goodrobotusses

Neither. One likes to kick the ball really far, the other likes to kick people really far. Call me a fantasist, but I think we can do better. Or, at least I hope we can. (It's one of my great fears that we'll sign Cattermole.)

Think that's because Sunderland fans' idea of a good central midfielder is Lee Cattermole.

Don't like him wide or further forward but can see him growing into a good distributing midfielder who backs up play. He keeps play ticking over nicely, receiving it and moving it on quickly when he plays deeper. His attitude is excellent by all accounts, staying behind in training to practice. He just needs to learn to be less timid on the field (don't think the positions we play him in help in this respect) and needs coaching on defensive positioning. He could go either way, but I'm more positive about his future than Carroll's, Adam's and Downing's.

Aye. Remember him and Marat Izmailov being the next big Russian things. Izmailov's at Sporting Lisbon, to be fair. Sychev flopped at Marseille.

I live with a former OT season ticket holder. Said the only time he ever left early was Aurelio's free-kick. Brilliant.

Has Carroll done any better as a target man, honestly?

That's another six months of post-match interview duty for Mike Phelan right there.

Villa's ineptitude did us in but it was our ineptitude in the Arsenal/Arshavin 4-4 at Anfield that made me angrier than anything. We should have buried them. Agreed. The PL this season is s**** compared to 08-09, or any season from 2004 to 2009. That was when it was the best league in Europe (in terms of having the best overall top-level teams, not necessarily to watch).

Bielsa drills every single movement that his teams make with and without the ball. There will obviously be elements of improvisation from the player on the ball, but the off the ball running is synchronised. They took about 10 games and a lot of poor results to adapt to his methods. They're on a great run now though. Bear in mind just how much Bielsa's hands are tied in terms of recruitment also.

Carroll and Spearing modelling the new home and third kits.

Which makes sense, given how intensive his methods are and the theory that a lot of those sorts of coaches' teams don't maintain their 'peak' for very long. Coaches that work their teams hard and demand high-pressing football (which requires lots of training ground drudgery) seem to find players getting sick of them quite quickly. Think it was Sacchi who theorised as much (someone look it up for me please).

It's definitely worse than the 'roadkill' yellow Reebok one from a few season's back. Or this s***ty, patterned gold effort by Adidas circa Neil Ruddock.

The away looks boss. The home looks like someone's embossed the club's logos on a polo shirt. The third kit is one of the worst things I've ever seen. Plus, it reminds me of Fiorentina's early-'90s 'swastika' kit.

Hopefully he chinned the c***.

We did very well with two up front last season – Kuyt and Suarez – but they're both players who get involved out wide and between the lines. They were supported by 'wide' players who linked with them and got beyond them. We've changed that this year and used more of Carroll – who is 100% dependent on being provided with service, so already in attack it's like being a man down – Downing, who doesn't look comfortable doing anything but lingering wide and occasionally pretending to be a winger, and Henderson, who doesn't look suited to the role out wide and offers no goal threat. Question: how many top European clubs field strikers who are 100% dependent on being given service (and service of a certain type in Carroll's case)? The closest I can think of is Hernandez at United, but he's quick and has excellent movement. Inzaghi and Owen are anachronisms who don't play and are both about ready to be turned into glue. Milito, maybe, but I'd say that's doing him a disservice.

My brother made this point to me yesterday. We spend every game going hell-for-leather and don't use substitutes until as late as 85 minutes, so is it any wonder certain players have looked absolutely knackered at different points of the season? Enrique's form dipping being a case in point.

Do we know that Maxi can't play a couple on the bounce, or are we just assuming that because he's spent most of the season MIA while Downing wastes all of the oxygen down the flank? Bellamy's fitness problems are well-known, but all we've heard about Maxi (that I'm aware of) is Kenny saying something along the lines of "it's a shame we didn't have him when he was younger", as if he's a creaking geriatric. Maxi's never been about pace. He's an intelligent, ball-playing inside-right/left who knits play brilliantly, has a fantastic relationship on the pitch with Suarez and scores goals. Yet, whither Maxi?

Add Spearing to the list of players from last year who haven't had much of a look in. Spearing and Lucas were excellent. Both moved the ball quickly and efficiently. Adam, well, doesn't. He has also been a part of the problem (although for £7million it's a little less upsetting than Carroll and Downing). I'd like to see Henderson be given an opportunity in that role, providing he can learn to perform the defensive duties. Gerrard should be moved further forward, either as an inside-right or playing behind Suarez.

I'd agree with all of that, except for the Carroll and Downing part. I think they're part of the problem, not the solution.

I think he's a victim of a desire for quick players on the wing (not that Downing or Henderson know how to use their pace). A shame – one of our most intelligent players.

Yep. Our performance in those opening games was exceptional. The only blot was the first game: Blackpool. We have slipped this season from that early high-water mark, although five in six is title-winning form; I don't think anyone in their right mind would expect us to maintain that at this stage. The 18-game figure for last season is a reasonable expectation for me: not guaranteed fourth going on recent years, but challenging. We've slipped quite a bit below it.

2010-11 after 26 games: Hodgson – 20 games, 25 points (1.25 points per game); Dalglish – six games, 13 points (2.17 points per game). Over Dalglish's 18 games we won 33 points in total (1.83 points per game). 2010-11 after 26 games: Dalglish – 26 games, 39 points (1.5 points per game). We had 34 points after 20 games (1.7 points per game).

I think FSG said they wanted to be challenging for the title in three years.

The "we just need a goalscorer" argument is the new "two strikers are more attacking than one". Our style of play progressed dramatically under Kenny in the second half of last season and we took 33 points from 18 games (an average 1.83 points for game), which equates to a Champions League-threatening season total 69.5 (albeit these points were won with the pressure off). This season we've won 39 points in 26 games – average 1.5 points per game – which equates to a total of 57 for the season, which would have gained us at best 7th and at worst 9th in the seasons between 2004-05 and 2010-11. [broken record mode on:] In the second half of last season we usually played with a flexible front four of Suarez, Kuyt, Maxi and Meireles – all intelligent players comfortable playing one and two-touch football and alternating between pulling wide, dropping between the lines and getting into the box. We had Spearing and Lucas distributing from the base of midfield quickly and intelligently. This season we've largely dispensed with Spearing, Kuyt, Maxi and completely binned Meireles in favour of the likes of Carroll, Downing, Henderson and Adam and usually flicked between a bog-standard English-style 4-4-2 or 4-1-4-1 predicated upon crossing the ball into the box (which we're awful at), set pieces and pumping more long balls forward. As a result, Suarez's form appears to have suffered and Kuyt's too when he's played. To answer the original question(s), we progressed last season, but have regressed again this. A pure goalscorer won't help because our issue all season has been a lack of genuine creativity and intelligence. People can argue about our 'chance creation' stats and, yeah, we've missed some chances, but our whole attacking game appears to now be about forcing the ball over the line, not unlike a rugby team. We attack like idiots. Slow thinking, slow bodied idiots. Neil made a great point on the Wrap yesterday: in the summer we needed a boss Spearing but we signed a worse Gerrard. We've taken out the bits that worked and replaced them with the wrong parts. Removing yet another midfield part – an attacking player who can operate between the lines (ie Kuyt) – for an 'out-and-out goalscorer' (ie Darren Bent) will not improve us. I think it will make us worse, or at least even less coherent. This isn't about being disrespectful to the boss – he's a great, great man – but looked at objectively (or as objectively as somebody who's no great believer in English-style football can, admittedly), we've not been good enough this season by a long chalk. The Carling Cup was lovely and all. Winning trophies is important, and even moreso following a barren six-year spell, but this one papers over the cracks that have been showing all season. Last season Birmingham won the League Cup and were relegated. This season we've won it, might win the FA Cup (which would be brilliant) but won't get into the CL, and are therefore relegated to another summer of targeting second-tier calibre footballers. There's an automatic glass ceiling attached to being outside of the CL. It can be broken, but it's bloody difficult to. All this is a season when Arsenal and Chelsea have been as bad as they've been in 15 and 10 years respectively (City and Spurs might have replaced them, but they're not as good as the other two were over the past decade). The question was related to the direction of the club as a whole. Well, I think off the pitch there has been investment but we wasted it on bad players. We purposefully limited our markets to buy 'PL-proven' players, despite having a supposed world scouting expert in place, and we've reaped the rewards for buying British: worse, less coherent football, much like, well, a British national side. Anyway, to answer in brief: Style of play: regressed since last season, although the defence has been very good. Direction of the club: moving forward, but tied to results in the long term, which are affected by our style (or at least ability to win matches, which we're doing less frequently than we need to – because of our style).

All true for me. People keep saying Suarez isn't a goalscorer, but I'd love to see him in a genuinely creative side where he's not expected to either create chances for himself or just feed off crosses and long balls. He was outstanding in the second half of last season when surrounded with players who were comfortable dropping between the lines and playing one and two-touch, which is Suarez's game (he's South American after all). We've ditched the Suarez/Kuyt/Meireles/Maxi front four in a 4-2-2-2 for a plodding, English-style 4-4-2/4-1-4-1 predicated on getting the ball wide and crossing. The fact that we're terrible at crossing doesn't help much, but Suarez having no one around him who can play his style of football doesn't help either. We've played worse football, won fewer points and made life harder for our best player compared with the second half of 2010-11. The mind continues to boggle.