David Kelly

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.

How are you expecting him to fit the three of them in?

No problem. I'm here to help.

Toney was still confirmed before him wasn't he?