Northern White

Doubt it - he's better than Steinsson

But he has been one of our best players in the last few games, though.

Wrong about Muamba - superb without being showy. The main reason that Spurs didn't play well.

He's our captain and a Bolton legend and you can't even spell his name correctly FFS

That's not what I'm talking about (as well you know). Nolan is not a creative midfielder. In fact, I'm not sure what he's good at. The fact remains that one of the most creative players in the club is Davies and this offers him a chance to shine.

I've been thinking about this... If we had brought in a creative midfielder, how many games would Mark Davies get this season? Gardner and Muamba would seem to be guaranteed their places given Gardner's importance to the side and Muamba's newly formed confidence. How would Davies develop as a player? Maybe chucking him in at the deep end each game is what the lad needs. He's not short of confidence and maybe he needs to feel that that central, creative role is his. Though not in the same league, Arsenal did the same with Fabregas and didn't replace other midfielders when they left. I'm guessing that we're being really cautious with his fitness too and resting him when there's any doubt. Seems he's got until the January window to really stake his place.

Yes but I bet they don't just look at the installments with all the other clubs either. ?2.2M it will be for the little fella!

Well it doesn't work that way on the SSN board otherwise United would be a huge negative number. It's how much you spend not recoup.

They have us spending about ?6m in this window. But since most of our signings have been undisclosed how do they know? I thought that it was rumoured (by SSN themselves) that we had spent ?4.5M on Knight, ?2.2M on the Korean lad and ?2.5M on Ricketts. Add to that ?1M on Robinson (it's not a loan, apparently!) and you get ?10.2M. Strange!

As I mentioned in the ITK thread, that story is bollocks.

No Reebok = no Youri, no Jay Jay, no Campo, no Hierro!

How come stories always circulate from ITK sources when the club is going through a bad spell and you never hear ITK sources telling you good things about the club (transfer rumours from tylswhite aside!)? They are always from a 'reliable' source and always contain a player slagging off the club/manager etc. One doing the rounds at the moment involves someone who saw McCann on Saturday night after the game. Invariably, they are rubbish and someone has just made up stuff to portray the club or manager in a bad light. Yet never once have I heard a story such as 'A mate of mine, ITK, and someone I swear would always tell the truth, met Gary Cahill at Pizza Hut last night. Great lad. Said the players are 100% behind the manager and admitted they played poorly the other day but were determined to stick together and make sure we get 3 points next time out'. ITK sources will tell you that Megson's relationship has broken down between him and Gartside/Eddie Davies/a star player/the backroom staff etc. etc. etc. Most of it is garbage. Football clubs attract rumours like flies to a dead dog. Right, that's that off my chest....move on!

I'd like to see Lee and Gardner play together! Might be good

Our weakness last season was not that we didn't score enough but that we let too many in. See the example of Fulham - scored less than us but let 19 less in.

I'm not sure anyone can defend the poor performance - it was pretty poor. However, some of the OTT reactions to the game are indefensible. My take was this:- Jussi - Fine - not sure he had much of a chance with the goal and made another of his world class 'make the first save then get a fist on the ball before anyone else can shoot' saves out of the top drawer. Ricketts - I like the guy but I think he was let down a bit today. Should have had help from McCann but didn't. Cahill - Nice and solid Knight - OK-ish. Up against two fairly muscular attackers. Won virtually every header but needs to distribute the ball better. He and Cahill need to work on their partnership. Robinson - better than I thought he was going to be (not saying much) but JLloyd should play next game. McCann - should never have played on the right. Muamba - again, not bad at all. One misplaced pass straight to Jones in the second half but broke up play well and made a few simple passes. Davis - huge diappointment. Didn't do any of the things that we saw him do against Hibs where he was taking the ball off the back four and making telling passes. Maybe he had debut nerves. expecting him to play better in future. Taylor - poor game. never really got into it. Davies - the referee didn't like him, did he. Elmander - lethargic first half but showed glimpses in the second. Did really well to get a shot off in the second half that was just wide. Subs: Lee - reminded me of Gardner's debut all those years ago. First touch was to tread on the ball. Second was to run at the Sunderland full back which was fantastic to see. I'd start him against Hull Ward - who??? I think we will end up playing better away from home this season. Just think the atmosphere at the Reebok doesn't help the players (look at Jussi's response in the first half to the crowd). We will get better and this was always going to be a hard game. Make any judgements after 10 games, I think.