David Kelly

Mitro's penalties have been good in the past so I would have expected him to take it. And Rafa said he was down to take it. It wasn't a particularly bad pen either. Pretty decent height for the keeper but he made a good save. I've seen better players take much worse ones and not get near the stick he took for missing that one.

I totally agree with you about the substitution but I would have to also say that we played a hell of a lot better after the substitution. We easily should have wrapped the game up after it. Hopefully a lot of Rafa's reaction after the game from the frustration of not getting the win. I doubt it though and can't see him staying for the long haul as long Ashley is there.

Fucking brilliant.

What do we reckon the chances are of Shelvey getting a ban for the incident with Mackie? I couldn't see anything at the match but a couple of the lads at work reckon Sky were all over it and he'll likely get a charge.

Off at the end of the season at the latest I'd say. Not at all happy. They clearly aren't following through with the assurances he was given in the summer.

Been told they won't sell him to a rival apparently. How times have changed.

Local press saying we might sign a midfielder as well as Townsend and that a third deal isn't out of the question as long as Tiote's deal goes through. Of course they don't seem to have any idea of who these players might be so most likely we'll sign no one at all.

Some daft cunt will probably be shouting shoot at him too.

Tiote gone to China at last. In Landmark as we speak getting himself ready.

That he was confident it could be done. Keep up man.

Aye, I didn't say I was confident.

Rafa seems confident we can get this done. Think pissing him off would be the biggest concern if we didn't.

No one that I'd be worried about having an attacking flank against.

One of the mates I went with gets more pissed than anyone I know (mid 30's and nearly always pisses the bed when he's drunk) and even wouldn't consider getting pissed going to the cinema.

Attack is the best form of defence for me. Force the opposition back and they can't attack you. Plus, in this division who's half decent?

Rafa is a much better manager than Pardew. That needs to be stressed when making such comparisons. And in the interests of fairness, I would say Ritchie has a much better attitude than Ben Arfa.

I did think that it was the most obvious film for this to happen in mind. More surprised it was women and not blokes.

I blame pulp fiction.

It's starting to look like £20m for a player like McCarthy isn't that overpriced. A year or two ago you wouldn't have considered more than £10m but that Wilchut is supposedly going from Wigan to Norwich for £7m and they're talking £15m for Hogan. If anything, Townsend is under priced by virtue of the release clause we had on him and that we're the only team he's played regularly for. With regards to Ritchie on the left or as a number 10 (I'm not discounting either), has he ever regularly or successfully played in those positions? I'd guess he would have played left wing at some point (being a left footed winger) but for us and Bournemouth at least he's been playing on the right.

How would we actually fit Townsend into the team if we sign him? Isn't part of his problem at Palace that he doesn't want to play on the left? Wouldn't that give us the same problem with Ritchie as he always seems to prefer to be on the right. I'm certainly much more in favour of signing Townsend than I was at this point last year as I saw what he was capable of for us. But for all his quality, it does strike me that we're not really solving our bigger problems which to me is a lack of options if Shelvey is unavailable and a real attacking threat down the left.

Oviedo has looked ok when I've seen him play but he's a downgrade on PVA and his fitness record has been poor (I might be being a bit unfair there as I think he had a bad injury). Gibson is an average player with an absolutely horrendous fitness record. I'd be hard pushed to see how he really improves their team but I suppose he's another body in for the squad. Dunno how much they've cost but it doesn't seem to me that they've improved their position by selling PVA and bringing these two.

I always liked him but his form in the last or so (in which he played) was way down on what it had been in the past imo. That may well have been due to the absolute cluster fuck of defence that was in front of him because they would have certainly dented his confidence. But Darlow has barely put a foot wrong since he came into the team properly and I think he's looked the best keeper I've ever seen us have in coming for balls into the box.

His form prior to his injury certainly wasn't better than Darlow's has been.

The closer you are to the pitch the more you realise how fast footballers are. Clark generally looked like he was moving at the speed of a constipated tortoise but I remember seeing in a cup game when I got a seat only a couple of rows from the pitch. You could see that miles faster than anyone I'd ever played football with in my life.

Mental or physical age?