Montey

Why are some of your still typing on an Internet forum. Don't you have to rush to St James' Park to get your opinion on TV?

To those who are saying (paraphrasing) "whats the point if we don't try and win every game" and "our best chance to win something is in the cups".... What would you prefer, to win the FA Cup but play in the Championship the following season, or not win the cup but stay in the Premier League?

I don't know why people are getting so upset about this result. Yeah, it ain't great, but there are bigger fish to fry. We put out an, at best, reserve side against a team that is doing reasonably well in the Championship. What does this tell us? It tells us that our approach to this game was to win it if we could, but it was a higher priority to protect our first team from more injuries and to rest them for the next game. I am not saddened by the prospect of being out of the FA Cup. I would not be saddened if we were out of the Europa league as well. Whilst this performance has not given us anything to smile about, it is far from justification to tar-and-feather anyone.

Yey, The Shola train just keeps on chugging! He's the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Bradbury_(speed_skater) of the Premier League.

I place blame squarely at the feet of our European campaign. Not that we have been putting too much emphasis on the European competition, just that we're in it at all. For the past few weeks, for most weeks, we have been playing a mid-week game as well as our league games on weekends. This massively runs interference with the squads training regime, including set pieces development and skills practice. Where I see evidence of this is in some of the technical execution. For example, against Swansea we had plenty of shots on goal, but only a relatively small number of them made the goal keeper have to work hard. One of the reasons that I see for this is the way our players take their shots on goal. In recent weeks when Ba, Cisse, Ben Arfa, Anita, Cabaye, and others have taken shots at goal they have been leaning backwards, with the body falling away from the ball, or kicking across the face off the ball. This technique causes the ball to be kicked up an over the goal face or slices it across the face of the goal, like a bad golf shot. We also see the technical faults in the set pieces as they are poorly placed and just lobbed in to the area, not to the movement of the team on the pitch. Ordinarily these sorts of technical issues would be picked up, addressed and practiced again and again during mid-week practice sessions. But with the European campaign occupying time, with not just the game but also travel to cope with, the opportunity to fix these things simply isn't there. Final evidence of this theory will be to see how we perform in the league two or three weeks after the round-robin stage of the European competition finishes. If we improve in this window then it will be proof positive (in my eyes anyway) that Europe has severely damaged our league season. What is currently transpiring is one of the principal concerns I had of qualifying for Europe. Don't get me wrong, I am thoroughly impressed and thrilled that we were that good last year, but I am concerned that it has put us back on the same roller-coaster that we've been on as a club for the past 2 decades.

Am extremely happy with a 5th place finish. But.... I'm pretty disappointed that we seem to have approached this game with little to no ambition. Why this long-ball, 442 crap, when we've bee lauded for how our mid-field has been dominant, setting up shots for Cisse and Ba at will, all season? It seems that just as we get our tails up, as fans, Pardew likes to stick us back in our expectation boxes by doing something stupid.

The mere fact that I am starting (just starting, mind) to look back at the Shepherd era with some (only some) fondness tells me how fecked up this whole scenario is!

Ashley probably thinks its a reward..... after all, Ashley plays with himself all the time.

Can anyone explain to me why I stay up until 4am (Melbourne, Australia) week-in-week-out to watch this dross?

Any comments from Pardew or Wenger yet? Unfortunately we don't get any post-match stuff down-under.

Anyone stupid enough to wear a light blue shirt near Wenger this week is going to get punched in the face.

Well, I think I called that result wrong. At half time it looked like we were going down worse than the Aussies playing the Ashes, instead we finished with a game that we should have won, if Rangers goal had have been given. Am stunned!!!

So, can I just make sure your stance is clear. You'd be content if our team purposely threw a game big time because they figured they'd lose it anyway? No, I didn't say I was happy about it. I just said it looked like thats what the team were doing, and if that is what they are doing I can't really criticize the players for their individual performances. They are playing to their game plan.

I don't actually find myself critical of any of our team. As soon as I saw how we played "defending" the first goal scored I thought the players looked like they might have decided to lose big in protest. As insane as that sounds, the apparent complete lack of interest the players are showing in defense is only reinforcing my view that they have concluded they were likely to lose this one any, so lets lose it HUGE to make a point.

If this were true he could easily refuse to agree terms with Liverpool. It'd fuck Ashley's plans right up, but I don't believe that he was shoved, not completely.

I think its pretty clear that this is going to be Ashley's business model from now on. He's strengthened our ability to identify young, gifted players and has structured the club to provide a method of showing them off. He will now just churn-and-burn, getting young new talents in to the club, show them off and sell them. We're now just a money making business for Ashley and a talent factory for the rest of the league.

According to Sky Sports he's just been loaned to Birmingham City.

The guy is pure class. I think he's one of the best managers we've had who didn't get given a fair crack at the job. He had the potential to become one of the legends of the club.

At the beginning of the game I was happy with a draw, so I have to be happy with that now. But, I'm still disappointed because with just a tiny pinch more quality it could have been so much more.

For Farks Sake..... AGAIN!!!!!

He's at least a few hexagons short of a football.

You get what you pay for..... We're fucked!!!!

Relegation-tastic. If we play too many games like this, we're going to be in real trouble, real fast.

I need an option that reads: "I desperately want to go, but I can't afford the thousands it would cost in airfares & accommodation."

The more this game progresses the more I am placing the blame for the scoreline on Guthrie. Guthrie is crowding the midfield, destroying any shape we have there. It is forcing Perch to have to run down the right wing because there is no one in front of him to pass to, thus moving Perch massively out of position, leaving Perch open to be easily run past by N'Zogbia. Guthrie is playing so centrally we just saw him pass out wide right to Perch, I mean, WTF is with that?!?!?! If Guthrie would hold his position (do his job), Perch wouldn't need to get so forward and Barton and Tiote would have a bit of room to move. I think we'd look much better simply by getting Guthrie off for Routledge.