midds

Get in. Grind them into the dirt.

Oscarlaaaaaaad.

That's a very good point, and there are a few teams like that nowadays in the PL. We were under Pardew, only sometimes not that good at soaking up pressure, but explains beating teams like Chelsea and such. Stoke are built in that manner too, look at their results and they do better against the better teams than expected and are often disappointing against the weaker teams. I think Southampton may be the best example of doing this right, even against us we had 16 shots and 56% possession to their 5 shots, yet still go the result. Too many teams now adopt this negative mindset and when required to change can't do it. Sunderland struggle more than others because of the quality of their forward players, who bar the t*** that keeps scoring against us are pretty dire. They've attempted to remedy that by adding Defoe, which will probably be enough this year to keep them up considering the likes of Hull, Leicester, Burnley, Aston Villa and QPR are their competition. None of which they've managed to beat, funnily enough...

Still fucking banging on about it.

Neville and Carragher desperate to create a story out of nothing.

Baggies are going to nick this.

Kitson & Hartson at West Ham.

I've got a very limited amount of patience for the pricks on this one occasion. Normally when a manager moves on it's because he's sacked by the club, the ones in control of the process are the club themselves and they decide when to announce it. If they know they're about to bin someone then they should really have begun the process of sounding someone out to take over quickly - I know it's a bit underhand but it's the way things work. On this occasion it seems that Pardew has dropped them in it a bit by going when the club weren't really expecting it and are having to do all of the donkey-work after Pardew's already walked out. He's left them a bit in the lurch and I can cut them a very limited amount of slack for taking a bit of time. I'd also prefer to wait a little longer to ensure we get the man we want rather than appoint someone quickly just to fill the gap. All that said it's been more than 3 fucking weeks now, that's more than long enough to sort it out. The longer it drags on the more cynicism will creep in and I can totally understand people saying they're deliberately stringing it out to mask the lack of investment in the squad. I'm a fair man, I don't expect miracles but I do expect competence and we're not getting that atm. We're drifting our way down the table at £1.2m per place and it's not on.

Ghana v Senegal starting now btw.

Good stuff. He's nailed it like.

If it means I hear less of Jamie fucking Redknapp it's money well spent.

Or, alternatively, a club could sack their manager and have 2 weeks to replace them. Both are out of the cup. Not enough time.

You absolute fanny.

"Remi Garde raises hopes by saying absolutely nothing"

Garde's latest comments today along with Carver spitting the dummy out last night in his interview would point to Garde being appointed soonish. This is what I want to believe and I have no interest in any other scenario.

Sounds mildly encouraging...

That sentence just continues to get worse with every word.

Haven't seen much of Sunderland this year but from what I can gather they're not particularly great at breaking teams down who are fairly well organised. They can definitely soak pressure up and are organised themselves but the remaining home games they're going to have to actively look to take the initiative, get at teams and force the pace. That doesn't really lend itself to the things they're good at so on the face of it the lesser teams at home should be banker wins but it may well not work out like that.

Much rather be below Palace without Pardew than above them with him. I'd love to see him crash and burn (literally) but the end game has already been won. He's not here anymore thank fuck.

Poll reset. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

Poll reset?

This. Think he knows he's about to be shoved out. Champion.

That 7 point buffer we have can disappear quickly once we get into freefall. Still saying it's unlikely, purely down to the number of poor teams in the league this season, but anyone who thinks we're 100% safe is in ostrich-mode.

Jesus fucking christ.

Wide open. It's just too fucking easy man.