BottledDog

Good stuff.

I wouldn't go that far, but I have a lot of sympathy with the idea that he is increasingly struggling with the pressure and falling into the trap of worrying about the opposition more than getting the opposition to worry about ourselves. It is a much greater concern for me than his fundamental style of play; as you say I do belive he'd like to be 'perceived as a bit Continental while retaining his English charm' and actually play decent football.

Whilst I have some sympathy with your point, it is quite easy to reverse your question and ask at what point do the players take responsibility for the football they play and how much control do you honestly think that a manager has over the mind and actions over 11 players? It is a bit of a circular debate - no-one knows what Pardew tells the players to do, but I just find it very hard to believe that Pardew has instructed the players to pump it long for 2 major reasons: 1) It is clearly ineffective and I have not seen any evidence in Pardew's managerial career to date to suggest that he is wedded to the long ball a la Allardyce. 2) We didn't use such a direct style in the first half of the season. Well then you have your eyes closed and hands covering your ears. http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/video_audio/61504.html?genre=6%3Bsport%3D3 12.40 Yep - currently typing with my tongue. Can't see that at the moment as I am at work - is this the fabled video where some bloke with an agenda says that Pardew plays long ball football and isn't very good. Forgive me if I suggest that that probably isn't conclusive proof of anything... The fans of all the previous clubs he managed will tell you the same thing. Plenty of our fans will tell you the same thing. There is ample evidence to support the thesis that Pardew plays long-ball, direct football. Perhaps you would like to offer some evidence to the contrary? I beg to differ.

Some of our fans are fuckwits. Unfortunately some of these fuckwits have Twitter accounts. However I rate his ability (needs to do a fucksight better, accept life as a backup, or has to go), I've no problem with Simpson or his Twitter. Seems a good lad who cares about the team and the club. Fuckwits indeed.

That would be your problem actually, he doesnt give anyone space, he's just not very good at stopping people, be it with a tackle or a block. You think we should try and cancel out our defensive frailties by defending, so does Pardew, I think it's completely backwards. "he doesnt give anyone space, he's just not very good at stopping people, be it with a tackle or a block" - and the end result is the opponent has spaces to run and attack Simpson directly. I repeat, I am ok with that, I am willing to take that risk, but on the other side it's Perch v Walcott FFS. You really think we could score a few goals and concede less, away at Emirates, with Perch, Willo and Simpson? Answer me, your answer is? Stop going on like Walcott's any good, he's not. To answer your question I think the performance last night is indicative of the way Pardew's got us playing, I don't think we should go toe to toe with Arsenal and try and beat them at their own game, but I reckon if he'd tried to coach a bit of attacking intent and nous into them that when we did have the ball we might have done a bit more with it as a team. He hasn't been at his best, but the same could be said for Rosicky till recently. Simply put, last night he got the man of the match which suggests that your assessment of how he played is way off. Wenger post match said it was one of the best games he has seen from Walcott, that he was outstanding. I'm in no position to argue with him.

I watched every matches this season, I have to give up sleeping last nite and go to work immediately after the match. It is f***ing obvious that we intentionally change the tactics to protect Perch. On the other hand, it wouldn't make sense if we start the game with a 451 and hoof the ball. Obertan was instructed to assist Ba whenever Ba gets the ball from the midfield, and spray the ball back to the wingers which was very successful for the first 45mins. this only works when we play it on the ground. Obviously this was not the case in the 2nd. Obertan was nth but s*** during the hoof ball era. The injury of Santon forced Pardew to play Perch, and the game plan has to be changed. I have no problem for that. I can't criticize this decision. I really can't. You can have a go for wolves or all other matches but the thought of Walcott v Perch was f***ing terrible - and it proved to be correct at last. santon was a much much better one on one defender than Perch. Nothing was successful about Obertan yesterday. He either didn't make a mistake or did, he did absolutely nothing of any note and please don't say 'the build up to HBA's goal'. In regards to Perch against Walcott, he had exactly the same problems as Santon, only he put in a couple of more impressive challenges. Santon while he was on the pitch offered us movement up front but if you think that taking him off means we can only play by kicking the ball 60 yards to Koscielny/Vermaelen so that they can build from the back and pass it around us for fun then you're wrong. Cabaye/Tiote/Jonas/Colo/HBA/ even Shola yesterday can pass the ball about on the ground well, they don't need to just feed Arsenal so that our defence can once again be opened up "please don't say 'the build up to HBA's goal'" - Why not? It deserves praise. The rest of his performance was the standard fare of mind boggling decision making, and a complete lack of conviction in his own ability. I agree with a fair bit of what Zero has said over the last few pages. The line-up was creative and nearly worked very well, but Santon and Obertan struggled badly. We made the right substitutions, could have nicked it, but by actually throwing too many players up for the throw, an individual mistake from Simpson (who had pretty good game tbf) cost us. I saw nothing to suggest we set out to 'hoof' the ball, but with the likes of Cabaye and Jonas struggling to keep possession, constantly chasing shadows saw us tire badly. This led to the players themselves kicking it long as the only way to temporarily relieve pressure (especially after Tiote limped out), with only effectively Shola able to try and hang onto the ball by the end with Ba barely able to move.

I'm sure the granny with the dent in her heed'd agree with you.

Man, if he even scores one tonight and it puts ahead or draws us level, the crowd is going to go absolutely wild I've never seen the crowd there go wild, so that'll be a novelty.

Lol, what? did not see that coming! Cabaye, Ba, HBA, Taylor, Guthrie, Gosling, Ober and Jonas must be late injury concerns.

Pards should totally drop HBA from the squad just to see that.

...with the massive debts you've accumulated.

Raylor's back in contention to play! /deleted tweet.

As long as you spare me iam fine with that. http://threadbombing.com/data/media/2/everyone.gif To be fair like, while HBA failed to register, Obertan scored midweek. Deserves his chance...

A THOUGHT THAT NEVER CHANGES BECOMES A STUPID LIE http://www.true-faith.co.uk/tf/editorials.nsf/LookupUNID/267F83DE06E2C0B6802579BE006B1EC2? Whilst we spent the earlier part of last week outraged at the smears and lies Martin O’Neill attempted to spread about the coaching and management team of Newcastle United, post-derby, that playground spat wasn’t the most important development of the last eight days. No, the release of the club’s financial results shone an altogether different light onto where we are right now. No-one with Newcastle United’s best interests at heart won’t be pleased at the direction the club is taking on the financial front and when the Managing Director suggests he and Mike Ashley are deserving of a bit credit, then he is correct. Ashley has made £140m’s worth of interest fee loans to Newcastle United Football Club. This represents the single biggest act of generosity towards our club in its entire history. Bar none. Have a word with a supporter of Rangers, Portsmouth or Leeds United to understand what that kind of investment means to a football club. When Derek Llambias suggests without that money we’d be a Pompey-shaped basket case he is absolutely 100% correct. When the club’s annual losses have been cut to under £4m p.a. from a head-spinning £20m p.a. when Mike Ashley took the club over, then you know something has happened at United to bring sanity to the running of what is after all, a business like any other. An emotional, very special business but a business nevertheless! As we stand in the upper echelons of the PL with a squad with an altogether greater level of value than the one he inherited in 2007, it is time to give credit where it’s due. It is time to give credit to Mike Ashley for not taking any money out of the club. He could not be more different in this regard to Sir John Hall and Freddie Shepherd who along with their mammoth incompetence had a colossal greed which put us on the brink of a financial implosion the like of which is currently being played out at Ibrox Stadium. I am certainly not missing the ludicrous manoeuvring in the transfer market that was undertaken on Shepherd’s watch with sickening frequency but I do celebrate the investment that is going into our youth development, coaching and scouting infra-structure. Talk to anyone who is involved behind the scenes at United, on and off the record and they will attest to a progressive and professional set up, the like of which we have never seen before at our club. Hall talked the talk on this score but Mike Ashley is getting on with business and saying little, as ever. Those of you who have been with true faith over many years will know how we railed at the ticket pricing at United and how it acted to disenfranchise a whole generation of supporters. There are those who may choose to overlook the bonds, platinum club, season ticket hikes and worthless shares sold by Hall-Shepherd but I’m not one of them. That pair of charlatans took our eyes out for years and grew very rich, right to the end of their disastrous ownership of Newcastle United. I’m not suggesting Ashley has made Newcastle United affordable to everybody in the NE. He clearly hasn’t but he has developed a range of offers that have made going to St James’ Park more affordable than it has ever been. Offers have been made to draw in commitment and I’m full of admiration for a family enclosure of just over 7000. Credit where it’s due! Mike Ashley is doing a better job of running Newcastle United now than at any point in my 40 years of following the club. That’s not to say the almost five years Ashley has been at United have been plain sailing. They most certainly have not and there have been times when we’ve prayed to be delivered from his ownership of our club. For a large part it has been gut-wrenching and head banging frustration. His first two years at the club were marked by one bad decision after another, starting from his decision to buy United without completing due diligence (God knows if he’d have decided to jump in had he actually seen the books, mind) and resulting in that gut-wrenching relegation on a scorching day at Villa Park on 24/May/09. Over the last five years we’ve been variously staggered, appalled, bewildered and angered by some of the stunts Ashley has pulled but here we are, the clouds are starting to clear and the outlook is looking better than it has at any time in the last fifteen years. Credit should definitely be given even if it means swallowing hard on some of the stuff many of us have said and written over the last five years. That’s not to say everything in the garden is rosy. I am one of many supporters who will never accept our grand old stadium being referred to as anything other than St. James’ Park. It was this fanzine that wrote to every member of Newcastle City Council and backed the move for a full council meeting to agree never to refer to St James’ Park in any council/official capacity by any other name. I don’t mind how much money the club might make from rebranding St James’ Park. Some things matter far more than money and that is history, tradition and soul. It was this fanzine that wrote to every Northern MP and encouraged the laying down of an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons to articulate parliamentary opposition to the re-branding. It was this fanzine which has started an online petition to the BBC to persuade them to continue our stadium by the SJP name and encouraged supporters to write to the BBC on Barrack Road to press them to do likewise. Those campaigns are working because few media outlets refer to our stadium by anything other than St James’ Park. The fact that the hardly cerebral Sunderland supporting fraternity see referring to SJP by the name of Ashley’s company as some kind of childish point-scoring tells you everything you need to know about the re-branding. I read a wise Mag a few weeks ago who opined that no-one that matters will ever refer to SJP by any other name. He was absolutely spot on! The re-branding saga is currently the only blot on Mike Ashley’s stewardship of Newcastle United I’m convinced the whole episode is an attempt to promote Sports Direct and until there is a sponsor to prove me wrong, I’ll remain of that view. However, just suppose I’m wrong, I don’t think against such strong local sentiment and political opposition anyone would touch the rebranding. That’s not to say an accommodation couldn’t be reached which would give the club much needed revenue but which retains the heritage, tradition and identity of the club and the city. For years, Boro had a stadium sponsor … the Cellnet Riverside Stadium being well established. If a new sponsor was to be, say Microsoft then I think we could live with Microsoft St James’ Park. That would give the club what it wants and leave us with the name of our stadium. But that’s just my opinion. What I do know is this … it is a crying shame we can’t put past problems behind us all, recognise the good things that are happening and unite under a Black & White flag. * I have to take issue with those who tore down the Sports Direct signage at SJP at the Reserve Derby on Thursday night. That was out of order and the manner in which the vandalised hoardings were indiscriminately thrown around was potentially dangerous and should not have happened. Similarly the vandalism to the Sports Direct shop door in Eldon Square may have been something and nothing but again it is not right. Why have these incidents not happened before? There have been plenty matches played at SJP and plenty opportunities for this kind of stuff to happen. It’s my contention the vandalism (such as it was) like the pitch invasion at Darlington in pre-season was undertaken by a group of young supporters, usually around the 17 /18 years old mark who don’t usually get to matches home or away for a variety of reasons and seek to prove their Mag credentials in the wrong way when they get to matches. They are having the impact of making United think carefully about playing pre-season games in the NE region against clubs that desperately need the money as well as convincing the powers that be at United to conclude opening SJP for Reserve games isn’t worth the time, money or effort. Basically, everybody suffers for the actions of the daft lads. The irony of course is that without a big dollop of the fortune Mike Ashley made from Sports Direct going into Newcastle United, we’d be fucked. After everything that has been said and done over the last few years it is galling in many ways to accept that but given where we are in the league, the attendances at SJP on match-day, the developing infrastructure and the excellent work of the manager, it would simply be stupid to ignore the evidence of what is in front of our own eyes. Newcastle United is probably the best run club in the Premier League. Keep On, Keepin’ On … If you haven’t made an official complaint to the BBC about their policy to call our grand old home after a shop, then you should. Go to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/?id=TLGNISE6JC275VGFB93LALUP5C#anchor Likewise, sign the petition to record your unhappiness at the BBC’s daft position in the North East. Go to: http://www.petitiononline.co.uk/petition/st-james-park-forever/4027 Hell, you can even by a t-shirt (with all proceeds going to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation). Details at: http://www.cultzeros.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=T You can now subscribe to true faith via the online facility. Simply go to the link below to get all of the details: http://www.themagonline.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SUB0003

And then he went straight to Nottingham to face Forest? That doesn't seem like sensible prep. Aye. Said he was playing tonight when I questioned whether he had played over the weekend. Don't know if this is old news, but said he only left because Shearer wasn't appointed when he was promised he would be. very old news. Beye was happy to say with us in the championship but when things dragged on with appointing a manager, he simply got fed-up and decided to leave. I don't know why he gets so much stick on here. The guy was a quality player and a good proffesional. Pretty sad to see his career drain away like it has. Ahm... because he said he'd stay, got fed-up and decided to leave. Probably the kicker though was when I saw him pre-season, he clearly had already had the change of heart and looked like he couldn't give a shit about the team anymore. As you say, was a massive shame how it ended as he was a good player for us and enormously likable.

Glad I'm not the only one. Same Hi all. Hi.

Sensible fella.

Has anybody said that Tiote is irreplacable? A Tiote replacement could easily turn out to struggle like Obertan has, the more you buy and sell, the more likely you are to make mistakes. Bit of an odd thing to say, equally the more you buy and sell, the more likely you are to unearth a gem. Besides, the more you do something the better you get, right? As for keeping Enrique. Nah, I don't think there was a cat in hells chance of persuading him to stay.

No idea why. Seemed a very good interview to me, even providing a further apology for past mistakes that some people have asked for.

You what? How does that happen?

Could he sell it to someone else for the same amount or more than charging standard interest on his loans would cost the club? If not, the suggestion isn't weakening 'the bottom line' particularly. Not that I think the idea makes much sense anyway. As said, he is free to charge interest or take back the loan anytime he fancies, but thankfully he seems happy to get the club back on its feet first. I'm sure if he could get outside advertising in that would get a better return than the unquantifiable gain plastering Sports Direct everywhere gets him, he would.

Ha, fair enough, all's good then.

Not all sunshine and smiles. HMRC are chasing us for potential tax avoidance due to how we have been compensating players via image rights payments. Could be nasty.

/Should have been Sameobi.