OTF

Fucking stupid of Barton. To me it looked like an open handed slap to the guts, and you can tell from Pedersoft's reaction that there wasn't a great deal to it. But fucking stupid end of. Proof that a leopard doesn't change its spots, or that if you keep poking at an alligator eventually it's going to snap, or some combination of those or some other analogy involving animals that have little self-control. There's no doubt that managers will constantly be telling their players to wind up Barton. That's a given. Joey Barton is the only person that can use that to his own advantage by sticking to the game and outplaying the opposing players. For several games this season he's done a good job of that, unfortunately today that all went out the window (along with my credibility in this thread).

Talk about the skeletons coming out of the closet for this one. First up, Tiote, my oh my. That was incredibly painful to watch and felt that in the very pit of my stomach. I hope we haven't put the cart before the horse on that one, because that really was a disappointing game from him. Thankfully that wasn't his first game for us or else he could have been written off before he had a fair go. Frustratingly for Tiote he won't get the chance to get straight back on the bike given he has now picked up his fifth yellow. The way he leaves/sticks out his leg like that around the box (and sometimes in it) is just asking for free-kicks to be given away. Hopefully he sorts that out quick smart. We're going to encounter plenty of teams who play like Blackburn in the league particularly at home, so we're going to have to find a way to rise above the rubbish. Today we were slowly drawn down into it some players worse than others. I hope Chris can turn this around and use the result as a wake-up call to our players. Carroll was again very good even with the very limited support that he received from a lumbering (not fully fit?) Ameobi and an exhuberant but wasteful Ranger. Barton's balls intyo the area, with the exception of the one for the goal weren't up to the high standard that he has set for himself of late. Enrique, Jonas and Coloccini along with the aforementioned Carroll for mine were our best players. They picked up where they left off and didn't get involved in the negatively of the game, keeping to their own strengths and playing till the end. At the other end of the spectrum Joey Barton was way too easily sucked back into the niggly, cynical region of football. The slap to the guts of Morten Gamst Pedersoft was idiotic (although possibly deserved) and Barton was incredibly lucky that noone on the pitch caught it despite the Blackburn players best efforts to react as though he'd been fly kicked by a pitch invading Eric Cantona. Nolan was obviously well off his best and appeared to be limping throughout the match after being caught early on. His penchant for scoring must have been the only thing keeping him on the pitch, though I'd still have liked to see Hughton making a move earlier to replace him with someone who's 100%. Onto Blackburn. For me the single biggest positive to take from this game is that we now only have to endure the dire, anti-footballing measures employed by Real Madrid's manager in waiting Fat Sam Allardyce for a single other match this season (procluding any unfortunate draws in the FA Cup). The Blackburn players persistent fouling was extremely poorly dealt with by the make-weight referee who somehow handed Newcastle 2 of the first 3 cards of the game. Samba for one should have been yellow carded very early in the piece, and their captain (was it also Samba) should have had a talking to on several occassions where-by an ultimatum was given to stop fouling or else pickup yellow for each consequent cynical challenge. Conversely as soon as Blackburn had possession of the ball their previously wrecking ball like players shattered to the ground left right and centre like the big club dreams of FSA. Jason Roberts is a giant fucking penis, seriously what an utter fucking toss-pot - proof that even the shittiest of players can easily get a massively over-inflated view of their own self importance because of the ridiculous idolisation of football players and the massive wages even the most common of players are on. That spasmodic kid they had playing in front of their defense is the future of anti-football. Apologies for my late remarks - as noted it was a delayed telecast down under, so I had to wait out an entire day at work without checking anything that would potentially give the result away. Was an anxious wait all day, only to arrive to find that my IQ box (Sky for you guys) in the lounge had not recorded the game because it had run out of space. Somehow 10% of a 500GB drive had been filled between the time that I check last night and the time that the game was on this morning! F%^%! Thankfully (as I thought at the time) I had also set it to record in the bedroom, so had to watch it on a 36" set instead of 58".

Fitting given your signature.

Carroll vs Samba will be very interesting. I'm sure they will have a lot of focus on picking up Carroll on set pieces and the like, so we need our secret weapon to be firing in this one. You know, the secret weapon who's been on our books for 15 years, has played almost 300 games and has scored almost 70 goals. Not going to say his name because I know FSA and his Blackburn cronies are closely monitoring this thread. For brevity sake the secret weapon will henceforth be referred to by his code name - Super Header of Lobbed Attacks, or SHOLA for short. Andy, SHOLA, Williamson and Colo running their plays with the well weighted corners and free-kicks from Joey Barton, yes please!

I think you've inadvertently gone and said something mildly witty. Good on you http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.asp?productid=599821 Great book from a legend of Australian football (RIP) dealing with the changes in attitude to the round ball game down under.

6ft, around 12.5 stone.

Can you believe Poll "mistook" him for an Australian player because of his accent and hence why he didn't send him off until the 3rd yellow card!!! Šimunić hadn't lived in Australia for about 10 years by that stage, I doubt he had much of an accent left. I guess he'd be speaking Croatian in Croatia, so his English accent would still be quite Australian. What kind of excuse from Poll is that anyway, did he award the yellow with his eyes shut based on some offensive comments made by Simunic? Chances are he's more like Grella and can barely speak English How quickly did Grella turn from a quality defensive midfielder into a hack, it was ridiculous. I blame Sam Allardyce. How funny that we paid less for 24 year old Cheik Tiote than they did for a 27/28 year old Vince Grella.

Ordered through kitbag, cost me AU$80 with CARROLL 9 on the back including postage. Let me know if they do turn up at either of the Puma stores at DFO. I'd be keen to see how much they are seeing as Rebel are changing AU$120+ for the kit with no name/number. Wonder if the Adidas store will be receiving the shorts as well as the shirts. The shorts are awesome for playing in. As for the shirst the Puma ones are definitely better for playing in IMO. I've never seen the shorts there but I have seen the change and 3rd kit turn up (I'm hoping the inter version does). Also the place is packed with 2J adidas tracksuit tops, the western suburbs Lebanese must love them Wonder if the deck chair one will turn up. Detested it to begin with, but by the end of the season had a soft spot for it.

Can you believe Poll "mistook" him for an Australian player because of his accent and hence why he didn't send him off until the 3rd yellow card!!! Šimunić hadn't lived in Australia for about 10 years by that stage, I doubt he had much of an accent left. I guess he'd be speaking Croatian in Croatia, so his English accent would still be quite Australian. What kind of excuse from Poll is that anyway, did he award the yellow with his eyes shut based on some offensive comments made by Simunic?

Ordered through kitbag, cost me AU$80 with CARROLL 9 on the back including postage. Let me know if they do turn up at either of the Puma stores at DFO. I'd be keen to see how much they are seeing as Rebel are changing AU$120+ for the kit with no name/number. Wonder if the Adidas store will be receiving the shorts as well as the shirts. The shorts are awesome for playing in. As for the shirst the Puma ones are definitely better for playing in IMO.

Getting JOSE ENRIQUE accurately is quite tough it seems.. some places won't do the accented characters and some have a limit on letters.... so get Tiote. I ended up getting Carroll.. wore it last night while playing six-a-side for my half in goals Our strip is the Arsenal away kit Edit - Actually Tiote has an accent on the e! arghhhhhhh PS - Get Carroll

I guess we won't be shipping Xisco off to Dinamo Zagreb then! Australian born Simunic had a horrible horrible game against us at the 2006 World Cup.. was sent off with three yellows and should easily have had two additonal penalties given against him. That game was such a farce it's ridiculous.

The joke is blatantly on him with that. The biggest failure of his career and he names something after it as a kind of desperate and pitiful 'aha, but I had the last laugh' gesture. Really though, if someone wanted to get rid of you so badly that they'd spend several million pounds to do so, you'd hardly want the constant reminder unless you were as deluded as Sam Allardyce. He blatantly thinks being a good manager is about crunching numbers, performing clinical analysis and pretending that you have a well conditioned squad - under his stewardship our team were obviously far from well conditioned despite him harping on about the opposite with his team of sports physicians, conditioning coaches, nutritionalists and whatnot. Anti-football Allardyce, whom in reality we were all glad to see the back of after the dross he subjected us to. Casa St. James indeed.

I'm not quite sure whether Barton is talking about Kevin Nolan getting pictures on his phone, Andy Carroll being ridden in the pool room, or just the team in general. Whatever the case

Australian NUFC site for supporters down under. http://www.aussiemags.net/home.html

I've got to put my hand up and say that I've wanted the club to get rid of Joey Barton on several occassions before this season, but I'm very thankful that they haven't. A run of good games and a seemingly genuine change in his on and off-field demeanour have done wonders in helping me forget the shite that he's put us through in the past.

With our strike force Carroll is worth vastly in excess of 12million to us. Considering we sold Martins for 9 million Carroll's value should be 25+. If he is sold though the ill-feeling that will immediately return to Ashley and his cronies would cost the club millions in ticket sales alone, before considering merchandise and the likes. I'd like to think that even Ashley wouldn't hold the supporters in such contempt to make an ignorant sale like that. The not for sale sign should be well and truly on display for Carroll.

The club should increase his wage on his current contract as a sign of good faith and as a thankyou for the fantastic job that he has done thus far. When the contract is nearer completion the club will be in a better position to renegotiate and Hughton will be more likely to sign. Even with a big increase in his current contract he'd still be amongst the lowest paid managers in the league. Hughton's rumoured 250k/year is under 5k a week, which is probably less than Best and Perch are on. That's absolutely ridiculous. Granted Best and Perch are overpaid, but Hughton is vastly underpaid. The likes of Harry Redknapp would be getting more than 12 times what Hughton is, and Redknapp has the advantage of an 'ambitious'* board that really backs him in the transfer market. * - That's for you Leazes

Looked good for Everton, but doubt he would go anywhere else tbh.

If I was the company providing Ranger's boots I'd have him cover the logo with black tape before every match. Ridiculous the amount of times he slips over! Now onto Colo. His passing has been fantastic. Can pick out a midfield player nicely from the back time and time again. Wonderful technique for a central defender.

How many yellows has he picked up so far? He does seem to pick up quite a few for what should be some relatively innocuous challenges. Not looking forward to the match where he's not available and Alan Smith steps in to deputise.

Don't even joke FFS.

10m as a player, but if he keeps this up his value to us will be well, well in excess of that.

Absolutely fantastic. Couldn't ask for any more from our players. Both Shola and Carroll were immense out there, both of them (but particularly Carroll) doing plenty of defending when required. Our defense was great, Enrique nullified Walcott's pace, and Williamson and Coloccini were simply faultless. Simpson again played well and wasn't overwhelmed by the situation. Tiote showed the same compusure and close-control that we've seen from him against all oppositions, he has been a fantastic purchase and you cannot understate the value of a player like that who is so assured in posession and a good tackler and overall reader of the game. Off the ball he always moves into great positions and is aware of opposing players around him as well as the position of our players. Krul was fantastic, that save from the Nasri shot was a pivotal moment. Quite remarkable that we've gone to the Emirates and left with three points having committed less fouls and having more posession of the ball. You'll be able to count on one hand with fingers to spare the number of teams who do that there this entire season. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/e...rem/9150002.stm I wonder what Mr Wenger will have to say after this, we were deserved winners and to rub salt into the wound Hughton was clearly the better dressed of the two managers (though with that ridiculous coat it wouldn't be hard).

Yeah, keeping him out in wider areas helps to keep him out of the muck that can happen in the middle of the pitch. He honestly seems much more level headed and calm now, but deep down we know he's potentially a bad tackle away from doing something stupid so the less likely he is to get involved in hard play the better.