zak123

Hmmm, really? As far as I could see he is a terrible tackler that should have been sent off by the end of the game (he picked up a yellow + >>>). His terrible tackling injured R Bennett and almost injured Tettey in the first half. That is a man who does not know where to put his feet when tackling, if it was intentional he shouldn''t be playing the game. Other than that he didn''t really do much. Distinctly average. We have two left backs who are better.

GrantsMoustache kind of hints at why comparing Borini and Remy is like comparing apples and oranges. Borini is 23, while Remy is 27. That additional four years is worth a lot. Not only does it literally give four extra service years in which the player could play it also suggests that at this point and in his ''prime'' Remy is pretty much a known commodity. Of course he is a good player, but Borini does provide more scope for improvement, as a player with extremely little service time (he hasn''t played much first team football) he could become better or even at the same level as Remy. As such for this season it might seem a little ridiculous for Liverpool to make almost £6m and get a better player, but in the long term Sunderland have a player than should be playing for longer and has the opportunity to become an excellent striker, potentially better than Remy. Of course when he was at Roma and moved to Liverpool he was considered a great prospect! He could still make it big. If he does that Sunderland will be selling on for a high fee. As I see it, this situation is worth £14m to Sunderland, if he gets much better to being the best player he can he would move to a top club for £20m plus and they make money. If not, he seems unlikely to regress, as such they get a serviceable versatile winger/striker than will get around 8 goals a season. With current football finances they may have overpaid if they get that, but that''s the risk you take when buying young players over known commodities.

"is having a shocker" "SHOCKER" tsk tsk tsk Funniest post of the year. He isn''t having a great game, but a shocker, really?

Hi Guys, Just looked on the clubs website and can''t see anything about tickets. A post from 15th say that tickets were going on general sale. Anyone know if there are any left that will be on sale at the Lane tomorrow? Z

*Managers and other footballing staff tend to be involved with the tournament (either as Pundits or through scouting for new players), especially in the Premier League.

Euro 2012 is the most important factor in all of this. Every 2 years (World Cup and Euro''s) the off-season is much quieter to start with, through June, than it is during the off years. Players are all over the place, many playing in the Tournaments, if not then on Holiday or attending said tournament. Managers and During the off-year however players may take a Holiday, however they are not typically away for a very long amount of time. Whilst they may be away from the team it is much easier to bring them in, to discuss contracts and to purchase players from other clubs. One reason for this being exaggerated is the fact it is our first time in the Premier League during such an event. The effects explained above don''t really have much hold, if any on the lower leagues, as such if we were in the Championship next season, player purchasing probably would have started. This is mainly due to the quality of lower leagues not matching Tournament standard. Another potential reason that you are feeling like this off-season if particularly slow is that Paul Lambert typically did business extremely early (by 1st July last year we had 5 signings).We will probably still purchase relatively early (Early July), as McNally can probably see the benefit of that, especially with a new Manager. Many teams like to see what they have through the pre-season and first few weeks of the season before purchasing in August.

I ''signed''.

Fantastic news. However everyone making out as though they "never doubted him" when in league one is utter rubbish. I thank Lambert for seeing something in training that wasn''t showing on game day in League one. That led to him being a high quality player in the Championship. We shouldn''t kid ourselves though he was quite bad during the League one campaign, never held the line properly, a lack of communicating and players flooded past him. He has however become better as we have progressed! With regards to the Peterborough comments, I don''t think this is the case at all. I never think of him as being from there and creating negative thoughts toward him... He is a fantastic squad defender, can play RB, LB (if asked to) and CB. Probably won''t be a full time starter next season due to Ayala and Bennett and hopefully a new RB signing, but will likely play a large number of games as a fill in for any spot due to injuries.

No not at all. But it seems to me Messi (from when I have seen him, which isn''t that much admittedly) that he either is amazing, scoring 5 goals or he doesn''t score. Taken slightly out of context though. I prefer to watch RVP if i''m honest.

I feel kind of guilty saying it given how obvious the choice is, but has to be RVP for me. Simply one of the best players I have ever seen play. He has everything you could want in a striker: movement, pace, ability to hit a ball however it comes to you... I would say 2nd best player in the world behind Messi, and to be honest i''m not that high on Messi, some of the stuff he does is wonderful but often seems to just be a bit quiet if he isn''t having a great game (ie vs AC Milan) where as RVP has had so many 1 shot 1 goals this season. Also has 8 assists I think (if not more) to go with his goals.

Well actually, I think the first 25 minutes of amazing play showed it wasn''t wrong. Possibly some of the finest passing I have seen this year at Carrow Road. I don''t really know how the game just changed, but it did. I see this so often on this board, people seem very quick to forget things that happened in the first half. Anyways, that aside, it maybe should have been changed around at halftime, but it''s quite clear that the Diamond (when they play the passing game, not long ball) was working.

As messed up as it sounds, the premier league of 5 years ago was a better league for the masses because of the quality gap of the top 4. This mean''t there was a real chance for anyone else to get into the UEFA Cup places (as it was then). The current premier league of the top 7 does of course have it''s advantages, a more competitive top of the league and more inter top team games, now to the point there is a good top 7 team game every week. Personally I agree with the OP that cup places for Europe are ridiculous. Winning the cup is what getting far in the cup is about, not Europe. It should return that the top 7 teams get places in Europe, it would definitely make it more competitive, with teams like Stoke and hopefully us next season battling for that last 1 or 2 places. That said Newcastle have shown us how to go about sustainable living in the premier league, they turned a profit last year and now are pushing for a Champions League place.

Another thing that Fox does, once he passes the ball, he follows it. In theory it sounds like a bad idea, but if you watch, when he gets the ball back it''s always in a slightly more advanced position. He continues to do this until a good pass is open wide or further up the field for a full attack to start. Given his passing ability, this type of play is very Scholes.

It definitely should have been Fox starting for Johnson. As soon as Fox came on we stopped lumping it up the field, which of course was not going to work given their size in defense. We did once Fox came on get it into some better positions. Fox and Howson would have worked well together in that midfield 2. If Lambert wants to play the 4-2-3-1 in future game we should play with Fox and Howson in midfield. Pilkington or Bennett on the right of the 3, Surman on the left and Wes through the middle. Given Howson''s tracking back today it has shown me with he and Fox in Midfield we won''t be a liability. Howson is the future.

I hope we lose. Our mission for this season is to stay up. Staying in the Premier League this season is our objective. Staying in the cup puts that in danger. Simple. Also, look at Birmingham. I know it''s League Cup however same same but different.

Even though it may not seem it out defense and the defenders are actually playing pretty well at the moment. We were never actually beaten on normal attacking plays, these were defended valiantly and we actually kept Adebayor pretty quiet. Our slight problem comes either when we make mistakes on the ball (Bale close chance when we passed it around the back for too long etc) or when we haven''t had our midfielders fully tracking back (eg evertons goal) leaving the back 4 exposed which we can''t do in the premier league... Given that we still have Ayala and Ward we really don''t need a new CB in January. We just need to stick with 2 players, and I would be happy with Martin and Whitbread, lets not forget this is only their 4th game together, they have not been playing with each other all season! Also everyones rants about De Leat are completely false (eg "out of his depth") he actually played a fantastic game yesterday!

(@Banana not OP)

^ irrelevant

Hi All, Am off to NYC next week for a week and was wondering if anyone knows of anywhere that any city fans meet to watch the games? (im thinking in a city of 8M there must be 5 or so city fans (enough to make a club)). I am specifically looking for the Everton game. If not, then maybe just a generic sports bar or something around town where it might be on? Thanks in advance!

We should all remember, his most familiar position is Right Full Back. Despite the fact he started in a central role for us earlier in the season, for all of his other teams he has spent most of his time here.

That the Diamond is not defensive enough for the Premier League... Yesterday showed that it can work great, even when we needed to be defensive. I thought from the moment we changed it, we looked much better on the ball, passing it about with ease. We also had more protection in defense, when we changed Surman gave Tierney and Crofts, Naughton protection down each side, which was very similar to what happened last year. This actually made us look a lot better here, a place where many have considered us to be weak. It also gave Hoolahan back the ultimate free role. When we played the 4231 he was free but I didn''t see him much getting to the wings to help out, or really creating much by coming back and effectively taking the ball from one of the central midfielders. The goal being an excellent case in point, this is a place where we just haven''t seen him this season, and I think we need to get him back to that free''er role. Also, before I get people having a go at me, I am aware that it was the last 20 minutes of the match, however, I must say when we switched to the Diamond we actually looked better in defense and they weren''t really able to create much, and with a bit of a better final ball we could have scored 2 more, which was better than our chance creation in the first half. Personally I hope for a change back to the Diamond, maybe leaving Pilkington out for a few games, and using him as an impact sub or maybe, if we are playing really well play him in the RM role on the diamond, then switch to Crofts for the bigger teams who will require more defending.

@Nexus I really can''t believe that because a boot is definitely known to be at its best from 3-5 games, 1-2 its just too new and tight...

Really? I was chatting with quite a few people before the game and the consensus pretty much was that a draw would be good in this game.

I would say it was average noise, wasn''t that quiet but also wasn''t rocking. And we were not playing poorly, for the first 30 - 35 mins we were excellent.

Not usually as advocate of Long Range shooting, but I do believe that with Johnson, Pilkington, Fox and Bennett in the team we probably should take a couple at him if nothing else is on, knowing that this is his weakness.