drurys dodgy knee

[quote user="I am a Banana"]but if whitbread won the header then he wouldn''t have had to track parkin [:S] [y][/quote] Well, I don''t blame Whitbread for not winning that header, I think he would have had to foul Parkin to win it. However I do blame Whitbread for letting Parkin turn, run towards goal and shoot unchallenged.

If Whitbread had tracked back rather than let Parkin turn and run, Parkin probably wouldn''t have got a clean shot in. The CRITICAL error was not tracking Parkin

For everyone moaning about Whitbread''s failure to win the header for the Parkin goal, the critical error was his failure to track Parkin after the flick on. If you''re going to moan, moan about the right thing!

Im half-expecting Barnett to be fine. after pulling up he didn''t go to ground or receive any treatment by the side of the pitch as you might expect from more serious injuries, he waited for the physio and quiety walked his way round the edge of the pitch. Given that Nelson has gone and Askou is on loan, Lambert has probably given each of the centre-halves clear instructions not to take any risks. Perhaps Barnett cramped and followed orders by signalling to the bench that to carry on would be a risk. These are my hopes anyway...

"If you''re going to be playing Surman, Lansbury, and Hoolahan then the person at the base needs to be disciplined and able to dictate the pace of our attacks with his passing and vision. That''s Fox, not Crofts" Wrong. The attacking players should dictate the pace of our attacks, and Wes, Henri and Surman are three of our best passers and clearly all have great vision. if those three are all in midfield, we would need a terrier of a defensive midfielder. That''s Crofts not Fox.

If Holt didn''t have an out-and-out striking partner, he might end up dropping off more to support our attacking moves and wouldn''t get into the box as much as he should

I think everyone wants to see a diamond with crofts at the base, hoolahan at the tip, surman left and lansbury right. I think that would be our strongest midfield setup

A loan striker plus Surman returning from injury would be just what we need for the final third of this season

He was on loan when he was with us. He played in the world cup last year

Rest assured that, come the Norwich v Bristol game on Sky next month, the commentators will be singing our praises

[quote user="Bethnal Yellow and Green"][quote user="First Wizard"]Odd, in todays EDP, Lambert said the situation was ongoing.[:|][/quote] I don''t have the paper version, but the story on the internet has a quote from Lambert made last week and the EDP saying it is on-going. Poyet said yesterday that Norwich made an enquiry, it was rebuffed and nothing has moved on from there. As Purple Canary said it could be we are still in for him, as he isn''t exactly the same kind of player as Lansbury, but our midfield is still well populated, despite Gill, OTJ etc going out on loan (see the thread about 5 into 4). One of the many qualities of Lambert is his ability to keep us all guessing when it comes to transfers. I just think it is odd that Lansbury''s loan wasn''t tied up straight away after the Cardiff game -- why did we wait a week meaning he couldn''t play against Sheffield Utd? [/quote] It''s not a case of us dallying. Arsene Wenger took some time to consider who he should loan out and where. It wasn''t until last Friday that he announced his intentions. I''m sure Lambert would have had Lansbury for the Sheffield United game if he''d had the choice!

Had Wibraham''s gorgeous curling effort been two more inches to the left yesterday (which, I think, was better than any of Holt''s efforts over the 90) I suspect that the ''need'' for another striker wouldn''t be such a concern for many of our knee-jerk fans. We''ve played some good teams at home recently, we are not always going to be able to ping off loads of shots - teams will come to try and stop us playing, particularly in and around the penalty box. Just be happy that we are getting the results we deserve and ARE scoring goals

*Parkin

Ok ok, maybe parking is a slightly better deal than wilbraham, but there are other comparisons we should look at. For example, on yesterday''s performance, and for his performances all season, I would rather have R Martin in my squad than Bellamy. And Fox completely bossed the middle of the park, with Whittingham having a quiet game by his standards. Let us not complain and criticise! We are a great team right now.

This whole "going for it" thing I think is being pulled out of context. I got the impression that lambert was going to get a few lads in to help, and if we were in a good position when it came to the back straight, then we would "go for it" then. I took this to mean that, in around late feb / early march we would get a loan player or two in for the final push

Has tweeted that he expects to be available this Saturday. Perfect timing!

I think a likely kind of signing would be someone like Mackail-Smith from Peterborough. Not an overwhelming signing, but a proven goalscorer.

What a lovely situation we have at the moment, 5 centre halves, all of whom can do a job for us. All too often in seasons past have we had to dip into the loan market or play midfielders and full backs out of position. We have real strength in depth at the moment, underlined by our result yesterday

This would be my formation v Middlesbrough: Ruddy R.Martin Barnett Whitbread Drury Crofts Smith/(Lansbury if fit) Hoolahan C. Martin Holt Wilbraham I was very impressed with how we attacked yesterday. We had several great chances that should have seen us giving QPR a right pasting. And that''s quite an achievement against the league''s tightest defence. I''d keep Whitbread and drop Nelson mainly because I think Zak is a more classy defender. I see him being genuine competition for Ward, who will not necessarily walk straight back in when he returns from injury. Another point is that Crofts played a noticably better game at the base of the diamond, where all his best performances have come from. We kept a clean sheet yesterday partly due to the fact that Crofts played infront of the back two and Fox didn''t. Wilbraham played great yesterday. What a bargain he will turn out to be! Having someone to flick the ball on to Holt now gives our forward line so many options, and with Chrissy Martin, our best striker with the ball at his feet, following up any knock-downs, we could see our team banging them in for fun

Were people seriously expecting us to sign a striker who would replace either of our regular starters? Scoring goals has not been a problem for us, conceding has. We only need another big striker for when Holt isn''t available which is probably only one in every 10-12 matches. It therefore makes perfect sense to get a 6footplus striker in for cheap so that we can spend a bit more on midfield and defence to ensure that we concede fewer goals.

*clearly didn''t work

*clearly didn''t

I think Lambert started with Russel Martin as a centre half because he knew that, with Barnett suspended, Ward injured, and Nelson and Askou replacing them, we would not have passed the ball out of defence. Ruddy clearly had instructions not to kick the ball long at the start of the match, and Martin had more touches than anyone else on the pitch as he was proving to be the link between our defence and midfield. It clearly did work, and the formation changed fairly sharpish. Concerns for the next match are that Barnett will still be suspended, Ward may still be injured, and Lappin has now picked up a one match suspension for 5 yellows. Our back four will be tested against a strong QPR side, let''s just hope we can settle a bit quicker against them than we did against Sheffield.

Just saw this on sky sports news, who have taken this rumour from the Sun. Apparently Kean is ''eyeing the defender, who is thought to be worth around £600k''. I hope he''s not going anywhere.

Ha! Sorry about that! Damn predictive text. Of course, I meant to say premiership!