Flip

All about adapting and getting more comfortable. We tend to forget he's only 23. More experience and he will stop doing those concentrations lapses. No doubt he'll be a top top defender for us in 5-6 years time, if we haven't gone down or sold him by then.

I hate that we've entered another one of those times where "Korean" automatically means "North Korea" Time for jotenko to come in with his this is 2013 and deal with the truth bullshit

Rarely agree with you Mr.Forum, but you are spot on here We basically played at our weakness and their strength.

Unbelievable is six years old, yet he writes better than you in a second language. Genius.

This. We beat Man U 3-0 at home why wouldn't we be able to beat them 2-0?

Yet we conceded a goal, if we were playing like that and conceded after 30 minutes due to leaving ourselves open the tie would have been over a lot earlier. We conceded a goal in the 90th because of the tired legs ffs.

Unbelievable agreed with most of it.

would you have celebrated if it worked ? did it come close to working? Of course I would, but to restrict yourself to a third of the game to get in front doesn't make sense. It would if we were away but we were at home. The law of averages say we would have had more chance had we have been positive for 90 rather than 30. We needed Benfica to be winning the tie for as long as possible because if they'd gone through the gears and got a goal at any point, we're either dead in the water or into a very unwanted period of extra time - at best. 1-0 up after 80 minutes was a miles better scoreline than 2-0 up after 30 minutes imo. I don't agree. I'd rather them piled pressure and we countered then we try to find that winning goal. How anyone can prefer your situation is beyond me...

We squeezed past Atromitos to qualify. If that Maritimo clogger had scored a fairly presentable chance in the last five minutes, we would have been out in the easiest group the tournament had. We did not overachieve, you're just so used to us being s*** that you think this is the best we can do. We did tbf, majority of the footballing watching world had Anzhi as favourites against us. Yes, because we're in a relegation scrap and we can't play attacking football. Which is down to Pardew. So basically the only reason we were underdogs to Anzhi (who btw are absolutely unimpressive and played with a man less in the game they lost to us) is because of Pards.

Love your optimism. But you know very well we would've gone out anyways

What absolute bullshit. (second sentence)

See this post epitomises the Pardew lovers view. Your post is so contradictory that it makes me want to vomit to be honest. You want to defend him trying to contain Benfica while still playing to our strength which what you posted wasn't defending or containing. Go take a walk and then re-post because that is absolutely dreadful. And as for Anita, he was actually having a decent game.

AdebaLoL

I can't see how people can suggest he was spot on today. He didn't lose us the tie but he was nowhere near setting us up to go through.

Should clone him. Have 4 of him. Two on the field at the same time and two to fill in whenever those two break down.

What would your starting lineup have been? Marv for Bigi. Easy. Why not HBA for Bigi? Because HBA has been injured for a while. Well I would've started both of them easily if they were both fit. Is Marv injured?

We had a 10 minute spell and then ran out of steam when Benfica had re organised themselves. 10 minutes out of 90 is f***ing terrible. Exactly, I'd imagine I'm classed as a "hater" and was horrified to see the lineup, the pre-match comments, and the first 70 minutes as I'm proud of our club and would always like to see us go out to get teams. Most weeks we don't even try to, yet I'm a "hater" for criticising the man responsible. cp40 - you've been watching us for years. I hate watching this s**** in general. How do you feel about watching it? I dont like aspects of our game, but I understand the bigger picture and accept, as I anticipate better things next season. edit, and I love being in euro quater finals and feel proud Based on what though CP. Do you think we will start playing better football, passing football, be more positive and not negative worrying about the opposition, rather than focusing on our strengths. If you think all that, well i hope your right, but personally i think you must be going mad if you think Pardew will do any of that. Spot on. Asked the exact same thing. And I feel the same. Everyone who believes in Pardew deserve credit for believing and I hope to god you guys are right. Personally, there is just no way that's possible in my mind

What would your starting lineup have been? Marv for Bigi. Easy. Why not HBA for Bigi? Because HBA has been injured for a while. Well I would've started both of them easily if they were both fit.

I think some people have genuine concern for our style of play. If anything people who gives credit to Pardew time and time again are those who probably don't see football enough outside of our club. I'm not being harsh on Pardew tonight, he did what he was capable of, but I do disagree with his approach. This would be me, the style of play is the thing i hate. I want decent football, attacking football and it's never happening under Pardew. 2 years is long enough to see what football he wants us to play, and it's ugly mostly defensive tripe imo. Everyone is different though, hopefully in the future we will get our wishes bimpy. I just don't agree with anyone criticizing my view on football because I don't like the approach of our manager. Trying to look at the bigger picture as some suggest. Why would we let a far superior offensive team get at us instead of getting at their weaknesses from the off? I said it pre-game and I'll said it post-game, only a miracle would've gotten us through after Pardew set the team up the way he did.

There are other ways to play FFS! For 70 minutes we simply did f*** all. You don't have to open up and be all gung ho to win 2-0. But our idiot of a manager didnt know this. I know that but you must realise by now Pardew isn't capable of that? you are asking him to do things he isn't capable of. The plan was fine, sadly we couldn't take the chances we did have. That's the thing though, you can't have a manager who isn't capable of managing. It's not about Pardew tonight, it's about the club moving forward. Many of us are completely tired waiting for him to become something he's not that while most on here think he'll eat some type of magic potion and become that excellent next Sir Alex or whatever because he's a likeable guy.

This sums it up completely.

I think some people have genuine concern for our style of play. If anything people who gives credit to Pardew time and time again are those who probably don't see football enough outside of our club. I'm not being harsh on Pardew tonight, he did what he was capable of, but I do disagree with his approach.

I can answer for him. He loves it.

What would your starting lineup have been? Marv for Bigi. Easy.

I don't agree whatsoever. The first real good team we played and we went out. No discredit either. I think he's done well, but he hasn't overachieved in my opinion at least. Don't like his approach to football but he's a likeable guy and I'll give him that. Anzhi are definitely a good team like. Not as good as Benfica, but we did well to get past them. Right, we complain about or squad yet their squad is bunch of unknown Russians and couple of start players, where one didn't play more than 10minutes and we beat them when they had one man less too. Yeah Anzhi are s**** like, bunch of unknown foreigners! I remember the hilarity thinking Pardew might put one over Hiddink. As if that could ever happen LOL! Right, because that's what I said? Read again Cajuanito. I said that their or at least intended to say that their squad isn't better than us.