Ray

GMD, And on top of all you have said, who was it that set Redmond away at the death, when we almost scored, with a lovely deft chip, why RM of course!

I think the reason some people have picked up on the two mis-placed passes is that this is something you very rarely see from RM, as his completed pass % indictates, so these two stuck out. He also made some very good runs and passes. Other players also gave the ball away, so why single out one player on what was a very good defensive performance.

Mybe he is in because we onl have 18/19 fit players!

GJP, You may be right, you may be wrong! But then I may be right, I may be wrong. There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don''t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don''t know. Donald Rumsfeld and Ray Time will tell!

GJP, No Snodgrass or Jonas, but I''m saying nothing.

LDC, IMO, the team will be; Ruddy Martin, Yobo, Bassong, Olsson Tettey, Johnson Redmond, Fer, Pilkington Hooper Subs; Bunn, Garrido, Whitts, Becchio, Elmander, RvW, (Hoolhan or Murphy)

YakeeCanary, I have already posted my selection elsewhere, however I am amending it to. Ruddy Martin, Yobo, Bassong, Olsson Johnson, Tettey Redmond, Fer, Pilington (was Jonas) (This may change to Redderz on the left and Snoddy on the right with Pilks on the bench) Hooper

YankeeCanary, Apology accepted and understood, it''s only a junction or two down the M4 anywway and still a bl**dy long drive after a defeat. The link has been taken down now so I am unable to review it again, however when I did view it I noticed Seb Bassong stopped tracking Bellamy, so RM probably expected Seb to continue tracking, but as you say this might be because they are zonal marking?? I was referring to the number of mistakes made in those two minutes, Hooper''s pass, Bennetts lack of interception, Bassong''s lack of tracking, Snoddy''s stopping dead in his tracks, Elmander running out of a defensive position and Martin and Bennett ''swapping'' positions, although there may have been a good reason for that. My point was, that in those two minutes a lot of players could, and perhaps should, have done better. We can all pick out mistakes by defenders throughout the season, and others players of course, and I have seen all four at the back make mistakes, Seb in particular has made some unforced errors, that happens. I just thoght to chastise one player in particular was unfair, given the performance overall, especially if they are playing to orders.

Reggie, Exactly and there lies the point I was attempting to make, all hypothetical posts around 10 - 0 defeats and the managers position thereafter and others of that ilk are daft, in fact pointless imo but I fully appreciate my scenario was just as daft because those who fuel negativity unfortunately walk among us, always have done and no doubt always will do. I could write a post about him securing his position if we win 10 - 0, less likely I know but surely not worth discussing until such times as events unfold. Says he who is bothering to type this post. So perhaps I am being hypocritical if not hypothetical!!!!

Now here''s a hypothtical scenario I would like to see come to fruition, all hypothetical posts that centre around a member of our club getting the sack if we lose, are banned from this board. These posts are fuelled and filled with negativity and the same posters probably have a go at CH for his negativity!

YankeeCanary, Sorry mate but I read your post three times and got a bit lost in it and had difficulty in following the points and sequence of events you were referencing, but this may have something to do with the fact that you think the Cardiff Manager has been deposed since the game, when I think you mean the Swansea manager, so your attention to detail seems a little off to me and this undermines the rest of your points. However I do feel it is unfair to focus on one player when mistakes were made all over the pitch, leaving our defence exposed, who in turn didn''t cover themselves in glory either, none of them.

I''ve changed my original selection (I call it rotation!), Yobo in for Turner and Johnson in for Garrido Ruddy Martin, Yobo, Bassong, Olsson Tettey, Johnson Redmond, Fer, Jonas Hooper

City 1st, I tend to agree with your point, I posted something similar to the following elsewhere, which sort of makes your point. For the seond goal, Firstly, Q) Where was Bennett, A) Outside of RM, Where should he have been? (rhetorical question) Secondly, Q) Who let Jones run into our box unmarked and unchallenged, A) Not RM or SB The nearest palyer to Jones when he set of on his run was either Elmander or Snoddy, Elmander decided to run out of a defensive position and Snoddy stopped running into the box and stood stock still as they attacked down the wing toward the byline. Consequently Jones could pretty much pick his spot, which he did, in the gap between RM and SB, the ball has to be crossed in that region of course but the winger looking up will see the space that his CF is running into and obviously send it in to that space, and on top of that, if he his running in unchallenged the CF will obviously gain al the height he wants, where he wants, when he wants. What chance the static defender? If that is the standard of defensive play by our midfiled then whether we play zonal or man to man it won''t really make any difference.

I would go, a la Chelsea with; Ruddy Martin, Bennett (if fit or if not Marin at CB with Whitts at RB), Bassong, Olsson Tettey, Garrido Redmond, Fer, Jonas Hooper Subs; Bunn, Whitts (see above) Yobo (if match fit, if not and Bennett not fit Gafaiti), Johnson, Snodgrass, Becchio, Pilkington

CJ, Perhaps more likely to be Russ Martin and Seb Bassong, with Whitts at RB, especially if he isn''t 100% match fit yet?

GJP, With our CB''s dropping like flies not sure we can afford to let him go! He would do whatever he needed to do to play Prem football, but my feelings are that, for now, he will stay here. He started two games on the pre-season tour, at RB funnily enough. I think he is one of those players that will develop into a utility player, who could play in a number of positions. With Turner''s contarct coming to an end in the summer and considering he will be 31 this year, I wouldn''t be at all surprised to see the lad on the bench next season.

Thirsty Lizard, I know Adel Gafaiti quite well and you won''t come across a more driven and focused lad and like you I think he has the makings, big and strong, two footed and can play, also I think he is calm and collected on the ball, I''ve seen him ping some crackers and in fact at Carrow Rd last Friday against Arsenal, he was sent up front for the last few minutes and had a shot blocked and provided a very clever deft header for Rod Young to run onto which earned us our penalty. I would be quite interested to see if we could make a damn good defensive central midfielder out of him, sort of in the Matic, Luiz role at Chelsea and if he is anywhere near as good as those two that''ll do us.

Quite a few who played last night are actually U18 players and those that are U21''s are young U21''s. Also besides the Murphs, other regulars such as Jamar Loza, Cam McGeehan and Ewan McNeil were missing, Jamar and Cam on loan and Ewan out injured. The oldest player out there was Rem Matthews at 19, the average age was probably 18, so considering a good showing by the lads.

Something I posted elsewhere and for Zola substitute Laudrup; I''m not going to bleat on about getting rid of the manager, because that appear to be very unlikely, but what stuns me more than CH still having his job, is the fact the Board appear to be doing nothing to help him (I could be wrong of course). It has been obvious to me and many others on here that we could, and perhaps should, have been doing better for a while now. We sometimes play well, in particular, against Chelsea when we looked like the team that was going to go on and win and against Man Utd. Yes I know we lost both but if we played like that every game for 90 minutes, or even 60, we would probably have picked up more points and would be relatively safe already.. So, why don''t we? I don''t have the answer but someone, somewhere, must be able to get involved and establish why and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I assume, dangerous I know, that the board must be asking the same question, time and again no doubt, but what are they doing about it? If they have decided that the manager stays, and it appears they have, then what other support can they provide. The obvious answers that immediately spring to mind are; 1) Employ another assistant. This doesn''t necessarlily mean getting rid of one we already have, but getting someone in, even if only to the end of the season, who can help the manager fulfill his remit. Maybe a name, someone with great credibility as a player, someone who the players will look up to, a suggestion maybe Zola, out of work until the summer at least. Not suggesting it is him but someone of that ilk. It would cost a few bob but probably well worth the investment, especially given every league position is worth an extra £1m 2) Make a marquee signing or two, although this option has gone of course There must be other things they could do, any (sensible) suggestions?

Not with his tactics but with the team talk he didn''t give; Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has revealed the club''s masseur gave the team talk ahead of the 1-0 victory over Manchester City at the Etihad on Monday. The Premier League title race was blown wide open by Chelsea''s win and it was inspired by Scot Billy McCulloch according to Mourinho. The Portuguese said: "I didn''t speak to the team - I am serious! It was Billy the masseur who spoke to them. "He was screaming so much in his Scottish accent, going grrr, grrr, grrr, that I didn''t understand, but the players were clapping so they must have got it! "The last time I spoke to them was at lunchtime. It was Billy''s team talk, I''m telling you. "Billy was fantastic, I didn''t understand, but it looks like the players did." OK, so do we have a Scottish masseur??

GJP, As you would expect, I don''t necessarliy agree re the split down he middle but my opinion isn''t so fixed that I wouldn''t consider re-framing it if there were data I could look at which could give a statistical picture, although I am fully aware there are lies, etc. I can''t find any data although I suspect it exists within the Prozone data, which quite rightly is confidential. Yes I am a massive RM fan, as I am of all the players that pull on a NCFC shirt, it just seems odd to me that he, and Whitts, appear to be singled out when, imo, they are no worse or better that our other defenders considering we have 8 clean sheets this season so far, which puts us equal 7th with Man City in the clean sheet league. Of course we shouild always be looking to improve, in every area, my main point was that our defence, generally speaking, is doing OK and it is our creativity and scoring that should be our main focus, which we do agree on, so all good then. I''m off to the U21 Norfolk Senior Cup game tonight, so here''s hoping for another clean sheet.

Beefy, Not sure what you are saying here, but if you are referring to the interview RM gave after the Newcastle game, when he spoke about the tenseness and how they could feel it and the Snoddy incident, and if you are saying he said that fans shouting abuse at the players helps them perform, then you are wrong as he said nothing of the sort. Can you elucidate, or point me to the interview. Thanks

GJP, If, and I know we didn''t, but it sort of makes a point re our defence, if we had only lost the fixtures against Man City & Liverpool, 1 - 0, then our defensive record (goals conceded) would only be bettered by Chelsea, Aresenal and Everton, so I don''t go along with all this weak/bad defending rhetoric and the criticism of the players in the defence. Our problem is creativity and goal scoring, OK the goals at the weekend were given away but the initial errors were not made by defenders. In fact if you look at our performances so far against the top 4 and if we applied the same criteria, insomuch we only conceded one goal in each of these games, then we would be equal first on goals conceded, with Chelsea on 20. Is it because we can''t score that the focus turns on the defence, if we were banging in 4 every game but conceding 2, I wonder how many of us would be complaining about our defence? I have asked the question elsewhere, but will ask you, do you have any stats re the number crosses or goals that have come from the oppo''s left as opposed to their right and if so do you have any comparison data with other clubs. I ask because I don''t see what you see but if there are stats that prove me wrong then I will readliy accept your point about our rightside. Although I wouldn''t automatically blame the RB''s I would also look at the amount of cover provided by our other rightsided players.

GJP, Did I say that he didn''t have to defend. No and why would I. I am serious about this club and don''t go around making such ludicrous comments as "he needn''t bother to defend". For you to assume this is was what I was saying is in my opinion, somewhat misguided in itself, What I said was that Jones ran unchallenged into our goal mouth and ran into a gap that perhaps, and I mean perhaps, one of ourr CB''s should have been filling. He arrived unchallenged at pace against a RB holding his position. Now should RM have seen him coming and recognised the fact Snoddy and Elmander had abandoned their roles, recognisaed the fact he was unchallenged, and made superhuman eforts to compensate for the failures of his team mates, possibly yes, but imo that puts him way dowm the list of people to blame for the goal. So, I agree with your second point, which was essentially agreeing with the point I made, that there were a number of players at fault and NOT just RM I don''t hear people blaming Seb for the first goal, he was originally tracking Bellamy but stopped allowing Bellamy to go through unchallenged.

Phil and Ted, So, we''ve seen how it;s done, now what 11 do we put out to do the same? Ruddy Martin Bennett Bassong/Yobo Olsson Tettey Garrido Redmond Fer Jonas Hooper