Hennessey - 6 Easy night for Hennessey, everything hit straight at him. Made one or two fluffs of it when he came to collect crosses though.

Ward - 6 Low key game, not tested.

Tomkins - 6 Decent performance but had a couple of scary moments, he's too stiff and off balance most of the time. Hope Dann is back for the West Brom game.

Sakho - 8 Excellent debut, calming influence in the back line, quick to get the ball out, well-timed tackles. Didn't win much in the air however so West Brom will be a test.

Van Aanholt - 8 Hopefully this performance is a sign that he's settling in, so good to have a full-back that supports the attack. Won't be like this every week though so hopefully he's ok when required to defend.

Milivojevic - 7 Looked class again, reads the game exceptionally well, barely spends any time on the ball, just one or two touches before moving it on quickly.

Cabaye - 7 Faded and started to hit odd passes in the second half but have to credit him for sort of being the catalyst for our positive and aggressive performance first half. Everyone saw that Cabaye was up for it, winning tackles and chasing down balls, and they followed suit.

Puncheon - 6 Not a great game on paper but got into more advanced positions and a few goalscoring opportunities. Similar performance to Cabaye, both of them have Milivojevic to thank for allowing them the freedom to move up the pitch. Captain for the day and I think deserved, he communicates on the pitch much more naturally than Dann imo.

Zaha - 7 Played on the left which made him cut in a bit more, got a few shots in but I think we all prefer seeing him on the right.

Townsend - 7 Defensive performance better than his attacking one but starting to show more of the commitment we need to see. He occupied Middlesborough's defence without really creating anything dangerous, should have really set up Benteke for 2-0.

Benteke - 6 Needs to get back to basics, tries too many flicks too often, despite those criticisms he won a lot in the air yesterday.

Subs:

McArthur - 5

Schlupp, Dann - n/a

Everyone a 7 for me except
8 for Sakho, Luka, Yohan and Andros

Sorry to disagree

Parrot

Mr Cadbury's Parrot says "Hello"

thought Ward was way off the pace on sat, looked like all he could do was tap the ball up to Townsend. nothing special at all from the man.

Clinton is Clinton. I have known him for a long time, I know his mother... Simon Jordan

Can't argue with most of your ratings although I'd give Ward a 5 at best, I felt he was our real weak link and the amount of times he misplaced simple passes or just hoofed it straight out of play or to their back 4 was shocking.

You can see the effect PVA has with his overlapping runs, creates a 2 v 2 for Wilf on the left which meant for me Wilf was able to have one of his best games of the season as he was able to isolate their defender. The reason Townsend didn't create much was because every time he got the ball on the right wing he was doubled up on and Ward offered him no support.