Fernando

Moussa Sissoko the poor man's Pogba?

hehehe I remember how many hated him because of his personality. He was like a Mourinho talking nonsense against us. To be fair I was in the same camp with some players until I was humiliated by Torres. Since then I don't care how jerk the guy is. Even if he bites players like Suarez. As long as they good they are alright in my book. Especially the passion is what counts more.

Definitely would be a great buy for our mid. We can even try to buy this January as he can play in the CL!

I thought Pardew was doing good for Newcastle despite the slow start. What a baffling decision.

Exactly, as the one poster put it on the long range shooting post we have lost that. That is one great way tool for parking the bus team. To shoot from outside the area.

as @lionsden, mentioned we have adopted the Arsenal approach of trying to make a million passes to get that amazing goal. Sometimes the most simple stuff is the most efficient. Yesterday against the Saints more long range shooting would have maybe helped us against that tight defense. I mean really, how do you beat a parking bus? The 3 best solutions have always been a set play. Like corners, free kicks and such. Stretching out the game via the wings. And long range shots. We are lacking on the last one because as mentioned we are going the Arsenal way of making 30 extra passes to get to the goal....

After having the watch the game after a second time I have to say the draw was the correct result. The Saints where awesome at the back that it cut of our shots on target. Now I will say that this is concerned for us though. How can a team with that much possession have one 1 shot on target? To me it's simple, we are doing the same mistake of Arsenal of trying to make a million passes in making the perfect goal then taking a clear shot.

Genius about not standing up from the beginning and cutting the problem to the root? He should have criticized Ivan and Cahill for the dive and said something like "that's something we don't tolerate". Instead he acted ignorant saying that he didn't see it.... Now when we get screw he decides to talk.... Like I said before a bunch of nonsense that frankly I don't care anymore from him. He's an awesome coach, but most stuff he says is nothing of greatness. The problem was there from the beginning for us to see, clearly it was something some of us had anticipated. Now on to the real problem besides the diving and that's our rotation. We do very little rotation, and the players we have to rotate are not as good. Schurrle, Salah cannot give us a good game. And those are the areas that continue to be overworked in Oscar, Hazard and Wililian. The replacements are just very woeful at this moment.

Last year we had no chance. This year we can beat them, as we got a more complete team and of course mourinho can outfox carlo. The one team I don't want to face is Bayern. Pep just like mourinho are hurt after last year and this year are like a hurting animal. Don't want to to take on that animal till the final or someone else eliminates them.

Well it's funny I mentioned a couple of days ago that because Ivanovic diving shenanigans we will get a true penalty call and not get it due to the perception we have at this instance. And just like that we got it here. Mourinho can say whatever he wants but he's just deflecting from the real problem. He needs to rotate more, or the players he have for rotation are not as good to fill in, and he needs to have a word with Ivanovic to stop the diving. Everything else is sensationalism and some of you guys buy into it like shepo. Mourinho always do this to stop people talking about the team.

Good stuff what I been saying. People here are just ridiculous and like to complain and make up conspiracy theories out of their own heads. Now I would like to add another thought to your 3 points. And that's that these fixtures are hard for the whole league. You saw how in the boxing day there was more energy. Here by second half a lot of teams was dropping like flies. The energy level was low that it was better to sit back and defend. And you can notice that by the amount of goals scored on Boxing Day vs today.

If today's tie is to go by then no. They have easy fixture now. Later their harder fixture comes by. I say going into March we are looking much better as gotten all the hard fixtures out of the way.

Are you going to say now that Burnley play the game of their lives while against us they put no resistance? Like I said before it's all relative.

Apart from the goal against West ham he has been a shade of his earlier self. Maybe needs some rest.

Yes but because of stupid Ivanovic we don't get it because we are now associated as divers!

Clear example of penalty where we don't get it because of all the diving in the past. Thanks a lot Ivanovic!

Ivan is stupid because of the reputation he's getting as a diver will cost us later. When he gets foul for real say in the quarter finals of the CL and we don't get the call because he's a habitual diver, then it will be his fault for his image. Stupid Ivan.

I can't believe it, Ex-blues. Oh how I dreamt this moment

Wow I thought no one was going to get sack before the year finish.

We should buy Charlie Austin for our English quota. ? Good enough to be our second striker.

Men this QPR is the most frustrating team to watch. Austin might be better then he actually is, scoring all those goals in such a horrible team.

2 to 1. Sets up for a nice finish.

Oh this game now got interested, red on giroud.

Did you forget last season how everyone was scared of City and us going to play them at the Etihad? I think even some of our fans gave that match as a lose before the game started. But Mourinho put an amazing game plan and we won 1 to 0. A few days later we faced City again in the FA Cup, but this time we got dispatch easily. What changed? Mourinho said that it was not easy facing the best team in the league in such a short period of time. Their quality back then was much more then ours. Now imagine poor old Sunderland. Having their games of their life and expect that same level against another tough opponent.....your asking for a lot men.

Not a one-of but an example of the concept. I guess you want less quality team like Stoke beating city at their home? That I think of Stoke has giving city a much harder time then us. Stoke are to City what Newcastle are to us. Each team has their bogey team if you want to call it that. But even then I will sympathize with Sunderland because it's hard to use the same tactics back to back. It's like last year we had an amazing game at the etihad and then just got dispatch easily at the FA Cup against city. So you got to understand its not easy to use the same tactics to perfection back to back, especially when theirs a big difference in quality.