The College Dropout

We are fooked either way. We can't decent money from him from where he wants to go and if he stays he'll continue to under-perform because he's not happy.

Speak for yourself. £35m. I was very happy. Would've sold at 25 tbh

The professional thing is handle it "in" house.

Aye, he's been very poor since the Derby. Getting sent off for violent conduct and generally costing us goals and points. Makes a lot of sense now.

No smoke without fire imo. His agent is one person in his inner circle who would want him to stay. Going to Argentina is no-moolah for him.

|He scored at least 3 goals in a 4-4-2 last season. The debut and the 2 against Chelsea.

That might be true but he's been playing on right wing ffs. He didn't even play down the middle against Everton. Give him a run down the middle and he'll get goals as it's his natural position as proved last season. He started the season up front. We switch formations all the time too, he's had loads of minutes in a 4-4-2. He's also started numerous games in cup competitions.

You're looking at it from the view of us playing crap as a whole because of Ba (or him contributing) and i'm looking at it that we played crap despite Ba scoring loads. You haven't mentioned once how Cisse has been poor. The long ball doesn't work well for Ba either, he's good at the flick-ons from a big man but isn't good at doing that himself. I don't know why some fans can't understand that Pardew saw Ba as the safe bet goalscorer after 5 or so matches. Like I said, when he came off the bench and scored twice and he kept his place in the team through the middle. Did he earn that or did we pander? Cisse hasn't been playing well and has hardly looked like scoring ffs. This pandering shit is idiotic. Ba was scoring. Pards thought if we could stop conceding, we would start winning because of Ba's goals again. You know? The thing that got us in a strong position before Cisse came last season. If Cisse was scoring and he got moved out wide, then yes maybe, we pandered to Ba. But he hasn't.

Agree entirely, which makes it all the more baffling that we pandered to his demands to play centrally. That was only ever done to put himself in the shop window so he could engineer a move under his release clause. If we'd have stuck him wide and played Cisse through the middle then not only would the team have looked better but Chelsea would probably never have wanted Ba either. We shot ourselves in BOTH feet with that one. For the final time, he played centrally because he scored goals. Started the season 4-4-2 he scored some goals but results where poorish. Went to Everton, he got dropped, came off the bench and scored twice. He earned the role and never looked back.

We need a clean sheet, Pardew knows this and he'll start if fit.

Disagree about his passing. Like I said earlier, no Paul Scholes but could zip it about nice and quick. He was always pretty good for us. You look at all our attacking players those days and you can't say they didn't do well for us overall. Solano, Robert, Dyer, Speed, Shearer & Bellamy where consistently among the leagues best attackers for 3 or so years. He did have another 10/15% of potential that he didn't unlock. Would've got him a lot closer to the very best PL players.

I understand what you're saying but it's like looking at a car from 50 yards away and saying it looks fine to me. It's only when you get up close and look under the hood that you see the real problems. Playing poor formations and making crazy substitutions aren't something that can be explained by inexperience. It's a failure to read the game which is more worrying. I haven't even touched on playing a style which is not suited to the players we have, but on that maybe you could argue he doesn't have good enough players yet. Again, not something I accept, as for me there's been no sign after a year that we've even attempted to coach a more fluid passing style. We'll see. But you learn. Reading of the game can be improved, so can substitutions. I'm pretty sure Fellaini scored something like 15 goals playing behind the striker in his 2nd season. Tim Cahill came back and played that role for the followed 2 season despite not scoring for long stretches. Moyes only brought Fellaini back into that position after they lost the FA Cup semi-final. He's got it together now. I'm sure Pardew will improve with time. Time i'm sure he'll get if we avoid relegation this year.

I especially agree with the first point. Give a decent manager 6 years without relegation and they'd do pretty well. That's why fans often know the players better than management. I don't think Mou is a genius manager and I do think there's a vast difference in aptitude. However, opportunity and experience is far more important than aptitude. Some managers just aren't a good "fit" for certain clubs. A manager does need a club/side to be in their image. Sam Allardyce could only ever manage a side like Newcastle coming up from the Championship. Souness? The worst manager of NUFC. Decimated a good team and replaced them with the type of overpaid, over-the-hill, under-performing players that would get us relegated in the end. We should have never sacked SBR imo.

Tbh I don't think Pards is the guy to trust but let's not act like Moyes had a superb managerial record.

I don't think that's the way things work, with any football club. The minute a manager is struggling, all past achievements go out the window. Ask Arsene. Had he left after the last trophy win, his replacement wouldn't have had 7 years to try and win another trophy. That's a token of the board's good sense, not the fans', many of whom would happily have seen him ditched at the first sign of decline Don't agree.

It's an awful point and I'm sick of reading it. There's ONE example of that working. Fergie?

I don't think that's the way things work, with any football club. The minute a manager is struggling, all past achievements go out the window. Ask Arsene. Had he left after the last trophy win, his replacement wouldn't have had 7 years to try and win another trophy.

Does anyone seriously believe that Pardew forfeited the cup? What would be the point? Play a weakened team at OT is forfeiting the game, in any competition. Whatever said they put out will win. Same thing with away at Brighton. Knowing you lost their last season with a pretty strong side, you go their with a weaker side the next is forfeiting.

Did you know at the time that Moyes was as good as he has proved to be or are you talking with the benefit of hindsight? I don't think many, if any, picked Moyes out to be a potential star during the lean years. This is my point.

Aye he was no Paul Scholes but his passing was under-rated. Didn't grab lots of assists but his play was quick and snappy, slick. One twos, pass and move, scamper into space. He wasn't even great at beating players but he had good awareness of running into space. Same thing with Bellamy. Bellamy hasn't been properly fast in 3-4 years but he carries the ball into space well and makes intelligent runs into space and to create space. Oh the days when teams had to worry about stopping our best players. **sigh**

Dyer was generally good for us. Perhaps a bit over-rated in the media at the time but fact remains, he was an integral part of the second best Newcastle team in my lifetime. he ran teams ragged as a CM, which is very rare these days. We'd overwhelm teams at times. Robert - Solano with the passing and delivery. Bellam-Dyer stretching teams, deadly on the counter & Shearer there to finish it all off. Jenas off the bench for some energy. Soft as owt team but played some great stuff at times. Was pretty good under Souness & Roeder too. Remember Sporting being scared to death of him. then he got injured and we lost.

A clean-sheet is all I want.

Pardew's really missed a trick by always forfeiting the cups. Win a cup, any cup and he'lll buy himself years with the fans and probably the board too.

Wait? Is this a complaint? If he knew he could only work with players hand picked by himself, then he shouldn't have taken the job tbh. The one thing we are definitely getting right at the inute is the calibre of players we're recruiting. We could do with getting a few more in, and in a timely manner, but we have some damn good players. Pardew should bow out if he doesn't know what to do with them, and is instead pining for his Jason Puncheons, Danny Grahams and Adam Llalanas. No it's not a complaint. I do think we need a proper DoF though. Atm it's just Ashley & Lambias signing the players they can afford that are highly recommended by Carr it seems. I don't think they really consider the needs of the team when we sign players which has led to an unbalanced squad. A DoF woudl bring some continuity even if we change managers as the same type of players would be signed.

I think statements like this are utterly pointless. It's not. We'd all love Moyes here now but look at his earlier time at Everton 2001-02: 15th 2002-03: 7th 2003-04: 17th 2004-05: 4th (Qualification for UEFA Champions League) 2005-06: 11th We'd have sacked him after finishing 7th, then 17th, guaranteed. And maybe after finishing 11th after finishing 4th. Sticking with managers is great. As a club and supporters, we are impatient. This is down to years of under-performing or coming close but never winning trophies. We've never allowed a manager to take a step-backwards to take 2 forward. 1 step back and they're gone and everyone is glad they've gone. Bobby went 11th, 11th, 4th, 3rd & 5th, had we let him go at the end of the 5th finishing season 90% of the people on here would've happily let him go. It's in the nature of our club to act with haste unfortunately. This is not helped by the fact our best manager's in 25 years left after only 1 "poor" season. We need a mentality change if we are to become successful and stick with a manager. Saying all of that, I don't think Pardew is the guy to trust. I'd take some yoyo (in the PL) with a youngish fresh manager or a inexperienced coach turned-manager or at least a manager with an admirable philosophy. I think Pardew's a bit too far along in his managerial career to make the necessary changes. Moyes has had 14 years straight with 2 clubs to build his philosophy. Pardew's had a similar amount of time as a manager but always chopped and changed, preventing him to build a proper identity bigger than "don't get sacked".