I don't think Neill was bad at all yesterday, and the right side was particularly strong for us going forward with some nice quick short passing and good movement. If you look hard enough at a players performance you will find faults, no matter who he is, and I think at the moment people are doing that with Neill. He was the scapegoat for out defensive failings of last year and the early part of this season, and it has carried over into a period when the defense has basically been as solid as anyone's in the Premiership outside of the top two or three.

I'd be surprised if we got 0 points. I'd expect at least a draw in one of those games, but who knows.

I would quite like to see the 4-5-1 again, with Stead starting and Savage in for Flitcroft if fit, I can't really decide if I'd want Thommo or Emerton so I'll leave that to Hughes. Stead made the 4-5-1 work really, made some good runs and held the ball up well. Dickov has been great for us this season, but he simply can't work as a lone striker.

Dickov was captain

Really could here the chants well, well done boys

Those 5-600 really made some good noise then, heard them well on TV.

Interesting to drag up that 4-5-1 thread and see what people say now

Interesting that Joey big nose hasn't come back since his comment about stead

Also important to mention we are now up to 14th, and only 1 point behind Birmingham who are on the decline, with us also having a game in hand on them and a couple of teams just below us.

Have to agree, great performance, and once that goal went in, which was very well taken, stead looked a different player. I thought this change was typified by when he had the ball in the corner of the area and turned his marker to shoot, instead of simply laying it back to the man which was the easy option. Confidence is so important, especially to strikers, and hopefully this will have given him his back, especially as it was a good one, and now he can hit some form in the final run in, which could make a huge difference to our season. Reid was excellent, as were the entire back four. Pedersen played well, got himself about, though his final delivery could have been better. Thompson did well, creative, fast, could be that spark that we need. Really just a great performance to see, I'm very pleased.

Yes but it's points not performances. That would be like saying the table is irrelevant as it is simply a statistic

Agree with your there TND, this is a game where we can get something, and though it isn't a must, it would be very important.

Check that other thread american, they already are haha

Just to tag along with jkritchey, MLS has some sides that play really well, and others who dont, just like any league in the world. The MLS sides have a wide variety of styles, some play with a Latin American flair (lots of ball control, short passes), and other play a more direct Euro style (faster pace, longer balls upfield). Some like to attack, attack, attack, others like to defend and counter. So you can't really say that MLS has a "style" since all the teams play so differently. To use Nelsen's prior team as an example, on DC United there were hard-working, lunch-pail, tough guys who ran their arse off during the course of a game, like Nelsen, Ben Olsen (played with Nottingham Forest a few years back before an ankle injury sidelined him for 2+yrs), Josh Gros (you'll be hearing about him soon enough with the US team), Brian Namoff (who Nelsen said was the best defender on the team), and Dema Kovalenko. They were mixed with guys who will make your head spin with ball skills like Jaime Moreno (spent time with Middlesborough a few years ago), young phenom Freddy Adu, and to a lesser extent Alecko Eskandarian (also future US team). Nelsen was one of the top players in MLS last season. He was recognized as an MLS Best XI, as was Carlos Bocanegra the year before who is having a decent run for Fulham (playing out of position, since he is also naturally a center-half), as was Demarcus Beasley playing now for PSV Eindhoven, and Landon Donovan working his way into Bayer Leverkuesen's starting eleven. My point is that while on the whole, MLS cannot compare to the EPL, there are players here who can do very well in your league. There are other Ryan Nelsens, and Bocanegras, and Donovans in this league waiting to be discovered. I think any EPL team could do worse than look here for inexpensive (compared to other leagues) talent, and no one should be surprised when they do well... Isn't that basically exactly what I said?

Please, no offense meant, but how much experience do you have observing MLS? Like any league it has good sides and dreadful sides, but anyone who has watched the league with any interest the past two years can not at all be surprised by Nelsen's success. His strengths are not reliant on his team mates and are transferable to any team playing any style. In fact what surprises me is some of the dead weight drawing a pay check in the lower half of the Premiership. Quite a lot of experience actually. I lived in the United states for nearly 10 years and grew up there, so I saw the MLS week-in-week-out. As far as quality of the league goes it probably equates to division two (or what would now be league one). Of course within that there are some better players, and a lot of talented youngsters, but the overall quality of play certainly doesn't make it anywhere near a first division European league. I'd bet that most players would at best fit nicely into a Premiership reserve team, and because of this every player being taken out of the league has to be looked at carefully, not because it's a terrible thing to have on you resumé, but because the quality of opposition is not as high as they will face in other places, and so their performances have to be viewed with increased scrutiny as to make sure that this is no simply because they aren't up against quality players. It's a bit like the British claiming that our Basketball leagues are great simply because 1 or 2 players have managed to then make it to the NBA. Some players of high quality, but it's a developing league, and in a few years it may well be something, as for now it is simply in its early years.

Are you interested in the army by any chance? I hear that they want people like you

Amazing "C'mon have it" "oh wait we are wearing the same claret and blue shirt, for a second I thought that was the blue and white?" How exactly do you lot manage these sort of things? No wonder you trashed your own town last time, probably thought you were in Blackburn.

I think this a game we can win. Everton have had a remarkable season, and deserve full credit for being where they are and they certainly deserve it, but they are still a rather mediocre side. The team works well as a unit, but then now ours does as well, it will be two solid sides against each other. If we can find that attacking threat from somewhere then I could see us winning this.

Ferguson knows who he is, Manchester United were scouting him at the same time as us.

It's not an insult to the league or the player to say it's amazing how well he's done considering he has come from the MLS. The league is of a different style and a much lower quality, how quickly he's adapted and slotted in is remarkable. Though I have to say, I didn't notice that many people knocking Nelsen when he signed, just the usual amount for any transfer, no matter how good. I just think it didn't really get anyone excited as most had never heard of him.

Don't really think you even have to try with us on this one longsiders, I doubt any on this messageboard believe he is the best in the country. He's a good player, who I think has been great for us since he has come here, but by no means the best around.

Well Nelsen won one of them and MGP the other.

Sounds like a great strike from a tight angle

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