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Awol is a Them!

I think I might actually pick this up for the first CoD in a long time.

With winter hitting, expect more of the 1500 odd rebel groups in Syria to be swallowed by JaN or IS.

Kobane is a bit of a sideshow and it's perhaps only the media attention that is keeping IS interested. They will soon be chucking far more resources at the T4 airbase.

Al Anbar is perhaps the more worrying theatre though, as the Iraqis continue to look clueless.

2-0 Villa win.

N'Zogbia to start behind Weimann, is how I would go, but I am sure Gabby will come back in and we will see a 4-4-2 with N'Zogbia and Cleverley wide, with Westwood and Sanchez central.

Hopefully Senderos can come back in too.

Fans aren't fickle, opinions are hostages to circumstances and change as a result.

The squad we have at the moment is a lot better than 15th place and capable of scoring more than 4 in 9.

We dominated possession for the first time this season against QPR, easily one of the poorest sides in the league and we looked clueless. There was no plan as to how we were to break them down, just an awful narrow shape, made even narrower by his substitutions.

We've created five chances in five games; three have fallen to Clark, the other Hutton created on his own with his shot at Goodison that whistled close and Richardson on the break against Man City. That isn't good enough.

We have the best striker at the club since Dwight York, but we fail to get balls into him or men close to him in support. We have no means of breaking the opposition down and by and large, fail to keep the ball and on the occasions we have it, use the ball in an effective way.

We aren't able to compete with the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea or Man City and people all understand the reasons why, but the football we play is McLeish esque and offers no hope for improvement. Gone is the pressing and cavalier approach we saw towards the end of the first season.

He has to go, but he won't be sacked unless a real tipping point is crossed and by that I mean if we lose say the next four or five.

Neither do I, but to suggest he isn't big enough is garbage.

Oh this myth that you need to be a physical god to play in this league, what utter rubbish.

Agreed, its like the line of "yeah, but could Messi [insert other wonderful but small player] do it on a cold Tuesday night at Stoke?!".

Dave Kitson struggled with the Premier League because he was shit.

The squad we have is much better than 15th. Its not great and I don't think anybody is expecting us to be pulling up trees, but we could at least be having a go. We look devoid of a plan and have no way of breaking other sides down and that doesn't look like it is going to change under Lambert.

The good that we saw in him when he was in charge at Norwich is gone and we're left with somebody playing football in the McLiesh way.

I don't understand Lambert's thinking shoving Cleverley out on the left last night. We have an extra man in midfield, yet the way we set up means not one of them hits the box.

The PS4 version of FarCry 4 is apparently allowing you to let a mate join you in co-op for a few hours, even if they don't own the game themselves.

My team for this one would be

Guzan in goal, with Senderos coming back in at centre half alongside Vlaar and Cissokho and Hutton at full back.

Diamond midfield with Sanchez at the base and Grealish at the top, Westwood and Cleverley to really press QPR in the middle.

Gabby and Benteke up front.

Our width in a 4-3-3 still comes from the full backs anyway and I would like to see us concentrate some moreguile in the midfield and get some attacking players closer to Benteke.

If you watch Everton's 2nd goal closely you can see it actually deflects off a copy of Roy Keane's book just in front of Guzan.

The book was to blame for the first and third goals as well, owing to Cissokho actually reading an amusing anecdote at the time.

Maybe Sony think it's run its course? I know I'm bored with the Assassins Creed series, along with another list of endless sequels.

Would a marketing agreement really include covenants to limit the product on another platform? I guess Ubisoft have to weigh up whether they think limiting the PS4 version will have an impact on sales on that platform and the proof will be in the pudding a few months down the line as to whether all the Tweeting and complaining actually turns into anything. I doubt it myself, but we'll see.

Ultiamtely Ubisoft want to sell as much as possible and the PS4 is there biggest market. If they can lure some more punters in further down the line with the promise of something shiny, then they'll do it. Whoever advertises the game will see sales for both platforms in any event.

I would too. He's been poor the past few games, but if we set up correctly his pace should hurt QPR.

You never know when you're going to get world beater Gabby and the problem is, neither does Gabby himself.

Advertising by Microsoft and Ubisoft is not going to make an impression on a PS4 owner, of which there are significantly more, so why not attempt to optimise their sales? They eventually patched Black Flag for the PS4, I don't see why they cannot do the same.

Take the shilling from Microsoft and sell more units in the larger PS4 market.

Just started Fall Out New Vegas. Not played any Fall Out games before, but I fancied trying one, seeing as how much I liked Skyrim and Bethesda having made that.

Its not grabbed me so far to be honest.

He did ok when he came on against Everton, but the game had been killed after Guzan's flap.

I liked some of his play against Leyton orient and felt that if there had been more space in front of him then we'd have been the better for it. That said, he looked knackered pretty early on, so whether his fitness has improved I don't know.

His 3rd season here and there is still no structure to our play.

No (intelligent) movement, no idea how to distribute the ball except hoof to tall guy, very little overlapping runs or pressing and no exploiting the opponents weaknesses.

Just sitting back and counter.

 

Fair enough if he thinks we don't have the players to pull any of these things of, but then you don't go offering players like Gabby or Weimann new contracts.

We weren't guilty of "hoofing it" against Everton. We played the ball very nicely up to their box, particularly in a good 20 minute spell in the first half. The problem was the delivery into the front men wasn't great, but Benteke, Gabby and N'Zogbia equally hampered the midfield with how static they were.

If we're going to have more cutting edge then we need to increase the movement of the front three and mix up the variety of that midfield. It doesn't help that Delph is out, but the likes of Grealish have that guile that we need. He might not do it every game, but he does have "something".

Here's a fun fact for ya

 

Even if all our shots on target in the last 4 games had gone in we had still lost those games.

 

Arsenal 0-3, 2 shots on target

Chelsea 0-3, 1 shot on target

Man C 0-2, 1 shot on target

Everton 0-3, 2 shots on target

That sort of comment is neither here nor there. Goals change games.

 

 

Not sure why we're comparing Lambert's Villa to the best team in Europe, but okay.

I think we beat them once.

Unless we had. 62% possession and 17 shots on target I'm not interested.

 

"It came off his shin, so it doesn't count"

My aim would be for him to see as much of the ball as possible and him being central would allow him to do that and also get closer to Benteke.

We don't really play with any width from the midfield, as it all comes from the full backs, so I don't have a problem with the defensive shape being narrow too as it would at least discourage the likes of Gabby tucking in to form a five across the middle.

 

 

Their paceless back line is there for the taking.

True but that's what we thought about Everton's centre-back pairing also. It will require us to actually attempt to try and exploit it this time.

 

The forwards have to show some nous and improve their movement and as I have said, I would be in favour of playing Grealish centrally, especially if Sanchez is likely to start meaning Westwood has a bit more licence.

 

I do. They're at home against a side who cant score goals and on the back of a promising performance. Id have them as favourites too.

QPR deserve to be favourites for this. They try and play good football and look like they can create chances. We'll probably do our usual and try to get a 0-0 draw.

 

Would not be surprised in the slightest to see QPR win this fairly comfortably.

 

The quality of their football doesn't appear to have generated them too many points and has them bottom of the league, with their marquee result being beaten 3-2 by a thoroughly useless Liverpool side.

Their paceless back line is there for the taking.

Give Fry Cry 1 a whirl, you'll love it.