TomC

Agree with you on this point...I was thinking how Targett-like Digne looked today with his crosses getting blocked. Can't disagree more...see what I said about rotation above.

The new manager bounce is gone. We keep hearing about Gerrard's higher standards and how clear his instructions to the players are, but you didn't see it today, or for that matter in the collapse against Leeds on Tuesday. Furthermore, Delphouneso made a good point in today's match thread... Deano talked about rotating players but never did. It's more of the same with Gerrard...he talks about wanting to have two players competing for every position, but he throws out the same XI today (other than the forced change for Konsa) despite the fact that the players are knackered. Sanson has not lived up to hopes, but he isn't any worse than McGinn or Dougie have been lately; give him a run. Remember how McGinn and Dougie got burnt out at almost the same time last season? It's happening again. Most of us think that Watkins has been out of sorts, why not give Ings a run? The subs Gerrard made were good ones, but maybe they should have been the starters and certainly they were too late...how many times did we say that under Deano? The commentator here in the States said it about right..."You get the feeling that Dean Smith was the victim of the expectations he created." We're going to finish 10th-12th, right about the same as last year. No progress this year. All you can hope to do now is set the foundations for next year. I'm not saying Gerrard is a bad manager, only that he still has a lot of work and learning to do. Which is how I felt about Deano.

We weren't very good today. But then, neither were Newcastle. If you wanted to put a positive spin on it, you could say that this was a game decided by two strokes of bad luck...an unlucky deflection off Buendia's thigh and an unlucky offside call. (Even is on, and it looked even to me! Can you really say from the snapshot they showed that it was clearly offside?) But if you don't try to spin it, the bottom line is that Newcastle's defence was well organized and we couldn't break it down. We couldn't pass a ball to save our lives today.

It's fair to say that this has not been his best season for us. But sometimes players have bad seasons. Let's not write him off. He's had enough good seasons for us that he's earned it.

Probably in Spanish, and not just because Coutinho probably learned it at Barca. For the spoken language, Portuguese speakers have an easier time understanding Spanish than the other way around. Spanish has only 5 vowels, while Portuguese has a complicated vowel system that Spanish speakers have trouble dealing with. They're close enough that, in writing, speakers of either language can read the other without too much trouble.

Probably as a sub!

I agree with you here...they clearly don't want to lose him.

Nah. If we bring in a bigger name, we'll sell one, but not both. We need cover. Besides, just because Ings and Watkins can't play together doesn't mean that we couldn't run a two-striker system with some other combination. With Konsa sitting next game, Chambers is going to get a chance. I'm not expecting him to be great, but he'll be motivated to try to force his way into the team.

You can tell I'm getting old by my grammar!

Given that we had two injuries and and then a red card, it's a good thing he didn't bring Ings in. Our chances of conceding a fourth would have increased if we had to play the end with only one centre back. Good to see Chambers make his debut, even if not under ideal circumstances and even if he didn't have too much to do.

Don't let the lighting fool you, I'm actually 236 years old. I even remember Archie Hunter.

I know your posts well enough to know that you're historically informed...no worries. He does have special talent, no questioning that!

Chuk wasn't anything special but I don't think he did anything wrong. Ramsey didn't look good in many of his appearances last year and look where he is now. Young wasn't on very long, but I didn't see where he did anything wrong, either.

You can't rule out that it will end that way, but it's waaaaay too early to say that. In my time, Paul McGrath will be hard to top, to say nothing of Sid Cowans, Pongo Waring, Billy Walker...

I'm going to add one more thing...we always seem to have problems with Leeds on the wings. Does anyone else think that maybe the narrow 4-3-3 wasn't right for this opponent? It's served us well for the most part since Gerrard's been here, but you have to have some flexibility.

Bad luck played its role (Coutinho and Buendia injuries, the bizarre way that the bump from Buendia allowed the second Leeds goal), but still, it's hard to see this as anything but two points thrown away.

Highlights of his performance against Paraguay...skip to 2:16 if you just want to see the goal...

I don't know if I'm that disappointed about him leaving. He wouldn't see much time, and Ashley Young is a more than capable backup until the end of the season (at which point Targett will be back). But I agree with the part about strengthening a rival...why to Newcastle? Absolutely every team in the league should want to see them go down. They're going to spend their way to the top eventually. If they get relegated, it buys everyone more time to cope with threat. I'd be more disappointed about missing out on a DM if it had been a summer window. Although this was a particularly active January window, January is usually a hard time to get things done. So, using January standards, give this window 4 out of 5 stars in my book.

A minor part, true, but not zero part. He's a mid-table left back and they're a desperate relegation-threatened team. If he helps stabilize them how he helped stabilize us, they will not be complaining. Granted, it's only a loan, but if he leaves permanently, this is another deal that will be interesting to re-evaluate a year from now. Was last year's good performance the fluke or was this year bad performance the fluke?

That depends not only on how he plays at Spurs, but who else we sign. Indeed it will be interesting to see what we think a year from now...

108 pages for someone most of us hadn't heard of a month ago. 116 for Matty Cash, a regular for two seasons. 128 for Ezri Konsa, a regular for three seasons. Maybe there's some truth that some people enjoy the transfer window soap opera more than the actual football...

I have faith in their negotiations skills. They got the Buendia deal done with no fuss, they landed Coutinho, they kept Ings and Chambers quiet. They know what they're doing. And if Juventus wants too much, they'll just walk away and wait until the summer. Amen! I don't think we want to wander too far off topic, but DD (Deadly Doug for the young ones) didn't destroy us. ThunderPower is right. DD wanted to run the club safely like it was still the 1970s and didn't understand that the PL changed everything. We were in a position to be out in front in the new age, but instead we ended up adrift in the second tier of clubs. But at least he didn't spend recklessly; otherwise we could have been Leeds and spent 10+ years out of the PL, or could have been Derby facing the end of everything. The best thing would have been somewhere in between reckless and safe, and he didn't get it. But better safe than reckless. It could have been much, much worse. We have survived and can rise again.

I agree with you, I don't think of him as primarily a DCM when at Villa. But CM or CB? He played many different positions, but I remember him spending a lot of time in back when he first started out with us... If you count him as a DCM, yes, I'd say he's our best of the PL era. I'd like to drop peak-era Barry into today's side. It would certainly solve that gaping hole in midfield.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. In many cases they were all-rounders, but in some cases, midfielders already had the reputation as ball winning specialists in the early PL era...Ince, Batty, to some extent Keane...

Agreed about the Richardson-Townsend pairing. Before Townsend replaced Gary Parker, I remember Parker being the more attacking of the two between him and Richardson, but maybe my memory has faded. Plus we didn't get every game over here back then...