were cut through the middle a bit to easilly as well. Krul was top notch, he just gets better and better and its not just the saves, if you watch him he's always encouraging team mates or shouting at people when needed, he thinks fast like when Raylor slipped and he was out before chelsea had time to take advantage and he dominates his area. If the news about Taylor is true and with Colo struggling we are in the shit, especially if Tiote continues to miss games.

Its vital to have one player who does it, for those games when its tight or your team is off form and he tries it against the best, he was inches away against City and won the pen at manu, hopefully gearing up for Chelsea where he can score the winner with a similar run!