Bibble

Colo & Shola were our best players, but it was a decent team performance really. The Wolves players had a lot more "bulk" on them but ours seemed to tire earlier. Ebanks-Blake registered on the Richter scale every time he moved. Lovely touch by Colo in the build up to the third goal. Was chuffed for Jonas, even tho he did little else of much worth in the rest of the match. Ferguson did well once he stopped trying to pass the ball too tight down the line. Made up for lack of physical presence through good timing and tenacity. Looked better at this level than Ranger, who was given 10 mins up top with Shola, did fuck all, and was sent onto the wing when Saylor came on for the last 10 mins and to my eyes spent the rest of the time in a strop. He needs to be sent on loan to Doncaster and give his head a shake, otherwise he's already peaked. tbf the best bit was the pen taken by the one-legged kid during the half time antics. Just went for it with a good run up. Cracking! Felt a bit sorry for the able bodied kid who scored straight after and barely roused a cheer.

Decent one on Radio 4 Today The involvement of Robert Fripp - a man known to take himself very seriously - had me sold for the first part of this.

Linky

Sadly, so is Best.

Haven't slept in my "bed" for nearly a month now. I blame the FCB. Tbf there are pockets of noise in the library. Just not many. And not near me! I think pud's right about this. The list could now be used to break people up. Best you can hope for is some of the curva nord guys filling in empty seats. "Dune Tune", anyone?

Saw him live before xmas (supporting Everything Everything) in a proper sit-down concert hall - everything was virtually identical to the album. He played keys and the odd bit of guitar alongside a bass player and rhythm/knob twiddler. The effects/compression gave him a distinctive sound and in that venue his dubsteppy minimalist style - heart stoppingly slow tempo combined with heart starting sub-bass conjured up a very different, quite intimate, atmosphere to your average gig. There were a couple of good tracks (Limit to Your Love - a cover version - was the strongest) but by the end I decided he was mining a pretty thin seam to the absolute max and I'd got a bit bored by the end of the 35 minute set. From a distance of 4 months the most memorable thing was the atmosphere. Might be one for the longer term, but imo more style than substance at the minute. 5/10

Agreed. More bodies not less are needed. What if the super-utility player gets injured at the same time as two of the players he's meant to cover? Pardew's really begun spouting tired old bilge in the last few weeks - trying to talk things up without actually achieving anything. I'm already sick of it.

The Phantom Band, last week. Had to be in Manchester for work, saw this lot were on. Knew nowt about them so listened to the recent album on Spotify on the train over. Thought it was ok and took a punt - paid £10 on the door. They put on a pretty good show. Clearly been around a bit and earned their spurs. Good singer, 4 or 5 standout tracks and most of the rest ok. Don't understand why the final thing they played was instrumental. Sadly there was the inevitable hint of jock rock, where some guitar runs seem to follow the same note intervals as bagpipes. Their music sounded a lot better at the gig than they did on 6 Music's Marc Riley earlier that evening, when it was all a bit acousticy. They went down ok with the crowd of 150-200 but no dancing or owt like that. Will add a few tracks (eg A Glamour & Everybody Knows It's True) to the big playlist. Glad I went. 7/10

I thought Best did ok - sure he's never going to set the world on fire but he consistently beat a much taller defender to win headers and showed some promise. I was in line with his attempt to curl the keeper early in the first half and it was a close effort. Lova is intelligent in his play but my 90yr old mam has the physical presence to keep the ball from him.

Aye, Enrique was probably the biggest threat going forward today but got rinsed a couple of times at the back. Proper mixed bag. This. We dominated from the off, scored, then fartarsed about to the point that we were dribbling the ball out of our own box. Raylor was (surprisingly) ok in the first half but deserved the red. Ranger was a handful when he came on and so was Kuqi in his 5 minute cameo and Saylor's runs on the right worked well. If Barton's still injured Saylor & Simpson on the right might be a decent option v Everton

Colo has 2 1/2 years left on his deal This signing is not bad news, and it helps to up his price and therefore restrict the no of clubs likely to bid for him, but frankly he ain't going to do a Zoggy and next move to Wigan. Here's hoping that there's enough top quality DMs emerging elsewhere for us to hold on to him for a couple of seasons, by which point we'll be battling relegation and no-one will blame him for moving, or if it's to be believed - the masterplan of slowly growing the club will mean he'll hopefully want to stay anyway

I paid 3 years up front last time. Can't do that again. I'm not going to sign up now for the direct debit scheme. Starting to pay in March for next season feels wrong in soooo many ways. The ambiguity around the 28 Feb/30 Apr cut-off dates just further muddies the waters. All the pisstaking makes me feel like I'm being driven away from supporting my own club. I'm going to delay my decison as late as possible. Imo if there's a poor take up of the current deal other offers will be made.

Pl can anyone PM me with directions to a fast flowing river? Best I can find on my own will be 300k. Thx

Piss take

Broken, once Pards gets stuck in...

Just asked a Swansea fan about our ace new signing - "He is terrible. Big heart, no legs. Gutted for you"

Signed til end of season according to club website *beaten*

Yes. Simon Esland, "customer relations" guy from NUFC said on the radio last night that price would be the same, with no money back if we're relegated.

Excellent work there, Agent SMB.

Offer turned down. Fucking hell this is crazy

Don't like the sound of this. I fear he'll be off. Would leaves us with only second (and third) rate strikers to pick from and more nerve jangling run-in to the end of season. Well, this season was all starting to look a bit too easy...

I know some think he's a traiitor but I'd have him back pronto. I always saw him as a typical modern overseas professional. Wanted to play footie at the highest level and for the best money with no ties to any club. Imo he was one of the few bright points in that relegation season and I don't remember him ever going awol, when plenty of others did.

he's off to spend more time wa*king his dogs

Just mentioned this on another thread - not sure if someones already come up with this, but hows about bringing along a (disposable) flag and hanging it over the last two letters of one of the many Sports Direct hoardings. Back of the East Stand in particular. Right in MA's eyeline