thedudeabides

Alan Brown.

http://s7.faceinhole.com/12/4/14/dd9907dc4e152e3b27e.jpg " Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night. " - Napoleon Bonapards.

The Mrs tried that with me, just the once though as she said her ass felt sore.

He's on his cloud? Everything about this club at the minute has me on Cloud 9. The players, the people, the staff, the spirit, the love, the fans, the transfer policy, the results......just can't stop smiling Thanks for translating mimi you're a star! Ohhh look at me, look at me I'm a happy man... Just Pathetic, really. Canny.

No. I think Spurs are catchable, but Chelsea will spawn 4th place if their recent luck is anything to go by. It's been a fantastic effort what ever happens.

All Hail King Mike & Prince Derek.

How's young Alan doing?

So we now paid 2million quid for him thanks for the link Lovely stuff. This needs to go on the Pardew thread too.

Not just average players, Ben Arfa is a far more effective player too. Not that Pardew will be given any credit mind.

And people wonder why our fans get labelled as unrealistic, fickle and general bubbling retards. Thanks for getting us all tarred with the same brush.

Superb, cap doffed.

Because they've been playing that way for a number of seasons, back to when Martinez was in charge. It takes time to change a teams playing style.

This has being a negative trend at Newcastle for too long, we tend to buy flair players but employ British manager's to get the best out of them. Don;t anyone see the contradiction? or the irony ? Apart from a selected English Based Managers namely Sir Bobby, this Old Maids Card game has being a sadist soap opera for years at Newcaslte....Why not ask Fat Sam, Souness or Pardew to coach Spanish teams or italian teams? Irony..... Like SBR and Viana for example?

See to me, it is staggeringly obvious that this is because of the restrictions being placed on them by the manager. The players are being asked to play in cages, offer very little movement in case we lose the ball and they're not with their man, we don't even do simple stuff like the wingers switching flanks every now and then. Personally I think Cabaye's a fantastic player being asked to do the job of a Sean Davis or a Glen Whelan. Offer nowt as long as you stand where you're supposed to. Describing him as a "so-so midfielder" just blows my mind, absolutely loved watching him early on in the season after Ba started scoring and the manager didn't seem so frightened all the time, everything we did flowing through him. Now he plays on the centre half's toes because whenever he moves forward to receive the ball, he sees it given back to Krul who sends it into orbit. So to sum up, when he was playing well that was all down to the player. Now he's playing poorly, can't shoot for shit and can barely pass, that there is Pardew's fault?

It was Championship Manager speak, and a little tongue in cheek on my behalf. A one paced midfielder if you will.

They are indeed. And we get nothing from the fullbacks too.

No offense, but this is bullshit, OK, you might not be able to play as tight and risky, but other teams with poor "footballers" manage to play it from the back ten times more often than us. I must be mistaken then, Please tell me how you are going to get the other half of our back four to play this creative football, I am keen to be enlightened further by you. Surely there's a difference between playing "creative foootball" and not hoofing it so much? Don't know if it's Pardew's tactics or whatever, but surely these two are capable of passing the ball on the deck a helluva lot more often than they do now? Dunno how many times i've seen them try for the longer option when not even under pressure, and they simply don't have the footballing ability to do this with quality anyway, that's why i think it would be better to not hoof it as much unless it's a risky pass. Don't know what more to say/how to explain it to you. I think you just answered our question right there. Personally, i think they are under instructions to hoof the ball when under pressure or to pass it back to krul to repeat the cycle. If they werent under instructions they would have made more misplace wayward passes, i think pardew prefer not to loose the ball in key dangerous areas hence the strict tactic. Actually, too much focus is being debated on the defence, the midfield that has balls of chains on them are the problem. Attacking wise, we have very little to offer if its Pardew's choice of 11. The midfield is the problem in my opinion: Tiote - Ball winning midfielder, offers next to nothing going forward. Excellent last season, only played well in a couple of games this time round. Cabaye - Deep lying playmaker, good passer and decent shot on him but offers little else going forward. Has been very poor since Man Utd. Jonas - Plenty of graft but little craft. Looks jaded. Guthrie - Neat and tidy player but not enough pace to be an attacking force. Taylor - Decent set pieces but little else. Obertan - Raw with pace, but no brain. Offers next to nothing going forward. Vukic - Talented but too slow for PL. Not ready. Ben Arfa - Extremely talented and exciting but can be just as frustrating. Looks back to full fitness and strentgh so has to start now. Our only attacking midfielder. Ben Arfa aside, where are these attacking options you talk of? The problem is not the players themselves but how they need to take risk and find space between opposition players and pass into space when in possession. Currently the team is playing very deep especially the middle two in order to protect the back 4 and this is with or without the ball. Personally, i think its under instructions, thats why teams need to try harder to break us down since very little can go through our middle. However, these defensive tactics anchors our midfield players in very specific zones only, definitely in the wrong zones when in possession. I think if the midfield 4 is allowed to move out of their own positions and overlap one another it will open up more space, in theory Cabaye has the ball at feet runs towards Ben Arfa and they overlap and change positions, or generally when Obertan goes on his diagonal runs from the right to the left it would naturally open up space. The top teams have their midfielders moving about and covering one another but this needs a good system when everybody knows their roles. There is risk to moving players around but if use in the right way, it becomes less predictable, and much harder to defend against. In fact we are especially bad at counter attacking, which puzzles me because we are an inviting pressure team and in theory the opposition will need to lead a very high line. We dont have a counter attacking game plan or is coach properly into one which is a shame. We can play better football and it would be proven sooner or later. I dont think we have a group of players incapable moving and passing, , its probably the tactics that limit that part of their game. The fact is there are teams that has inferior players to us but their managers have them overachieving in possession and attacking plays. The same for us Pardew has some of our s*** defenders Overachieving in their defensive games , and looking quite the player...too bad its at the expense of the attacking players. Its always give and take, you can never gain something without another in exchange. Cabaye is not comfortable running with the ball, he's a deep lying playmaker with little pace who is uncomfotable in the final third of the pitch. As is Tiote. And Jonas.

No offense, but this is bullshit, OK, you might not be able to play as tight and risky, but other teams with poor "footballers" manage to play it from the back ten times more often than us. I must be mistaken then, Please tell me how you are going to get the other half of our back four to play this creative football, I am keen to be enlightened further by you. Surely there's a difference between playing "creative foootball" and not hoofing it so much? Don't know if it's Pardew's tactics or whatever, but surely these two are capable of passing the ball on the deck a helluva lot more often than they do now? Dunno how many times i've seen them try for the longer option when not even under pressure, and they simply don't have the footballing ability to do this with quality anyway, that's why i think it would be better to not hoof it as much unless it's a risky pass. Don't know what more to say/how to explain it to you. I think you just answered our question right there. Personally, i think they are under instructions to hoof the ball when under pressure or to pass it back to krul to repeat the cycle. If they werent under instructions they would have made more misplace wayward passes, i think pardew prefer not to loose the ball in key dangerous areas hence the strict tactic. Actually, too much focus is being debated on the defence, the midfield that has balls of chains on them are the problem. Attacking wise, we have very little to offer if its Pardew's choice of 11. The midfield is the problem in my opinion: Tiote - Ball winning midfielder, offers next to nothing going forward. Excellent last season, only played well in a couple of games this time round. Cabaye - Deep lying playmaker, good passer and decent shot on him but offers little else going forward. Has been very poor since Man Utd. Jonas - Plenty of graft but little craft. Looks jaded. Guthrie - Neat and tidy player but not enough pace to be an attacking force. Taylor - Decent set pieces but little else. Obertan - Raw with pace, but no brain. Offers next to nothing going forward. Vukic - Talented but too slow for PL. Not ready. Ben Arfa - Extremely talented and exciting but can be just as frustrating. Looks back to full fitness and strentgh so has to start now. Our only attacking midfielder. Ben Arfa aside, where are these attacking options you talk of?

Cracking post. except arguably hughes,o'brien,dabizas,griffin was worse but got us into the champs league ? With the exception of Colo, they were all better defenders than our current crop. And the rest of that team pisses all over this one. Apart from that, it's a good comparison. i'd take saylor over dabizas,o'brien and titus. I'd take anyone of them alongside Woodgate over Colo and Taylor any day of the week.

Cracking post. except arguably hughes,o'brien,dabizas,griffin was worse but got us into the champs league ? With the exception of Colo, they were all better defenders than our current crop. And the rest of that team pisses all over this one. Apart from that, it's a good comparison.

Cracking post.

We really do man, you've just been convinced we can't by Pardew's style of football. If you don't think that Santon, Jonas, Cisse, Cabaye, Tiote, Ben Arfa or Ba are capable of keeping the ball down and moving around defences then you're wrong. Cisse has pace, Ba has great movement and can turn a man exceptionally well. Ben Arfa can walk through people and create space for himself no problems at all and Santon can get in behind teams no problem. If we didn't break so incredibly slowly and were willing to commit more men forward at times instead of slowly creating a very ordered line of attack, then passing it back along the half way line from one touchline to the next, then pushing on, we'd be able to get behind defences instead of letting them get organised. We are far too defensively disciplined when on the break You want to knock the Championship Manager on the head son.

There's something in this, position does make you greedy and objectively it would look ridiculous to almost all fans of other teams to see people in here saying they're not happy but that's what being a fan of your own club is about: Inspecting and analysing everything minutely and I think the scrutiny is worthy and has been for a while. You're right about us being greedy for good football but this team can play so much better than it has, confidence will help us but so will positive tactics and Pardew telling his players to go out there and really go hard at the opposition rather than waiting for counters, moving the ball slowly up the field and hoping that we can ping in an ok cross. We have the speed, skill and ball-players to move it around, get in behind people and really hurt defences. No, no we don't.

Indeed. More to the point, we simply don't have the players to do it. Apart from Hatem Ben Messi obviously.

We are 'up there', unless you mean we should be in the top 4? If you do, you're an idiot.