ohmelads

The bigger picture is staring us in the face and it's relegation and the club's entire future. 1 or 2m saved really is by the by, those in charge have a responsibility to protect their investment but I feel they are always up for a gamble on minimal resources. They've shown that in the past with wildly mixed results - a 5th placed finish and a relegation already on their CVs. I think they thought we would breeze to a top half finish but they are paying the price for complacency last summer added to some pretty bad luck this campaign. Pardew is generally just telling it like it is, he doesn't have enough Premier League players at his disposal to cover for injuries and even when everybody is fit our bench still looks poor. He has no choice but to pressure the board through the media, the irony is he knows they are ruthless and won't like that but he also knows without reinforcements we are doomed. I don't think many top managers would want that post. Our problems are snowballing and in my view all stem back to the failed summer transfer window. Unless action is taken this month by the board to stop the rot, I can see a relegation battle right into May and several key players walking out in the summer. Even if we survive the drop, it'll be a long way back. We've got top players on our books who would be very difficult and costly to replace. A strong finish to the season would do us a world of good but if the board think saving 1 or 2m is the priority right now then we are in big trouble - again. They have backed their manager with a big contract, it is now time to back him properly and give him a fighting chance.

Couldn't agree more, well said. Neither surprised nor that gutted this time though to be honest. He looks like a player who has attritubes we need and might have slotted into our team perfectly but the fact he struggled to get in the Marseilles team and has gone there purely for money suggests we might be better off. To compete with QPR on wages would have shattered our wage structure and half the squad would soon be asking for a rise. It all depends who we can bring in, if it's no one (more than possible) then this is a disaster. I share your fears over our other stars. We took the road of complacency in summer and unless we can make a statement of intent this month, I think more will be out the exit door over the coming summer. There are no guarantees in football as in life but if we bring in the kinds of players we need I am very confident we can pull away from the bottom teams. If we don't, I am equally confident we're in for a very nervous end to the season and not for the first time under the current board/owner.

Poor man management I think. Deserves a lot of praise for last season but early this season we had decent teamsheets available and the tactics just weren't working. I still think most of our problems this season have been out of Pardew's hands though and I give him the benefit of the doubt right now for that reason. I think any manager would have struggled this season with the problems we've had. His comments are aimed more at protecting himself and also seem to be a subtle swipe at the boardroom.

Got massive respect for Colo but if he ditches us in January it will all be lost. Ashley has seldom considered competition for places something worth paying for so when Pardew started talking about centre backs coming in we should have been asking who will be going out the door. I never though for a second that might be Colo because the player seemed happy and the club would surely know it could spell disaster to lose the captain mid-season. The chances of finding and attracting a player of his quality are slim and the chances of Ashley financing a deal for such a player are even slimmer. Despite his goals, the Ba transfer could theoretically work out better for the team IF we find the right replacement but in Colo's case it is hard to see any potential silver lining. He was immense last season.

Ferguson's always been like this but he's upped the ante lately with this match and his Van Persie comments. He's taking the piss out of the integrity of the league and getting away with it. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's descended into a farce now the way he gets on. Also when you compare Valencia's tackle to Colo's red card at Liverpool and Tiote's red at Sunderland, it is incredible he'll be available for selection this weekend. On the game, a draw would have been a fair result. A thriller like that should be a victory for football but neutrals I've talked to agree that it was not. The coverage is as disappointing as it is predictable; the BBC have not even mentioned the tackle on Anita in their match report despite it being one of the most controversial incidents in the game. There's also been very little mentioned of Fergie's behaviour which was a major talking point among any fans who watched it. As for us, we are in relegation trouble still but are showing ten times more fight than we did when we went down. That will hopefully be enough to see us through. If Ba leaves, his replacement has to arrive quickly and also hit the ground running. Those are big boots to fill. A defender also seems to be urgent as we are losing games we should be drawing or winning. Credit has to go to Pardew for the turnaround in performances. He has taken a lot of stick on here during a bad run but deserves credit where it's due. You look at the teamsheet in recent weeks and we couldn't have asked for much more in terms of performance.

The most ridiculous thing is we had to play on with 10 men while they walked off with 11. Ferguson should have been sent off and so should Valencia. At any other ground in the country this would have happened.

I wonder how much Ferguson will want to dwell on that incident? It's a blatant red. He's even already on a yellow.

To be honest we're buggered whoever is running the show unless we get some players in. We overachieved last season and for that we owe Pardew some benefit of the doubt. I admit that runs out every time he plays formations and tactics which don't suit our 'big guns'. But when you've got the likes of Williamson, Simpson, Sammy, Ferguson on the pitch you have to accept that these are not top drawer players. I think talk of 'Pardew out' is premature but I am very worried. Last time we were in major trouble come christmas we weakened rather than strengthened and paid the price. I attribute some of our problems to poor tactics but I also think it is hard to motivate player who know they are head and shoulders above those sitting on the bench. I hope Pardew can work a miracle but doubt he can, and I see nothing but a struggle ahead, whether he stays or is replaced. Unless we strengthen in January.

Last season's 5th place finish buys him some benefit of the doubt in my eyes, but that fades with each passing week and each non-performance. There's no question there's a major problem. I can't recall the last time we outplayed anyone and won convincingly, it hasn't happened once this season if you don't count Europe. Most of last season was the same story. The Anita signing was obviously strange and I said so at the time. Those cheering the signing probably felt more would come in but when we already had Tiote and Bigirimana you have to wonder who sanctioned that deal. Let's not forget Keegan walked out on the club after players were signed over his head, so there is a precedent here. I hope Anita comes good and bolsters our options but I can not figure out why he was signed. Despite the lack of resources we still lack an obvious gameplan even when everyone is fit and the buck stops with Pardew there. I don't think he has been allowed to buy players that fit into his preferred system. If the owner won't back him then he needs to make do. He needs to adopt a system to fit his players, but instead he is trying to make the players fit into his system. He's shoehorning them into unfamiliar roles and as a result has made us lesser than the sum of our parts. Witness things like Ba and Cisse making the same runs in the penalty box, Ben Arfa playing on the half way line and so on, these are things Pardew must be accountable for. I don't really think any manager will be a big success without the backing of the owner. They're not going to get that off Ashley, I think he got his fingers burnt with all Allardyce's crap buys. I hope Pardew will be creative enough to find a system that gets the most out of the players but the cracks have been showing for weeks now and nothing has been done.

As a result of our transfer policy (as opposed to strategy), what you see is a team with some fine individuals, but no clear style of play or obvious tactical gameplan. Pardew strikes me as a 4-4-2 man with, in an ideal world, wingers hitting the by-line and peppering the penalty area with crosses and a natural finisher converting the chances. I have nothing against this style of play, Bobby Robson produced exciting and winning football this way, but Pardew has not been backed in the transfer market to assemble a team to play his way. Robson was, and we had a recognisable gameplan back then. Right now, I can't identify any gameplan, and the signings don't point to one either.

Isn't that the same thing? I reckon he may have had some input in putting together a list of players he liked, but there's no way he'd have knowingly spent all his money on Anita. That was a boardroom decision which didn't address the squad's needs. I hope Anita will come good and don't mean to single him out, but he wasn't what was needed and that was obvious at the time. I assumed if the club would spend that much on a player with no defined first team role, that the necessary additions would follow and they didn't. It gives the image that there really is no transfer 'strategy' and we are opportunistic in the market and, as you have mentioned, the manager then works with what he's got at the end of the window.

Spot on. Our transfer policy has been highly praised, but spending the entire summer budget on Anita after already buying Bigirimana (and having Tiote, Cabaye, Gosling, Gutierrez) made no sense, and suggests a major lack of communication over transfers between the manager and the board.

They're very lucky to go in ahead. The ref hasn't done us any favours, should have got the cards out much earlier as they were stopping the game with all their niggly fouls. There's a massive gap between midfield and attack. We need Ben Arfa in that space but he's playing at right mid and picking up the ball on the halfway line. We seemed to get a lot more joy after their goal when we held a much higher line, I don't know how we haven't scored one of those chances. West Ham lack the pace up front to beat us to through balls or balls over the top. If we raise our game we can still win this, West Ham look really poor.

It's a nonsense red card, but I think the speed at which it happened, the way Suarez has gone down like he's been shot and the linesman's poor side on view have all contributed to the red. With the benefit of a replay it clearly isn't a red. It's a subjective thing whether or not there is 'intent', but he has raised his foot to go for the ball, and pulls out, completely and intentionally missing Suarez's leg. I hate to agree with Michael Owen but he is right, if Coloccini wants to kick his leg he would have, he's a professional footballer, he's not going to miss a stationary leg! His momentum has took him into Suarez, yet he has avoided any harmful contact. Suarez's reaction is irrelevant. I don't see what intent you could argue there is, because if he wanted to harm Suarez then he would have caught his leg. You don't miss someone's leg by accident when they're standing still, not least a professional footballer! He has missed Suarez because he wanted to, not by accident. It is unlikely to be rescinded because common sense is rarely applied, but it is worth a try and I hope we don't just take it lying down as we did with Tiote.

There's simply no way that you can justify the Tiote red when Larsson's high kick to the chest didn't even warrant a yellow. Refereeing is supposed to be consistent and fair. Predictably no mention of the Larsson 'tackle' on Match of the Day.

From The Telegraph. Are we? No chance of that happening. It's nowt to do with us, why would we applaud him, and for what? Completely mad suggestion.

Real Madrid were never going to have the team spirit and understanding under the Galacticos era of mega-bucks signings and a revolving door of managers as Barcelona, whose players have grown up schooled in the Barca way of playing and have known each other for a decade or more. It's ridiculous to blame Zidane for this. Try to imagine Zidane, Figo and Ronaldo had grown up together since they were kids, through all the Real Madrid youth teams and had been playing together for 10 years and then you might have a comparison with the current Barcelona side. It is hardly Zidane's fault that Real Madrid was run the way it was, that no manager ever got any time, that players were bought over the manager's head and that more and more superstars with their own egos were coming in every summer. Zidane ended his club days playing alongside a fading David Beckham for example as well as Thomas Gravesen! Each summer a new manager would change everything around, as well as Gravesen and Beckham he was playing with a load of Brazilians such as Cicinho, Baptista and Robinho. It's no surprise the teamwork wasn't there. Even at the age of 35, in the final days of his career, Zidane dragged a poor France team to the Euro final, outshining every midfielder in the tournament, including against Spain and Brazil. It seems his headbutt in the final seems to have overshadowed his performances in people's memory. He rightly goes down as one of the best midfielders ever.

Webb didn't cost us, we lost the game in the first 15 minutes due to poor play and sloppy marking on corners. He did have a poor game, failed to do anything about a Van Persie elbow which he claims he saw, denied an obvious penalty on Cisse, Tiote's challenge could have been red and he ruled out a contentious goal. The last one I'll cut him some slack, but he had another poor game. The larger debate about Webb is a worthy one. His handling of the world cup final was awful, and Spain only just won before it went to penalties. I remember the press tried to put spin on it, suggesting a 'patient' reffing performance from Webb, which was like trying to polish a turd. Had that game reached penalties, and had Holland lifted the trophy, Webb would have been under massive international scrutiny for allowing a world cup final to descend into farce. It is strange he is held in such high esteem as a ref. Interestingly, Chris Foy reffed Man Utd's 3-2 defeat to Spurs last weekend. Alex Ferguson was highly critical of him after the match for rejecting two penalty appeals. The following weekend, Chris Foy found himself demoted three divisions to ref a League Two clash between Accrington and Rochdale.

It wouldn't be a problem if he was a 4th choice, you're not going to keep 4 top defenders happy anyway. When he's 3rd choice and the 2nd choice is always injured it's a major problem that continues to be ignored every transfer window. We will pay for it in points but as long as the club can achieve a comfortable mid table and the books are balanced then I think the board are happy.

With the workrate we showed in the first 15, admittedly not much. When we got our act together and started pressing high up the pitch we forced errors and caused problems, as we did against Everton. Starting slowly has become a pattern of this season, I remember the first half against Spurs and Villa we were awful as well.

I think he needs to accept that Ba and Cisse given a central role will not work the channels, and that Ben Arfa and Gutierrez will not hit the byline and put first time crosses in. So a flat 4-4-2 isn't going to work with these players, he's tried it several times this season and repeatedly had to switch it mid-game to save us a result. Spurs and Villa being two prime examples of this, there was an immediate turnaround in both games when he switched to the 4-3-3. Today he did it again but the game was gone before he made the change. Dropping Ben Arfa to midfield takes your most dangerous and creative player away from the area where he's effective. We need him playing between the lines, between midfield and defence. In that area he pulls defenders all over the place and that's often how Cisse and Ba can escape their markers. I like Pardew and think some of the criticism here is very harsh. I have my doubts that Pardew can ever get us playing fancy one touch football but he showed last season he can get us results. Unlike previous managers he is sure of his best XI and is on the same page as the fans on what our best XI is. What concerns me is his persistence with a 4-4-2 and abandoning the system which took us on an excellent run last season. I'm sure Pardew has his thinking behind the 4-4-2 but whatever he's trying it hasn't worked. We have the mackems up next, it has a make or break feel to it in terms of how our season pans out.

The 4-4-2 and a lack of workrate left us chasing shadows the first 15 minutes and the game was gone before Pardew could change the system. Man U played some excellent football at the start but we put no pressure on the ball. We were not only outplayed in that period but we were also outworked and beaten to every second ball. Pardew needs to scrap the 4-4-2 he keeps trying and go with what suits the players. Once again he changed it midgame but this time it was already too late.

Yesterday Harper, Perch, Williamson, Tavernier, Bigirimana, Ferguson and Ameobi all played. That's 7 players who are, let's be brutally honest, inexperienced or very average. Now I think Ferguson and Bigi have a future, maybe Tav too, but they'll take time. Perch has been effective but he's not a centre back, and Ameobi, Williamson and Harper are average at best. Should we be so surprised by the performance when this is the quality of bench or 'rotation' players called upon to get us a result in the Premier League? They are 7 of the 14 players who represented us yesterday. Of course, we have also witnessed poor performances with a stronger team out. The problems with weak squad depth are multiple. Not only do these players weaken the first team when called upon, but there is a lack of genuine competition for places which does not bring the best out of our first team. Players such as Cisse or Cabaye are unlikely to fear for their place when Gosling and Ameobi are on the bench. Successful teams always have fierce competition for places, we have none. Pardew's tactics have frustrated me at times this season. But the problem is also related to the resources. He needs to freshen up the team but when you look across our bench, you do not see many candidates. Of those who could come in I'd like to give Ferguson a couple of games. Cisse and Gutierrez are two players I really rate but their form has dipped. I would add Cabaye to that list but I'd still rather have him in the team than Gosling. And therein lies the problem.

8 year contracts? 1 major signing? There's too much complacency going on based on the events of last season. We've incurred 8 extra european games before the new year alone yet the squad numbers remain the same. We have witnessed a noticeable dip in form from key players like Cabaye and Cisse, and when you look at the backup players, there just isn't competition for places. Last season Pardew managed a similarly weak squad well, getting the most from players like Ryan Taylor and James Perch. He must find a way to do it again, because there are too many automatic selections, and we are way too predictable to opposing teams. We have been relying on individual match winners to pinch results with very limited service. I do think Pardew's got a difficult task, and some of the criticism on here is a little premature in my view. He was let down by Ashley in the summer, his reward for European football was much the same squad over many more games, so to expect another 5th placed finish is a huge ask. He may become a victim of his own success, if people expect a similar finish. I just don't believe he has the players to achieve that, not with the extra games stretching the squad through fatigue and injuries. I think we are paying for a poor transfer window, though Pardew is certanily not beyond criticism. Looking back on the window, the Anita signing, our one major deal, was a weird one. It did not address any of our needs and basically blew our whole transfer budget. I'm not sure who sanctioned that deal or why but I'd be surprised if Pardew thought that would be his final signing. Given current form, it might be worth resting Cisse for a game or two and maybe even giving Ferguson a run wide left in a 4-3-3. It might not work, but I think we have to freshen things up. Teams will suss us out if we always play the same way, and you have to get your form players on the pitch. 2 assists in a week from Ferguson is definitely knocking on the door for a first team place in a team that is crying out for balls into the box, and his inclusion would also send out the message that nobody's place is guaranteed in the team, and that good form is rewarded. Giving Ba the main role would also be reward for his excellent form. I hope he freshens things up, but he may be afraid to do so with Man Utd next up in the league.

Thoughts haven't changed since the window shut. We've got a good first XI, but a poor squad which will probably be found out by January. Hopefully we will do in January what we should have done in summer and give ourselves a fighting chance. I fear for our season if we lose Ba or Ben Arfa for any length of time because we are pinching results we scarcely deserve. On the face of it, considering the injuries, not a bad point. But the performance is a major cause for concern about just how our squad is going to cope.