David Kelly

We shouldn't need all of the big boys against Northampton but he needs to make sure he balances it right. We might have some players in need of a game and/or goal by then too.

My first game was against West Brom some time towards the end of the 84/85 season. Up until that point I had little or no interest in football which I'm sure is why my dad took me. The only player of ours I'd heard of was Chris Waddle but he was injured that day (I never did get to see him play for us). I remember my dad going through our team with me in the car on the way up. He was far from keen on George Riley or Pat Herd but told me of a certain Peter Beardsley who was apparently magic. We won 1-0 thanks to a Beardsley freekick. In truth I can't rember anything else about the game (I must have been not quite 9) but the next season the last of my dads mates who he used to sit with dropped out so I got his season ticket and we've had the same seats in the East Stand ever since. I don't think I've missed 10 league home games since so I must be on about 600 games plus cup games (which I've only ever missed any in the last couple of seasons). I've never managed to get to as many away games, in later years when I've had mates who go to more of them, I've had the bairn on a weekend so it's difficult to get to them. Before that I can't really remember anyone I knew going to many. The first I went to was Liverpool in the relegation season when Mirah and John Hendrie scored in our win and I think the next one wasn't until the last game against Leciester a few seasons later when we were on the verge of division 3. I went to five or six the promotion season and a few a year for the rest of the Keegan age. Overall I've probably not went to more than 50 ranging from Peterborough, Notts County and Morcambe to Barca, Brugge and Lisbon as well as both makem grounds and Wembley. Maybe get to 1 away game a season now. For all the talk of chucking in tickets, I can't really envisage doing anything else on a matchday now.

I do know a lot about Williamson and I know he's absolute dog shit. So in the absence of any likely big name/fee transfer in that area I'd be happy to take a punt on a player who I don't know a great deal about other than he's about 23, he's well regarded by his own fans (albeit in a lower league) and (I think) he was considered a very promising player a couple of year back. Is that more acceptable? I mean ultimiately very few (or none more likely) of us knew anything about Mbember before he was linked either. Edit: I also know he's a big fucker too.

As Gini proved on Sunday. I'd be happy to do a deal with Brighton for Dunk involving Williamson. I don't know a lot about Dunk but I remember he was highly rated a couple of years ago and is apparently a favourite there. Only 23 so he's at least got a chance of developing too. Clearly with Colo signing a new deal we're not going to be signing another first choice centreback so someone like him is probably the best we can hope for.

Aye that might make sense.

But you wouldn't score the player playing poorly in the more difficult role the same as the player who's played well in the easier role would you? Marks out of ten is surely just based on how well someone has done in that particular match?

I think that would be the usual scoring system. Like if Cabaye played poorly for his ability but Colback played a blinder. Obviously you're Cabaye and Fish is Colback in this scenario. Although Williamson instead of Colback would probably be a better comparisson.

That's fine. I just don't think most people would go with that system.

So you're saying that strawb is saying that Colback plays to 60% or 70% of his capacity which is less than 60% or 70% of Cabayes capacity? I wouldn't argue with that but it seems to go against the marks out of ten system that the rest of the world uses.

I don't understand how two players can rate 6 or 7 out of 10 but one have been better than the other. Colback clearly isn't as good a player as Cabaye but if their performances both rate the same then in that game they have been equally as good.

I think when you look at some of the midfielders playing last season for Palace, Stoke and Swansea, he's good enough for a top ten team but yeah if we want to push further he shouldn't be any more than a squad player. As you say, we have far more pressing concerns than him though.

He's hardly a fist pumping moron like Taylor or one to go ridiculously over the top into tackles like Smith. He just quietly gets on with his job and consistently puts in a decent performance. He's never going to be a star but he helps others look good (not by being shit himself).

Watching a few episodes together will have probably helped your enjoyment of it. There's was too much that was so insignificant seeming at the time that you'd forgot about it when it was brought up again weeks later. I enjoyed it overall. Wasn't as good as the first season but I didn't expect it to be. Harrelson and McConaughey were so good together I never thought they'd be able to recapture that with someone else.

He's definitely not a Clogger. If he were, what would that make Tiote? And Abeid? Come off it. The lad isn't good enough for premiership football. I could argue against Anita but I've definitely seen occasions where he's had good games and he always looks technically proficient. But Abeid had a couple of alright games when nothing was expected of him and then failed to even reproduce that limited form when he returned from injury. The increase in credit he got from being a reasonably small part of a couple of good results is absolutely incredible to me.

Colback really does seem to divide opinion with our fans. One of my mates text me during the match and said Colback looked lost and another after the game said he was shite. Personally I thought he did (as he does 95% of the time) another solid job. In posession he doesn't try for anything fancy, he just moves the ball on looking for one of the more attacking players to give us the thrust and when we don't have posession he looks to win the ball back. I know it's not very exciting but there's a whole host of top class players who made their career doing very similar things. He's more physical than Anita and does more for us defensively and he's much better on the ball than Tiote. I don't think there should be a need to play two of those three at home in games other than when we play the top four but given it was McClaren's first game, I can understand why he would want to be a bit more cautious. I would hope in most home games we would look to have another attacking player (maybe SDJ or Cabella) and move Geinie slightly deeper so we don't have a big gap between defence and attack the way we ended up on Sunday. But I'd be quite happy to have Colback as the deep lying midfielder in that formation.

Southpaw. Decent fight scenes but it's all very predictable.

Aye while the europa league will be an issue for them further down the road, at this stage of the season it's benefiting them. They looked a lot fitter than us later in the game.

I'm not confident with Haidara at all. Obertan in front of him and not having had a chance to build up a relationship over the summer with our two centrebacks certainly hasn't helped him but I'm not sure he's a good enough defender. We really should be looking for a player of a similar ability to Janmaat to bring in on the left. Overall I was pretty happy with the performance yesterday though. We were moving around the ball much better than we have in years and Wijnaldum looks a player. Sissoko and Anita were much better than they have been in a long time too. In fact I think when Anita went off we lost our shape a lot and this was a major factor in us not winning (that and Geinie tiring). Tiote looked well off the pace but that is to be expected of a player who hasn't played since January and had fitness troubles this summer. The only negatives were the previously mentioned left side and our continued inability to defend a cross. But Mbemba has only just arrived (and immediately looks a significant upgrade on Williamson) and Colo hasn't been fit all summer so there is a reasonable hope that they can develop a partnership that can do well. I think they're going to have to because with Colo signing his new contract he's surely going to be the main man again.

Smith seems to have no idea at all how to play in English conditions.

Was looking hard work for an hour or so there. Could be over today the way things have gone in the last half hour though.

Nobody got to watch the Aussies bat properly yesterday! Starc is bowling well this morning though.

You abandoned the Aussies now like?

And he's not very good either!

Me too.