WHY WAS HE PLAYING IN CM!!! WHY WASN'T RICHARDSON PLAYING THERE, OR BARTON AND RAYLOR ON THE WING??? PARDEW, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!!! Awful performance. And Pardew, don't give Barton the captaincy again, he just uses it as an excuse to shout at the ref, and was lucky not to be booked twice. COLLO IS A CB, NOT A CM YOU GORMLESS IDIOT!!! Rant over...
Coloccini has all the right attributes to play as a CM and has done previously? Although I still would have went with Colo and Willo at CB and Raylor on the wing, Pardew wanted to keep Barton in the position he's played so well in this season.
barton drifted in to the centre too much.. pardew should of went with raylor on the wing and barton guthrie middle and jonas on the wing... strange 11 and formation by pardew, and let again young continues is diving antics and lets see if motd pick it up.....probably not.
Throwing a teenager into a game like this away from home is the quickest way to kill a young players confidence. Ferguson was a maybe since he's already had a few minutes on the pitch, but you don't start Richardson away at Villa, you bring him in off the bench when you can. Agree with Cal though, I'd have started Ryan Taylor and played Colo centre half.
Exactly. What exactly has Richardson done to merit a start away to a team that finished 6th last season?
Barton generally acts like a general and has been praised by many around the club, he just got too frustrated and shouted at the ref too much. He couldn't do much today, and Nolan wouldn't have made much difference.
Also, Coloccini DM could have worked really well today, that's the position (iirc) he played for Depor quite a lot to good effect. We have Perch, Tiote and Smith out who'd usually play DM and Barton has been ineffectual in CM in comparison to RM when he's played this season. R. Taylor's played about 3 games all year and in his last one managed to get sent off. Your argument is purely based on hindsight and if it'd worked then you'd have been going on about how good Coloccini was and what a masterstroke it was. Alas, it didn't pay off as it could have but the options for what we could do have been limited by suspensions and injuries
Didn't he play DM before? He was OK there, no one was great, overall Pardew picked the team I would have done given the players for selection.
