David Kelly

I'd only watched the first couple of episodes of the second series and recorded the rest as I couldn't be arsed with it at the time. I watched five or six episodes of it over the weekend and I'm still enjoying it although I think it's changing quite a bit in term of who Brodie is now. Without wanting to give too much away, in the first series we didn't know for a lot of it who he was but now he's going through the same thing. I think this is a fairly interesting direction to take it but I'm not sure it's as gripping so far. I'm still happy enough to stick with it and I'm sure I'll be watching series three when that arrives. It's no Game of Thrones like!

I would have to wonder what positives Barton would say to him. Fans, stadium and facilities yes but I can't see him being massively positive about Pardew and he'll certainly be negative (to say the least) about the owner/chairman! As for what type of player he is, Christmas Tree's the man to ask there! I know little myself but from what I understand he's more than comfortable playing wide as part of an attacking three so he would suit up with Cisse and HBA. From that I would take it he's not like either Carroll or Bent and the fact that he's a French international would suggest he's nothing like Shola!

Apparently it's the local paper in that area (their equivalent of the Journal. Not sure that's a good thing like!) who first broke the story of us signing HBA and were spot on about that. Not that a paper's ever been right about one deal but way off about another!

La Provence is saying we will be making an 11m euro bid in the next 24 hours apparently. No idea who La Provence is or how reliable it is.

I wasn't at all pessimistic until Ashley took over tbf!

Although he says doubtful rather than definitely out.

Where are you getting this from? I've seen nothing mentioned about it. Edit: Sorry I've just seen Pardew mention this in the Chronicle.

I really don't see that there's any advantage at all in getting rid of Pardew. How often have you seen teams right in the relegation fight sack their manager and it have any positive impact on their season. He has definitely made mistakes this season but he's also been hamstrung by the owners lack of investment and an awful run of injuries. He's the same bloke who guided us to fifth last season and got the manager of the year award. Yes he's far from perfect you're not going to get better at this stage and I think getting rid would just disrupt us more than it could lead to surge in confidence or anything like that.

Dumb ass Stick Perch into the midfield to add a bit more strength and hope that Cisse playing back through the middle and Debuchy coming in gives us a lift. As I say, I'm not filled with confidence like. If we'd been playing well I'd probably say it's still a pretty decent team against opposition of Norwich's standard. But with the run we're on I'd be very concerned putting that team out!

No Debuchy? Weak as piss team anyway. Wouldn't be confident with that lot!

Well thanks for that then. New series starts end of march with Dianna Rigg and Dennis Pennis added to the cast. Going to have to move on to Breaking Bad or the Wire in between methinks.

I agree he was fucked but he was also well out of form. I don't think that tiredness was the whole reason. He has been going through a shit spell, that happens. I think Pardew should have recogised it ealier though and took him out of the firing line for a bit.

There's no real runs of games where you can see us picking up good points is there? Mind you I couldn't look to a single away game at the minute and say we'll get anything out of it. I'm sure we will pick up points but you can't be confident at the moment!

Finished the first series of Game Of Thrones and three into series two now. Loving it (suspect I'll have it finished by Wednesday) especially Peter Dinklage.

They won't of course but the problem we're facing at the moment is that other teams down the bottom look like (and in fact are) winning games while we don't at home let alone away. QPR have had the worst start in premiership history yet even they are only 7 points behind us now. We can still comfortably pull out of this if we get the main three injured players back for the rest of the season and bring another striker in but have to start beating teams soon.

I'm confident that Colo and Cisse never had an injury and it was Pardews excuse to not play them so unless they pick an actual injury up this week they will be playing. I think it's a bit much to be expecting either Cabaye or Taylor to be playing after so long out despite how much we need them. Of course Cabaye may be pressed into action earlier than we would want simply because we are so lacking in options. Jonas was tweeting last night that he's back in training so hopefully he's fit too. Say what you want about his form, we need him at the minute. Assuming Perch is injured and those mentioned above are back, I think I'd go for Jonas, Cabaye & Anita in the middle with Marveaux and Squidward on the wings and obviously Cisse through the middle. But at this stage who's fit will be anyone's guess!

Watched him play against Marseilles the other week and he was absolutely gash. Made Cisse look like the worlds best offside judge and his touch was appalling. Obviously anyone can have a bad game but he didn't look close to premiership quality on that occasion.

That was embarrassing. We look like a beaten club at the moment. We desperately need a few players back and a couple of good signings or we'll be totally relying on teams below us fucking up worse than us. And they all look like they have more about them at the moment.

He'd been at Portsmouth and agreed to cut is contract short when they were fucked. He was someone I was very keen on us signing when Fat Sam was in charge but he's been gash for quite a while now. Don't think he'd be better than Williamson or Perch!

Didn't think Ben Haim had a club at the moment.

Colo and Cisse are the two members of the squad that are totally irreplaceable at the minute. I'm quite confident that they have no knocks at all and are just being wrapped in cotton wool. That said they'll no doubt pick up knocks in training before the next game anyway!

Sorry you're right, it was me who was a season out, I always forget it was Fat Sam who signed him and think of the relegation season as his first. Mind you if you're comparing the two players at the same point, I go back to what I said about him in the relegation season. Bassong was our best player in the first half of it but around this time Ricky became our best player.

In his second season (when we were in the Championship) Ricky was immense. Think your're a season out there Johnny. And even in our relegation season (well our last one!) he was imo our best player in the second half of the season.

Having Cabaye in particular as well as the other Frenchies will hopefully help too.

I would agree that anyone expecting him to set up goals on a regular basis is kidding themselves but I would think (and I have nothing to back this up) that most of the assists Cole had last season weren't from him whipping balls in. I think what people are expecting from Debuchy is he will get a fair few balls into the box (and not constantly hit the first man like Wilson). Even that comp that you posted showed him doing that. And if he can do that you would hope that some of them would eventually (maybe not a direct assist from him) lead to a goal or chance. Very few (if any) of Simpson's deliveries ever do that.