When I have said Liverpool are defensive its because Chelsea would play like...

Mikes team -
--------------------------Reina----------------------

Johnson ------ Skrtel ----- Agger---- Enrique

------------------------ Spearing --------------------

Maxi ------------------Adam------------Downing

------------------------ Bellamy-----------------------

-------------------------Carroll-------------------------


But both Downing and Maxi would be higher up, Adam would be in the Lampard role and Bellamy playing off Carroll.

Not saying its the better tactic, just because chelsea are so attacking, it makes other teams look quite negative in their line ups.

Think it will be a great game for a neutural fan. I hope Ba gets the much needed support he is going to need to even get a shot away. Him and Ben Arfa vs 8 doesnt seem a great prospect lol.

I think if Newcastle get can an early goal it will be a goal fest!

Some guy has just put £5000 on exactly 3 goals to be scored and £2000 on Ba 2-1 Newcastle...

Interesting stuff.

You shouldn't have said all that! Newcastle have a habit for breaking records lately .

Just chucked 50£ on a red card @ 5/1

You may laugh, but I like doing that when it's raining

Edit: Suarez out, but still no Carroll. Hmmmm. Not looking good for the lad, it really isn't!

Edit: Oh Carroll is starting

Edited at 18:56 Fri 30/12/11 (GMT)

Can't work out if he is going 5 across the mid with spearing Hendo and Adam the 3 central and downing and bellers as wingers just behind Carroll or the simple 442 with hendo on a wing.

Reckon 4-4-1-1 with Hendo on the wing, and Bellars behind Carroll.

Here's the official team line ups:

Krul

Simpson - Coloccini - Williamson - Taylor

Obertan - Cabaye - Tiote - Gutierrez

Vuckic

Ba


---------------------------------------------------------------



Carroll - Bellamy

Downing - Spearing - Henderson - Adam

Enrique - Skrtel - Agger - Johnson

Reina

Really interesting to see Vuckic in there rather than Ben Arfa. He's a quality player though and I really do think he might just score tonight!
Shame Santon isn't starting but hopefully we'll see him later on in the game.

While these two teams are playing tonight thought it was a good place to say I heard a rumour Tiote could make a Jan move to us.

Will keep an eye on how he plays tonight.

Lol, like I said before, there's always rumours about Liverpool buying tons and tons of players, so that doesn't surprise me.

If he leaves, it'll most likely be to Chelsea, however he has said in an interview last week that he doesn't plan on moving anywhere this January.

We need HBA & Santon on for the 2nd half.
Vuckic and Raylor just aren't doing well enough at the minute.

Awful game... Why on earth are we holding back??? All game it's like we've been scared to get forward.

Liverpool were average and Newcastle were awful.

You won't be happy Gutierrez didnt get a second yellow then! But tbf, he did slip/slide challange lol.

I thought Liverpool were better than average. I wouldnt say sharp, but A* for effort.

Always say Liverpool perform as a unit, defend as a team and attack as a team... something I want chelsea to adopt.

Gerrard came on, didnt change the game, he just has a quality than nobody in Liverpools team has, he can actually assist goals lol.

I had a cheeky little smile when he scored, which was weird considering I hate Liverpool :p.

Carroll did alright. Done exactly what he was suppose to do... scare and occupy newcastle. Hence why Newcastle wernt going for it. Newcastle were fantastic... until they scored.

Tiote freekick... harsh. Never a freekick.

Oh yeah, Tiote 'will' be coming to Chelsea. I'm making sure of it.

Ba was great again, didnt get any service really which is what I expected.

Good game though.

I wouldn't say l'pool were better than average, they just looked it because we were playing like a championship side.

Krul booting the ball up to Ba who every time was surrounded by 3 l'pool defenders.

Obertan and Jonas both too scared to produce anything at all, and didn't give Ba the service he needed.

The only positives from our defence were Coloccini and Santon.

Simpson is just awful and Williamson wasn't great, which was expect since he's just came back from an injury.

Tiote and Cabaye held the ball well, but because Slobertan and Jonas were such a liability, they didn't dare put the ball through to them.

The whole game it felt like we just kept the ball in the midfield, and then occasionally to spice things up a bit we passed back to the back four... Then we'd give it away with a sloppy pass and be on the defensive whilst lets be honest, a not in fantastic form l'pool team put a dozen balls into the box.

Boring game and a pathetic display from us. Probably our worst display of the season so far and certainly the most deserving loss.

I actually wish the score line was a more dramatic 6-0 or something, at least then Pardew might wake up and smell the coffee. His managerial decisions lately have been a total shambles.

How you can say Santon was a positive is beynod me, he done well for 5 minutes the same 5/10 minutes Newcastle dominated the second half. Once we got ourselves back on the ball and keeping possession Downing Johnson and Gerrard all had a go and was successful against him.

Anyway must admit I feel like Carrill has humiliated me today... I go slating him and he puts a great performance in challenged for every ball come back defending and was a bit off form in front of goal but that's something he can work on.

Overall I am happy with that result and the way we played.

Lee Probert owes me £300! Newcastle should have lost Cabaye and Collocini!

Pleased for Bellamy, been a great free signing for us, and even more pleased for Steven. He really is class, our play picked up dramatically when Adam (who was crap again) went off for him.

Still got it the lad!

Also liked ow Dani Agger kept running the ball out of defence, he's great at that and it led to the 2nd goal, not sure what he was doing for the OG, everyone seemed to stop while that soft lad was holding his face and walking off the pitch.

Also class again from Marty Skrtel in clearing ghta Ba shot off the line. What a hero!

Newcastle were terrible, showed us far to much respect, got what they deserved IMO.

Apologies for the awful typing, beer and netbooks dont mix well!

Edited at 23:40 Fri 30/12/11 (GMT)

He certainly did better than Enrique did. I didn't even notice Enrique was playing until the 2nd half lol.

Which says more about Newcastle's right hand side than it does about Enrique.

Thought Santon was naive again when he played, (just the second half) fouling players like Downing and Johnson when they were running out of play and looking to go down. He still has an awful lot to learn.

Enrique is better than him offensively and defensively, and was again tonight.

He only fouled once which was a bit of a silly one to give away.
Just compare Downing in the first half when we had Raylor there, to in the 2nd half when Santon was there.. Downing completely dominated Raylor and it was clear for everyone to see... In the 2nd half, Downing didn't dominate Santon.. If anything it was quite an even match between the 2.

You scousers never let anyone have anything do you lol... We had an awful game and you well and truly beat us, the least you can do is let us hold on to the only positives that came out of the game for us!!

Santon did better than Ryan Taylor but even so doesn't mean he did great. He got beaten by Downing, Gerrard and Johnson down that side quite a few times.

Nobody said he did great. He did decent. What I did say was the he and Coloccini were the only positives that we had all game... And Ba of course, however he didn't really have a chance to do much because nobody wanted to give him the ball..

Forgot to mention, Ben Arfa also had a rubbish game and made no impact at all... I hardly even noticed him when he came on.

Haha fair enough have your positives! I'm quite a positive person myself.

.

The problem for Newcastle is 2 of your wingers are form players -HBA, and Obertan.

When they are good they are quality, - which is very rare for Obertan, - but can happen, but when they are bad they are dire!