lets get this straight. i thought the ref had an excellent game on saturday (no way was the collins tackle a red - he got it right, yellow) but nobody, and i do mean nobody, can say with any confidence that he didn't guess. he just happened to get it right! he had no help whatsoever from his linesman (who barely flagged for any throw in decisions let alone penalty calls!!). nevertheless, he called it right but it was a total guess and it took five replays at half time for anyone in the ground to figure out if he'd called it right or not.
as for guru claiming ruddy was 'outstanding', what match were you watching exactly? he only touched the ball about four times! ok, he made two decent saves but it was the opposition keeper who was 'outstanding' - not ours. his save from jackson was breathtaking and i can't help being a little dejected that up till now jussi jaaskelainen has had a poor start to the season, yet against us he's man of the match. typical. friedal was man of the match against us too!
never mind, we should have won the game with the chances we had but my god, that second half of football was dire. there was one passage of 'play' where the ball didn't touch the floor for about 60 seconds. i felt we were lowered to west ham's level to be honest as is often the case when a team is that painful to watch. stoke make us play like that too. can't understand what guru is talking about with snodgrass either - i thought he played pretty well and most of our good forward play goes through him. so what if he looked one footed (which he isn't by the way)... its what he does with the ball that matters but i will agree there were too many poor crosses, from both sides. johnson had another good game. the most pleasing thing at the moment is how secure we look defensively. barnett for me was man of the match and garrido oozes class. great signing him. we've got a very sound base to build on and i'm looking forward to seeing butterfield get a game soon as he will add another dimension going forward, while tettey (who i know very little about) should add more steel and thrust through the middle.
as for holt, he does look like he's carrying timber but in the previous two games, although he hadn't scored, he'd been excellent. ignore the fact he hasn't scored because has he even had a decent chance to score this season? i can't think of a single clear cut chance that's fallen to him. he was very poor saturday though. should have been taken off early 2nd half but people who doubt the guy make me laugh... as soon as he gets that first goal he'll start firing again. he only scored 1 goal in his opening 11 last season and he ALWAYS gets better as the season progresses. nothing to worry about at the moment but he shouldn't start the next game, purely based on that last 90, as morison and definitely jackson look sharper. they should be picked on form.