The College Dropout

Wouldn't mind a 4-5-1 tbh.

Yep. It rattled him.

There's no John Terry type at Manchester United, the team is full of leaders. Vidic is a leader. Ferdinand and Rooney also, to a lesser extent. I'd say Giggs, Evra (the vice captain) & Scholes are more leaders than Rooney. None of them are Keane-style but they are definitely leaders and winners. 100% dedicated professionals, who really care about winning, take responsibility and will run till their legs fall off to ensure it who demand the same from their team mates. Strong characters. You don't need someone who will rant, rave and bollock players all the time. Those are the traits that put nails in Keane's career at Man U. Like I said before, look at the Spainish team, there's maybe 5-6 leaders there and none remind me of Barton in their approach to leadership.

There's no John Terry type at Manchester United, the team is full of leaders.

IMO character of the players is more important than being vocal. Manchester United no longer have the Keane type vocal leader but they have a number of players who fulfil leadership qualities. You have Scholes, Giggs, Ferdinand, Vidic & Evra who carry real weight on the pitch and in the dressing room. It's all about accepting responsibility and stepping it up when needed. Before the last few months I wouldn't have said Bacary Sagna was a leader but the lads determination and grit has shone through, that's what you need. Manchester United have had loads of players like that through the years. You look at the Spanish world cup winning side. None of them really come across as vocal leaders. But right down the spine you have Casillas, Puyol, Pique, Xavi & Iniesta. All superb players but more importantly dedicated professionals and warriors till the end. The side is littered with strong-willed winners and leaders but none are particularly vocal except Casillas the goalie.

Fantastic atmosphere throughout it must be said.

Why? I think the forum has grown to appreciate the good he did when he was with us. For a lot of people, that midfield he was in is the benchmark for all Newcastle teams since, atleast in an attacking sense. The fact we have such poor full backs means Pardew is reluctant to go for a realish 4-3-3.

Don't care what the stats say. Simo let's his man cross the ball far too often and he's horrendous in possession which makes us do more defending than is needed.

It's no secret we are a much softer touch when Guthrie plays in the middle. He has added much more effort and fitness to his game but he doesn't know what he's doing defensively. Imo Yohan and Tiote are more intelligent players and fill in holes and press when necessary. Danny will chase after the ball when it isn't needed.

Pardew doesn't have a Plan B.

Very true. Same thing with Wenger. It's the Arsenal way, win, lose or draw. Pardew is reactive to the oppositions strengths, rarely their weaknesses. Same thing that's indicative of Moyes. It's all about reacting to the opposition managers forward moves.

If they were trying to defend it didn't look like it. I was going to say, I saw nothing of defending the lead from Napoli tonight. They played on the backfoot from about 15 minutes onwards trying to break on the counter-attack. Chelsea scored twice, then you could clearly see the switch in their mentality when it went to 3-3 and needed a goal. When they went 4-3 up they dropped deep again. They certainly weren't trying to play on the front foot, which is their usual game. Eh? They naturally play a counter-attacking style. I don't know what Napoli you've been watching. http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/video/20022012/58/wenger-napoli-masters-counter-attack.html

Against Spurs I'm not sure we where set-up to really play. Whenever we play 2 up top we tend to go direct as we are often outnumbered in midfield. Didn't see the L'pool game. We are always set-up the same in the sense we are set-up to deal with the opposition's strengths whatever they are. There have been a few games in the last few months where we have genuinely tried to impose on other teams; Fulham & QPR.

Top 5 aside I don't think there are teams with many better attackers than us. He's like Moyes in the sense that he doesn't change things and impose our game against weaker teams... that's not how we are coached. We are coached to contain. He said, we went to Spurs to try and play some and we didn't. At all. Nothing. So that's false. We just got whacked. Against Stoke we contained their threat and Demba scored a hat-trick. That's how we are always set-up. Defend well, battle in midfield and look for some inspiration up top. At home, Stoke look to impose their game on opponents which plays into our hands. That's not how we play at SJP. We look to defend well, battle in midfield and hope someone does the business up front. But our general play/possession? It's evident we don't focus on that in training as much because we don't have a style of play. Sometimes we attempt to play football but that goes away very easily. I don't think Pardew tells Cabaye he needs to get his foot on the ball and really control the game. You wouldn't get Redknapp worrying so much about Ben Arfa's defensive duties, he would focus on what he does best - attack.

Pardew being so reactive is probably my biggest gripe about his management style. We are rarely stamping "our" game on the opposition unless it's to work hard. Got it from the Guardian. Anyone else agree? Disagree? http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/mar/12/david-moyes-harry-redknapp-tactical-breakdown There are various opposing tactics in football – attacking versus defensive, ball retention versus counter-attack, fluid versus structured, wide versus narrow. Great tactical battles come between two sides evenly balanced in terms of ability, but completely opposing in strategic terms. In recent years, Everton against Tottenham fits that brief. First, they are evenly-balanced – since Harry Redknapp joined Tottenham in late 2008, the eight league meetings between he and David Moyes have an aggregate score of 8-8, an average of 1-1 per match. They are always enjoyable, absorbing matches – clashes of genuine quality between two big clubs, without either the viciousness of a derby or the hype of a top-of-the-table clash. Second, there is a clear element of opposing strategies – in particular, with the two coaches' attitude to individual matches, and on a wider level, their degree of interest in tactics. Redknapp does little coaching himself, and has a laissez-faire approach to players' roles. Ahead of Tottenham's away trip to Norwich in December, he told Rafael van der Vaart and Gareth Bale they could play where they wanted – he believes in maximising a player's ability to make their own decisions, letting attackers play with total freedom, and in playing a proactive game true to his own side's strengths. Moyes resides at the opposite end of the spectrum. A much more studious coach, he personally works on his side's shape every day in training, varying it according to the challenge of the upcoming weekend. The main criticism of him, amid widespread praise for his decade in charge of the club, has been for being too defensive. But 'defensive' is a broad term that encompasses various aspects of play – the more specific allegation is that he is too reactive, too keen to change things according to the opposition's strengths, rather than imposing his own style of football upon the game. That submissive nature has been more obvious this season – Everton's average possession was 51% in 2009-10, 50% in 2010-11, but down at 46% this campaign. Such a reactive approach means Everton are well-suited to facing bigger opponents, but picking up wins against weaker opposition is more of a problem, as they look uncomfortable when forced to make the running. From their last seven games, Everton have beaten Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham, yet drawn with Aston Villa, Blackburn, QPR and Wigan, all 1-1. Redknapp, whose side have a poor record against the big clubs this season, tends to select upon fitness, form and confidence, rather than with the opposition in mind. Therefore, Tottenham often look tactically weak in the first half, before Redknapp changes things to prompt a second-half improvement. Redknapp says things like, "you can argue about formations, tactics and systems forever, but to me football is fundamentally about players," as he told the Sun in 2010. "The numbers game is not the beautiful game, in my opinion." Whereas Moyes responds to criticism of his approach by saying: "If I had my way, I would love to sit down with people and ask to hear them explain the strengths of 4-4-2 compared to the 4-4-1-1 which we play. If you ask me, I'd argue all day long." The difference was epitomised by the battle at the weekend, and in particular the contest between Bale and Seamus Coleman. These are, broadly speaking, two similar players – 22 and 23 respectively, full-backs converted into wingers because of their pace and attacking drive. If there's one area of tactics Redknapp does take an interest in, it's getting his attackers into space, and this has been particularly obvious with Bale. "One of Gareth's main assets is the way he uses his fantastic pace to run at defenders," he says. "You need space in front of you to do that, though, and on the left wing, that space can become more easily closed down." That desire for space has seen him fielded in the centre and the right in recent weeks. "People have been double-marking or even triple-marking me [out on the left]," Bale says. "I've had to mix my game up, and I'm improving all the time." He started on the right here, partly to get away from that double-mark. Coleman did a great job against Bale at White Hart Lane last season, doubling up with Phil Neville, a few days after Bale's hat-trick against Inter that led to an explosion of hype. Yet there was no escape. Demonstrating how reactive Moyes is, he had intended to use Coleman in that same role in conjunction with Neville, but upon seeing Bale line up on Tottenham's right on Saturday, Moyes told Coleman to trot over to an unfamiliar left-sided position to maintain the tracking. Redknapp was calling the shots and trying to lead his players into space, Moyes was responding to each move by telling his players to shut down the space. That's natural for a forward against a defender, but these were players in the same position. Coleman replicated his job from last season with relative ease. Bale is less comfortable on the right, as a couple of poor crosses early on showed – one straight at a defender with his unfavoured right foot, the other a swipe with the outside of his left. In fact, it's probably easier for a wide midfielder to double up against an 'inverted' winger looking to come inside – the player can take up a reasonably central position and show him down the line. Neither Coleman nor Bale were comfortable crossing with their weaker foot, and with Royston Drenthe and Luka Modric also coming inside from the opposite flank, the game was tight and congested, which played into the hands of Moyes. After a frustrated chorus of "Gareth Bale, he plays on the left" from the travelling Spurs fans, he eventually moved to his favoured flank. Coleman's marking had forced Bale from the left to the right last season. Now it forced him from the right to the left. Sure enough, Coleman followed him across the pitch again. With Redknapp a near-certainty for the vacant England position, Moyes is the favourite for the Tottenham job. This game showcased how different the two are, and what a huge departure it would be from Tottenham's current style if they were to approach the Scot. Of course, it's often a deliberate move to bring in a coach with a wildly different style to his predecessor, but this is after some level of failure, when there is a natural intention to break with the past. Redknapp would be benefitting from that with the FA, where the process of replacing a plucky Englishman with an intelligent foreigner, and vice-versa, is about to start its third cycle. But Redknapp's tenure has been a success, and Tottenham would have to decide how much they want to continue with his beliefs, and how much they want something different. Tottenham could do with more structure against big teams, Everton need more invention against small teams, while England need both. Can we fuse the two managers? Both are highly talented, but both need to diversify to establish themselves in the top tier of coaches.

Although he's not skinny he is abit weak. Handsome fella like.

We always struggle with teams that play with 3 central midfielders.

So it's just me then who thinks that Tiote is developing a dangerous habit of doing the famed Scottie Pirouette far too often these days? He's done it a few times in the last couple of games when he had enough space to drive with it forward. I guess it might have something to do with the huge gap between midfield and attack we're complaining about. He always looks for the forward pass and did more "playmaking" than Cabaye against the Mackems like Mole said.

He's looked decent in a few number of cameo's. I do think he's physically shot too which has resulted in very poor form when we played a run of games.

Wish Cabaye would get out his way. Let Tiote anchor and Cabaye push up to give him a forward pass. Despite his limited passing ability Tiote always wants to make a forward pass.

He was better in the first hald because he was getting on the ball and passing it about or trying to. He can hardly influence the game when the ball is flying over his head or he's being asked to battle for high balls and loose balls all game, that and sitting extremely deep. He needs to play further forward, and so does Tiote. They are too close together and too deep and that means the gap between the forwards and midfield is far too big. The gap between the midfield and attack is massive. He's picking the ball from the CB's in the second half. He should be looking to play the strikers in.

Plays right infront of the CB's alongside Tiote. Don't like it at all.

I want everyone to take a second and bask in the light of another Mackem Heart Destroying performance from Big Shola. The Mackem Killer. Well done lad. Should've taken the penalty too.

We rarely have more than 2-3 in the box.

Is Yohan banned from the opposition box? So fuckind deep.